She is 16.
Zepp Swing Analyzer
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- Jul 15, 2015
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What is the attack angle you are looking for?
Well as we all know the balls flight out of the hand will rise, plateau, then fall a bit (even riseballs but they're way less prevalent) speed and spin play a role of course!.... so with that said, a good goal to strive for in my opinion is around 5 to 8 degrees. This is in an attempt to get on plane early and long through the balls path.
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We just got the Zepp, and the daughter's biggest issue according to the sensor is a negative attack angle. We were able to get at least some improvement by just getting her to loosen her hands before the swing (I noticed it looked like she was really gripping the bat tight as she was coiling), but this is an area we're going to have to work on I think.
She's a smallish 14 year old. Bat speed is low 50s average, peaking in the low 60s. Hand speed averages 23, time to impact is .13, bat vertical angle -25 degrees. Angle of impact -4 degrees.
I'm far from a batting coach. What are the cues/drills to try to take this number from an average of -4 degrees into that +5-8 degree range? We're obviously working on speed as well.
- Aug 11, 2016
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I got the Zepp as well for my daughter. No problem with her angle of attack at 10 to 15 degree in average. Her only problem, which we had been correcting, is leading with her front elbow too high. She had been making a lot of improvement though. Having this data from Zepp is cool, not everything, but cool.
If I read your post correctly, she not too bad at all. Given her vertical numbers of -25, (this means her hands are 25 degrees higher than the barrel, that's great!) but the attack number is -4.... This is a chopping down motion at the ball. I know some coaches teach this. They want the bat to cut under the ball to create back spin. However, I'm more inclined to teach getting on plane and driving through the ball. Check the position of her back elbow and see if it's dragging ahead of her hands. Those numbers make me think it's a posture issue. A video of her would be best.
coach james makes some good points. Also, I am curious if you are taking the readings from tee swings or live pitching? Personally I prefer to use the sensor from live pitching. In my opinion, the "angles" can be impacted too easily by the placement of the tee. However, the "angles" will vary much more against live pitching, and this is more telling to me. Here are some examples: Notice the difference in "bat vert" based on the pitch location....
Thanks both of you. Her averages were a mix of tee, toss, and pitching machine. Pattern is pretty consistent over about 200 swings of mixed type over the past week.
One things I noticed as I was soft tossing to her last night was that when trying to swing hard, she tends to death grip the bat. Getting her to wiggle her fingers as a reminder to relax the hands a bit immediately moved the attack angle into positive angles. Also seemed to giver her a couple of MPHs on average on bat speed. I guess her grip is binding her hands up as the wrists come through due to the forearms being tight? I'd mentioned this to her in the past, but I don't think she really understood that it was a problem until the numbers immediately changed when her hands were loosened. So if nothing else, the Zepp can seemingly show quantifiable changes small tweaks can make.
I'll try to watch the elbows and get some video at some point. Her batting coach was pretty fascinated by the Zepp, so we'll see if we can incorporate it into sessions. She was out of ball for 9 months due to a concussion, and has been working on getting her hitting back to what it was before the layoff for a bit. She's starting to make progress, but was still hitting lots of infield grounders as summer season ended. Seemed to be either that or bloopers to short outfield right and center field.
Heh. First .gif is funny. We were in a situation where her team was trying to walk a run in to run time out and end a game (bases loaded, up by 3, time expired, complete the batter rule). Apparently our pitcher didn't understand the pitch out concept. Luckily the batter just popped it up to short, or we could have lost the game.
Great reads here. I'm looking to buy a Zepp and start some local area hitting instruction. Would a smart phone suffice or do you thing a 8" or 10" tablet be better?
This is a legit question as I don't own either one. Seems a tablet would be cheaper but bulkier. This will be my first offseason at this school and, as part of the program building, we will be working on hitting from 10U up to varsity. After reading posts about Zepp, I plan on making it an integral part of the hitting instructions. So, any help, guidance, opinions, sharing of experiences is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
