Athletic posture while coiling

[jryan15]

Mike, I started typing this in your thread (link), but thought that it might be better served as a stand alone thread.

One thing that might be worth looking into is her coiled posture. The angle of most of the videos is a little hard to see, but I wonder if she is getting a decent amount of hip hinge??? This has been a problem with my DD for many years and has resulted in a major study into how the glutes interact with the body during athletic movements.

It looks to me like your DD’s initial posture tends to be moderately upright. This isn't bad necessarily as long as the coiling process takes her into a deeper hip hinge, but it doesn’t seem to be (at least in the camera angles provided). I compiled a ton of coiling postures from all the athletes that I found on the HI clips site (from the letters A-K). In every case, the high level hitters achieve a moderate to excellent amount of hip hinge. Even hitters who tend to stand tall like Cano and Braun have moderate hip hinge as they coil (I could use more recommendations to analyze).

Take a look at the posture of your DD compared to this collage of high level male/female athletes.





Here are a few observations that I have in regard to coiling with an upright posture. I am open to and would appreciate other view points on this as this isn’t something that get much press.

Coiling with upright posture:

1. A tall posture into coil does not have much hip hinge (hip hinge being the angle between the rear femur and the upper torso)
2. A tall posture when coiling tends to pull the upper torso away from the plate (this is noticeable at the back shoulder peeling off the plate)
3. Tall posture seems to degrade coiling force. I observe that upright postures tend to result in a diagonal (upward and back/around) force as opposed to mostly around force. I notice this in the scap pull back. See the arrows that I’ve added to your DD’s photo above.
4. The high level swing requires a snappy rear hip, and a snappy rear hip is a result of the glute muscles interacting with the back (a one legged scap pullback will generate a hip response).
5. Rotation from the rear hip is critical. If you don't have a merry-go-round to go with your pin wheel, your pin wheel will have to supplement and will result in a barrel pull.
6. Glute muscles are leveraged when the hip is hinged. When the hip/femur are straight, the glute is not efficient at turning force into rotation.
7. The glute muscles (hip extenders) and the hip flexors are at odds with each other. When the hip is hinged deeply, the hip flexors are weak and this is a prime position to get full power from the glutes. However when the hip hinge is shallow (upright posture with femur/upper torso straight), the glutes are much weaker as they have to overcome tightness in the flexors.

The "tells". Here are some signs that there might be an issue:
- Is the upper torso mostly vertical when coiled?
- Is the belt line horizontal (might be bad) or is it tilted (buckle side tilted down) which is good?
- Is the athlete coiling too far back and losing sight of the pitcher?
- Does the athlete continue to struggle with pulling the hands around (maybe the hip isn't bringing them around)?


Sorry if all this sounds like jibberish. This is something that I have been studying a great deal. Key phrases for these issues are “quad dominance” and “glute activation”. This topic is becoming more popular online, but with regard to “fixes”, I’ve found a tremendous amount of bad information. We have spent (wasted!) years working on theories for improvement with marginal results. Only the “hyperarch” training has produced noticeable results.

I think this entire topic is generally overlooked for a couple of reasons. A-level (and beyond) athletes generally do not have these issues and therefore traditional training works well for them. B-level (and below) athletes tend to wash out of sports early mostly because traditional training is not effective for quad dominant people and thus the divide between them and the "athletes" grows significantly. It tends to come down to speed and studliness. Studs make the cut, but for non-studs, at least if you are fast coaches will make a spot for you. Sadly, if you are quad dominant, you are not fast and no level of traditional training will make you fast. Again, hyperarch training appears to be the only hope of resolving quad dominance.

If anyone is interested in learning more about hyperarch training, I have documented a lot of info in this thread (link).

Long story short, here is my recommendation to Mike:

1. Really compare your DD's coiled posture to the collage. Maybe I'm just not seeing it correctly.
2. Determine if your daughter tends to be "quad dominant". This test (link) seems to be decent. In general pay specific attention to how she changes levels. Does she use quads to lower or does she naturally hip hinge to get low? If she is quad dominant, seek HA training immediately.
3. Next hitting session, play around with really exaggerated hip hinge angles and see how it effects her coil and snappiness.

Note: For quad dominant people, "exaggerated" hip hinge tends to be low-to-moderate hip hinge for athletes, so you might need to also try "really exaggerated" hip hinge...

[Mike]

This is so so awesome . I will look in to her posture a little closer. We do some glute activation exercises and wouldn't exactly call her quad dominate but she could be more efferent using her lower half. Thanks again

[jryan15]

I hope it offers some help. We've done a lot of glute activation training, and in my opinion hyperarch training is the best. It's not just for quad dominant people. In fact it is far more effective for people with normal hip hinge. Chong Xie's main focus is taking average A athletes and turning them into D1 athletes.

Here is a workout routine that I've put together with some input from Chong. (link)

[jryan15]

Back and Behind versus Forward and Over

This is a great video by TM where he shows the difference between good hip hinge and what is a more vertical posture. I pulled it from this link.

For people with normal hip hinge, this is a fairly minor adjustment. For quad dominant people, that forward over the plate is totally foreign, and they will tend to fall forward trying to do that. I liken it to quad dominant people basically don't use their toes for support. So forward tilt/posture that gets their COG beyond their forefoot spells disaster.

This is one of the interesting aspects of HA training. Chong claims that as your HA improves, your standing and walking posture will change and become slightly more forward. DD has not progressed to this level.

[AidanJ]

The high level swing requires a snappy rear hip, and a snappy rear hip is a result of the glute muscles interacting with the back (a one legged scap pullback will generate a hip response)

A snappy hip is the result of an internally rotating leg against the resistance provided by pullbacks. The glutes do not internally rotate the leg. The adductors do. I love the observations though and will try to find a more hinged stance for myself.

[jryan15]

A snappy hip is the result of an internally rotating leg against the resistance provided by pullbacks. The glutes do not internally rotate the leg. The adductors do. I love the observations though and will try to find a more hinged stance for myself.

On the surface, what you say might seem right since the adductors do normally IR the leg when in a normal posture, but that is not what happens in the high level swing. When you go up and over the ball of the femur, it's the glutes that are doing the rotating.

You can experience this by doing a slow coil and finding the up and over. Coil back till you hit the range of motion limit in your rear hip. Note, at this point, yes, the adductors could IR the rear leg and rotate you, but we are not done yet... Now keep going back. I know you are stuck at the ROM limit, but this is where the up and over happens. Use some lateral tilt and feel your rear hip go up and over the ball of the femur. This is where the magic happens. Hip slip baby! Hip slip is the pelvis sliding over the back of the ball. At this point as you contract your glutes, the rear hip extension will provide rotational motion.

I try and explain that in this video. Please check it out as this is a critical part of the high level swing.

https://youtu.be/2W0JMBKWHnE

[AidanJ]

Hmm. I felt it ONCE, and didn’t video it and couldn’t replicate it again. But I felt a different feeling.

[jryan15]

Have you felt hip slip before?

[Mike]

No I haven't felt hip slip. I think I'm stuck between coiling and laterally shifting. This is a great subject to explore.

[jryan15]

So when your coil hits its limit and you add some lateral tilt, hip slip happens and your rear leg will turn inward. That is hip slip and at that point if you keep pulling back with the lower back/glutes, the rear leg will keep turning in and will bring your upper torso with it.

One way to force the feel it is to full coil and then keep coiling/pulling back while you take a long stride. You will get to a spot where the rear leg turns in on its own.

[heavyhittersny]

Good morning All!

Great stuff jryan. Thanks so much for taking the time to put this together.

Best,
Jason

[Mike]

Here is her game swing posture. The more she bends forward the more she would have trouble laterally tilting. She is fighting between coiling and laterally moving forward. She can do a good job off the tee or front toss but the game swing breaks down.

If she let the ball get deeper, I think it would clean things up but she continues to reach for the ball .

This is a good time to look at her posture and coil.

[Mike]

Working on better coil and hip hinge

[jryan15]

Thanks for posting the game clip, she does seem to have decent hip hinge.

Let me throw out a disclaimer here. I'm still a struggling dad like many others here (my kid still has a long way to go but pitching is still our focus). There are lots of better coaches on this board than me :-). I'm more of a scientist looking deep under the hood trying to find the subtle things that make the HI pattern easier for some and difficult for others.

One observation between the game clip and the practice clip is her rear foot. That natural foot turning is in indicator of rear leg IR. You can force that with squish the bug, but that is not the case above. In the game clip, the foot doesn't turn in at all. To me, this is an indicator that her swing was top-down. Meaning that once she initially turned the barrel, I bet she was pulling the knob around to get to the ball. That top-down pattern can be seen by the hands pulling, shoulders assisting, and then the upper torso pulls the hips around. In this scenario, the rear foot is the last item to be affected and generally won't turn in much (it will be dragged around by the leg which is getting dragged by the hips, etc). In the practice clip, her rear foot IR's quite a bit. Again, to me, this indicates that she did a much better job of staying back and continuing to pullback throughout the swing.

I think a lot more study needs to be put into that rear leg IR mechanism. One of the more interesting examples is in softball pitching where the rear leg IR's in mid-air (no ground connection) during the pitch. I am fairly confident that natural, non-forced, rear foot IR is a clear indicator that hip slip happened and the glutes are working at a high level.

[Mike]

Your observations and comments are always welcome with any of my girls I post. I appreciate the time and value the opinions put forward for discussion. She tends to swing top down especially in live situations, your spot on. The game swing is about 2 months old and she has made some progress with her timing and posture. The cage swing is from a few days ago but I reminded her to have her belt buckle face down.