Weight Transfer

[Wellphyt]

"Conversely, batting led to 18.0% of severe injuries in girls’ softball and 4.2% in boys’ baseball .01) (see Appendix, =(IPR, 4.33; 95% CI, 1.30-14.46; P available in the online version of this article at American Journal of Sports Medicine -- Supplementary material). The most common mechanisms for severe injury were contact with bases (21.3%), contact with another player (14.9%), and contact with the playing surface (11.0%). Being hit by a pitch made up a greater proportion of severe injuries in girls’ softball (12.2%) than boys’ baseball (2.2%) (IPR, 5.48; 95%
.016). =CI, 1.11-27.03; P"

I don't see anything in this data that says girls have a higher incidence of injury when coiling and uncoiling than boys. It does however sound like girls need to work more on running the bases, avoiding running into other players, diving and getting out of the way of wild pitches.

One thing I do find amazing is that somehow it's ok for girls to hop off a 5 inch box, onto their front foot, but it's not ok for a girl to stand on flat ground and coil and uncoil their hips. Learn something new everyday I guess.

 

[Jeff Kneiert]

Originally Posted by MTS
I have more issues trying to correct the "negative move" which is really just a hip slide back towards the catcher. Slide back / slide forward...

Consider replacing loading via a 'negative move' via loading via 'coil'.

I hope this doesn't sound too naive but wasn't the negative move a cornerstone in teaching hitting? Doesn't Slaught teach that? "You must go back to go forward"? Am I missing something?

 

[RayR]

A wise man named Shawn who posts here once in while once said,

"Hitting is a turning skill."

At least he is first person I read it from...

 

[softballphreak]

"Conversely, batting led to 18.0% of severe injuries in girls’ softball and 4.2% in boys’ baseball .01) (see Appendix, =(IPR, 4.33; 95% CI, 1.30-14.46; P available in the online version of this article at American Journal of Sports Medicine -- Supplementary material). The most common mechanisms for severe injury were contact with bases (21.3%), contact with another player (14.9%), and contact with the playing surface (11.0%). Being hit by a pitch made up a greater proportion of severe injuries in girls’ softball (12.2%) than boys’ baseball (2.2%) (IPR, 5.48; 95%
.016). =CI, 1.11-27.03; P"

I don't see anything in this data that says girls have a higher incidence of injury when coiling and uncoiling than boys. It does however sound like girls need to work more on running the bases, avoiding running into other players, diving and getting out of the way of wild pitches.

One thing I do find amazing is that somehow it's ok for girls to hop off a 5 inch box, onto their front foot, but it's not ok for a girl to stand on flat ground and coil and uncoil their hips. Learn something new everyday I guess.

I can't recall a single incident where a girl was injured while batting other than hit by a pitch in some form or another.

I suspect the difference in the ACL injuries between boys and girls is the lack of proper conditioning.

I believe the "difference" between girls and boys playing softball/baseball is over emphasized; especially in the mechanics of the game.

We have had to re-teach so many fundamentals since the inception of fastpitch in our area some 15 or 20 years ago. Mostly due to the opinion that girls "couldn't do what boys could do."

The difference is insignificant IMO and therefore I try to teach the same as I would baseball.

 

[Wellphyt]

Originally Posted by MTS
I have more issues trying to correct the "negative move" which is really just a hip slide back towards the catcher. Slide back / slide forward...





I hope this doesn't sound too naive but wasn't the negative move a cornerstone in teaching hitting? Doesn't Slaught teach that? "You must go back to go forward"? Am I missing something?

The term "You have to go back to go forward" came from Ted Williams. According to Epstein, when Ted said those words he was talking about the importance of "closing on top" and not letting the hands come forward as the hips open in the stride. Epstein calls this "winding the rubber band."

The term has apparently been misinterpreted over the years to mean hitters are suppose to shift their weight backwards onto their back foot and then stride forward onto their front foot.

When Ted sat down with Peter Gammons, Wade Boggs and Don Mattingly in St Pete Florida to talk hitting in 1986, Boggs and Mattingly were clearly confused about how Ted weight shifted. The dialogue from that meeting is what eventually lead to my current understanding of weight shift.

I'm not sure what Slaught teaches on weight shift, but it wouldn't surprise me if he teaches a linear weight shift. Here is how Epstein describes Ted's book:

"When you read Ted Williams’ book, The Science of Hitting, which came out in 1970, you are reading one of the truly groundbreaking books on rotational hitting of its time, or any other time. Actually, it was the only book I can think of that ever talked about rotational hitting..."

"While Ted’s information was ingenious and perceptive in its content, it was unfortunate that he never told us how to physically execute these hitting tasks. He would tell us what we needed to do, but he left it up to us to figure out how to do them.

As a result, we were left scratching our collective heads, resorting to emulation, "tips," and a trial-and-error approach to learn this difficult task. In other words, there was no manual, or guidelines, how to teach this glorious hitting system. All we had for reference were the books on linear hitting."

In the meeting in St Pete Florida, Ted was very clear on how he weight shifted. He did it with his hips. Here is a key exchange from the meeting:

MATTINGLY: All good hitters shift their weight. I can't believe they don't. Show me how you get back.

WILLIAMS: I'm doing it with my hips.

BOGGS: Cock your leg. Where's your weight going?

WILLIAMS: Which way am I shifting my weight?

MATTINGLY: I think you're shifting it back.

WILLIAMS: Only because it's the only way I can stand. O.K.

What Ted is saying here is that when you pick up your front foot to stride you should only shift enough weight back to balance...to basically keep from falling down. The acutal weight shift is done with the hips "I'm doing it with my hips". The weight shift is a rotational move-and counter move done with the hips. It's the hip cock/coil and uncoil.

Give it some thought and experiment with it. As Ted says in "SOH", it's the most important move of the hitter.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Originally Posted by MTS
I have more issues trying to correct the "negative move" which is really just a hip slide back towards the catcher. Slide back / slide forward...





I hope this doesn't sound too naive but wasn't the negative move a cornerstone in teaching hitting? Doesn't Slaught teach that? "You must go back to go forward"? Am I missing something?

Not naive at all. IMO, when I look at the RVP lesson from Candrea on the negative move, I feel that he did his best at that time.

There are multiple ways to load the lower body in preparation for obtaining a lower body running start ... there's the 'negative move', 'sway', 'scrunch' and 'coil'. Of these, I believe 'coil' is the superior loading approach for competing at the higher levels.

Take a look at the following videos ... perhaps it will help.

Gomez of ULL ... not seeing a significant 'negative move' here.

Kelsey Bruder ... not much in terms of a big negative move here.

Brittany Lastrapes ... no big negative move here.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Amber Flores' ... zero negative move here.

Megan Bush ...

Amy Hooks ....

Manny Ramirez ... (couldn't help myself).

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

I can't recall a single incident where a girl was injured while batting other than hit by a pitch in some form or another.

I suspect the difference in the ACL injuries between boys and girls is the lack of proper conditioning.

I believe the "difference" between girls and boys playing softball/baseball is over emphasized; especially in the mechanics of the game.

We have had to re-teach so many fundamentals since the inception of fastpitch in our area some 15 or 20 years ago. Mostly due to the opinion that girls "couldn't do what boys could do."

The difference is insignificant IMO and therefore I try to teach the same as I would baseball.

The general conclusion is that women/girls should train/condition to protect themselves from ACL injuries. The conclusion is NOT that we should adopt some newly invented hitting approach that refutes the Hanson Principle.

I hear what you are saying ... the scaring of people to adopt a made-up Non-Hanson-Principle complying batting approach, is IMO, setting the sport backwards.

 

[RayR]

I had a dad give me the ultimate compliment last night - he said his daughter's swing looks like a baseball swing now. Then he said they were only coming to lessons every other week since she was hitting so good....lol

I can't recall a single incident where a girl was injured while batting other than hit by a pitch in some form or another.

I suspect the difference in the ACL injuries between boys and girls is the lack of proper conditioning.

I believe the "difference" between girls and boys playing softball/baseball is over emphasized; especially in the mechanics of the game.

We have had to re-teach so many fundamentals since the inception of fastpitch in our area some 15 or 20 years ago. Mostly due to the opinion that girls "couldn't do what boys could do."

The difference is insignificant IMO and therefore I try to teach the same as I would baseball.

 

[PEPPERS]

Wellphyt. Talking to Don and other coaches I might tend to disagree with the no teach on girls. . The male knee works more as a hinge and the glutes fire the knee. With females the glutes do not fire the knees and the knee works more like a ball joint. However they can be taught how to do it correctly.
This is why Coach Candrea teaches every new Freshman how to throw. Teaching females how to feel correct weight shift is tougher. I willing to state that 90% of the girls we get in clinics to not know how to throw correctly. Why Don was using a box and Howard/hitter is now using a new 5" box for girls to feel weight shift.

SBF I could not agree more that teaching a proper weight shift to girls can be difficult, one thing I’ve ran into is to get them to weight shift at the proper time, or timing of the weight shift to best take advantage of it.

One thing you mentioned is the box, are you referring to a square box? At a University of Alabama camp my daughter attended one hitting station (according to her I was not there) they had a triangle box about 5 inches high placed behind the back leg (heel) to get the kids to feel weight transfer in the swing. The triangle box was placed at the heel of the back leg, once weight shift occurs then the back leg is like a kickstand for balance of the body as the body rotates around the axis or this is my perception of how it works.

Just thought to add this. My daughter's pitching coach is working with her on weight shift in the pitching moting (she is a setp pitcher not a leaper) getting that timming down for the weigth shift you can see the ball explode out of her hand vs when the timming is off it makes a difference.