young/flexible TED, MUST SEE

[tom.guerry]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwogLVGtDa8

youtube is nice becasue you can pause and run frames back and forth to some degree.

even better if you can convert to quicktime. I have not figured that out yet.

Some great examples of shoulder "tilt",running start, stride, hip cock/etc

[Teacherman]

The more I watch video of old-timers the more I think they would not succeed today.

Is this a good enough conversation starter?

[Slapper23]

"God could come down from heaven and he couldn't throw it past me."

What a memorable quote! One of the best sport's quotes I've ever heard. Tom, is this clip and excerpt from Ken Burn's "Baseball" PBS documentary? I believe that is historian David McCullough narrating the fascinating stories about Williams... 'squeezing a rubber ball to strength his grip; not drinking anything stronger than a milk shake so not to dull his skills, no one could throw a fastball past me, including the God quote above. Really great, great stuff! And the music was pretty damn good, too.

In rocking his swing back and forth with the mouse, you can see the hand/arm action in whipping the bat out of the running start. Williams gets the hands flat immediately! He is turning/torquing the bat between his hands from the get go. MUCH, MUCH different that rigid lead arm to shoulder connect that pulls the bat into contact...with later on-plane setting and leaving little time to make later adjustments. To me, it is very obvious looking at Willam's swing.

Another thing, Williams had a tremendous hip and shoulder turn. His hips lead and creating good separation/torque. But when he turns/unloads, he releases a great amount of energy, so much so that his upper body continues to turn to the point his back ends up facing the plate. Even his hip turn goes farther than most, with the hips going past 90 degrees.

Also, I noticed dirt fly from his back foot and when I look at it back and forth, to me, he seems to really get a big push into rotation. Probably the best example I've seen of Yeager's push/block teaching. In Williams book, "The Science of Hitting", he mentions building a dirt ramp in the back of the box, for his back foot to push against. Fascinating stuff! Thanks, Tom!

Mike

[Callyjr]

The more I watch video of old-timers the more I think they would not succeed today.

Is this a good enough conversation starter?

you noticed the flattening of the bat huh.

[tom.guerry]

Ted flattening from behind:

http://firstpickclub.com/video/tedwbackabovewtext.gif

Jim Booth says that any flattening is before shoulder turn is from gravity as hands lift.

I guess that's the NEW HANSEN RULE:

Emulate what you can see, BUT, you can only see what you can see.

[Slapper23]

I'm trying to figure out how to say this...we have always heard about the flail/whip portion of the swing. I see why the swing is described that way, but when you watch Williams it looks like he is whipping the bat out of the running start. The whipping action starts with the rear elbow lowering and the hands flattening. But even though the flail or lag portion of the swing is there, it's a whip from the get go.

IMO, a truer picture of the classic flail/whip swing would be with a lead arm emphasis, where there is brute strength rotation and lots of pulling of the lead shoulder/rigid lead arm connection, with the resulting centrifical force creating the unhinging or whipping of the bat.

Where am I off base here? Am I just stating the obvious which brought us to this web site to begin with?

Mike

[Slapper23]

Jim Booth says that any flattening is before shoulder turn is from gravity as hands lift.

To me, that statement is non-sensical. I gotta believe Jim deep down does not strongly believe this....that we'll just let gravity alone push the bat down.

Mike

[Teacherman]

I'm trying to figure out how to say this...we have always heard about the flail/whip portion of the swing. I see why the swing is described that way, but when you watch Williams it looks like he is whipping the bat out of the running start. The whipping action starts with the rear elbow lowering and the hands flattening. But even though the flail or lag portion of the swing is there, it's a whip from the get go.

IMO, a truer picture of the classic flail/whip swing would be with a lead arm emphasis, where there is brute strength rotation and lots of pulling of the lead shoulder/rigid lead arm connection, with the resulting centrifical force creating the unhinging or whipping of the bat.

Where am I off base here? Am I just stating the obvious which brought us to this web site to begin with?

Mike

Slapper,

I agree with you. It's a whip from the get go.

A sudden change of direction of the barrel which IMO can not happen with shoulder rotation. They must resist to allow that whip to happen.

It's a twitch of the spine.

[Slapper23]

Thanks, Rich. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going in circles on this. This whip action - the sudden change of the direction of barrel, as you state, is what I see in most MLB swings...and what I was not seeing in PCR swings. You could see something was missing in Steve and Paul's teaching, but I couldn't put my finger on it. The running start/whip of the bat to change barrel direction is it...where the top hand plays a much more dominant and important role than in PCR teaching.

It kind of gets back to Epstein's "Do we teach what we really see", which is a version of sorts of the so-called Hanson rule " compare anything someone tells you about the swing to slo-mo video of MLB hitters." Well, the disclaimer to that, of course, is if you are capable of seeing it and agree with PCR. Well, I applied both the Epstein and Hanson rules to what I was being told, but it didn't match up with what I was seeing in MLB swings.

Mike

[Teacherman]

IMO....flail = slop.

[tom.guerry]

Mike-

I think that the bat is whipped before the torso unloads to boost/fire the bathead to contact.

The whip has to be with thehands then arms then shoulder tilt so the wrists stay cocked (swivel/etc permits this).

Then the forearm firing both finishes the load of the torso and positions the mass of the bat so the running start gets the mass of the bat to trigger immediate transfer fromt the torso "bypassing the shoulders".

This is the best "scientific"
decsription from Nyman when he was trying to support Mankin's mechanical model rather than disprove it:

"This is where disconnection creates a problem i.e. the player loses connection to the rotational axis just prior to contact i.e. allows the hands to go linear.

"This is what happens with many players who think that extension is simply a matter of allowing the bat to get extended and in so doing actually create an infinite radius of rotation which can be viewed as creating infinite bat rotational inertia (I=M*R*R)....."

and

"As an aside, I never answered a question you asked on another web site (subject was giving up on swing). My interpretation of professor Adair's analysis is that once the center of mass of the bat is allowed to leave the path of the hands, centripetal acceleration (whip effect) will now try to pull the bat out of your hands. The further the center of mass gets from the center of motion (typically the batters spinal column, the greater the force ((V^2/R)*M, where M=mass of bat, V=speed of center of mass and R = distance from center of motion). But V (speed of bat) will decrease as momentum is sucked out of system (system being bodies mass in rotation). The momentum transfer process is instantaneous. The goal is to get the bat head fully extended at the point of bodies maximum momentum (before the limits of muscle travel/force drop off). Once the head of the bat (center of mass) leaves my hand path, a self feeding extension will take place (self feeding because centripetal acceleration is V^2/R and V=R*W, where W=hitters body rotational velocity, thus centripetal acceleration = ((R*W)*(R*W))/R which equals R^2*W^2/R or R*W^2; centripetal acceleration will increase as the radius increases assuming W^2 remains reasonably stable (extend bat at bodies maximum rotational velocity, i.e. bodies maximum rotational momentum)). If the bodies angular momentum (rotational momentum) is significantly larger than the bats extended momentum, the bat head will continue to accelerate outwards rapidly (the radius R, gets bigger, acceleration gets bigger, accelerates faster, etc). The faster I can get the bat head extended, the sooner I reach maximum bat head speed (assuming I am at maximum rotational momentum). So far I have stuck with professor Adair’s model (weight on end of rope).But, if I rely on only the whip effect, I might not get the bat extended before I start to lose momentum because of the body slowing down (reached the limits of muscle travel). Unlike professor Adairs weight on the end of a rope, a bat is rigid. I can assist the bat head getting extended by the wrists pushing the bat head out faster (wrists release in a chopping motion). This helps get the bat head out of my hand path faster, especially at the beginning when the head is just starting out of the path and has only a small centripetal acceleration. This extension, where the arms, wrists are trying to force the bat head out is what I mean by not giving up on the swing (follow through). The batter tries to drive/extend the bat out using his wrists and arms at the same time pulling his back hip around as hard as possible."

[tom.guerry]

See especially the end of the last paragraph:

"Unlike professor Adairs weight on the end of a rope, a bat is rigid. I can assist the bat head getting extended by the wrists pushing the bat head out faster (wrists release in a chopping motion). This helps get the bat head out of my hand path faster, especially at the beginning when the head is just starting out of the path and has only a small centripetal acceleration. This extension, where the arms, wrists are trying to force the bat head out is what I mean by not giving up on the swing (follow through). The batter tries to drive/extend the bat out using his wrists and arms at the same time pulling his back hip around as hard as possible."

THEN later when Nyman tries to put the final nail in the coffin, he seems to "forget" the idea that we are talking about torque EARLY in the swing that is applied in a well aligned torquing direction:


http://www.batspeed.com/messageboard/92831.html

My difference with Jack is that you ALWAYS want "prelaunch torque" AND "launch" is actually when the center of mass of the bathead gets out of the arc of the handpath.

So when JAck says there is "always THT at launch", but not always "prelaunch THT", there is STILL in my opinion ALWAYS prelaunch torque BECAUSE he defines launch as "when the shoulders start to turn the hand path" where as I think this is when the shoulders TILT which then forms cusp which then launches the bathead AFTER the "blur from shoulder tilt" at about the traditional LAG position.

We KNOW from motionanalysis in both golf and hitting that the CUSP/"x-factor stretch" does not max out until well after the downswing/drop and tilt occurs.

Prior to/durring this, the HANDS have controlled setting up a center of rotation between them AND directed upper body support and lower body synch and weight shift direction and synch to match the location of the pitch as it is being recognized.

[Slapper23]

So when JAck says there is "always THT at launch", but not always "prelaunch THT", there is STILL in my opinion ALWAYS prelaunch torque BECAUSE he defines launch as "when the shoulders start to turn the hand path" where as I think this is when the shoulders TILT which then forms cusp which then launches the bathead AFTER the "blur from shoulder tilt" at about the traditional LAG position.

Tom,

I agree with your take on torque. In my elementary way of interpreting what I'm seeing in the swing, it's like there are 2 whips coming from the hands and arms. The first is a more or less vertical whipping of the bat(for 2-planers) from the bat tipped position that blends into the more or less horizontal (diagonal) swing/pitch plane...this running start of the bat gives the boost you speak of into the lag position, which transitions to the 2nd whip created when the wrists unhinge via pendulum effect.

Another way I think of the swing movement is the hands and arms form a loop (early angular acceleration)coming out of the tipped position creating this first whip. I need to look at Peavey's motion analysis slides again.

Thanks a lot for your thoughts on this and for the batspeed.com link. Please feel free to clean up my clumsy effort to describe what I see. I'm sort of thinking out loud here.

Mike

[tom.guerry]

from golf info on creating stretch and fire/cusp/"x-factor stretch":

"Here's how it works: When you coil into your right side during the backswing (above left), energy is transferred and stored into that side. You release it properly through the correct sequence of body motion at the transition, starting with a substantial lateral move of the hips toward the target. Your shoulders and arms follow. That's right: The upper body and lower body should work independently. The hips and legs separate from the upper body and start forward (above right). That's when the X-Factor peaks."


http://www.golfdigest.com/instructio...clean_xfactor1

[swingbuilder]

I'm just wondering if Tom is practicing business Nymanism's

I never got any Golf DVD's.