Posted by: Zig Ziegler (zig@skilltechnologies.com) on Tue Mar 18 22:31:43 2003

This will be my final post. There are many individuals out there who have questions about the swing. I would rather spend my time with them than trying to defend our findings. While I understand, that is a part of being a pioneer. I would rather continue to send out positive energy and get it back. There are many of you who read and post here regularly who truly seek answers for your athletes, and I hope you will find them in Jack and his work. He truly has many of the answers you are looking for to make your athletes better.

To the others let me take a moment to answer a few final questions:Yes teacherman? you are correct in your statement that our technology has been around for decades (two) and used by us for all of those years. In addition, we have used video based analyses and other availabe methods of analyzing athletics. An as your source may also point out, it is extremely accurate. We have now, however, done what no one else has and that is compiled a large (and still growing) database of athletes and taken the data from those athletes to help us see what athletes are doing. Even House's system of video analysis relies on the interpretation of the data, digitizing points manually. It can be accurate as well, but is not realtime and cannot be used immediately by the athlete. DartFish, Sports Motion, and other hi-speed video cameras or multiple frame software systems rely on an interpretation of what the athlete is doing by a (qualified?) instructor. Our system does not, it eliminates the guess work.

Before each of you so now turns to bash someone who disagrees with you and obviously or anonymously posts as a major league coach, let me take a moment to respond. Since Teacherman cannot read or interpret the data from the swing and the different segments associated with the data let me answer a few questions. In all of the best hitters we have analyzed, we find a very consistent pattern or ranges of motion, angular speeds, and deficiencies or strengths.

If Teacherman or any of you would look at the data and knew anything at all about Kinetics or Kinematic Sequences, angular acceleration and deceleration, progessive speed gains and basic biomechanics (whether you view it as a science or not doesn't matter), you would be able to look at the data and see what is happening.

Let's assume you haven't seen it. For starters, the hitter takes a stance in any position (this position is random and stylistic and should not be considered the stance because it varies so much from each player). This position is comfortable and allows them them to prepare for the first phase of the swing (negative move) often referred to as loading, or wind up or whatever terminology you want to use. In this loading phase, which many of you call a backwards weight shift, the best athletes have a slight change in the position of the hips and shoulders, closing to a position of approximately 25 degrees of the hips and 40 degrees of the shoulders {X-Factor is now approximately 15} (This is accurate to 1mm)

The forward swing is then initiated at the ground with the application of force to the back foot. As force is applied to the back foot, it creates a linear shift of weight, at the same time, their is a release of rotational energy around (rotating) from the front foot up to the hip of the front leg (the heal of which has dropped during the linear/rotational shift, to provide a solid front side to hit against). At this point there is an X-factor stretch of approximately 12 degrees (x-factor stretch is an increase in the degree of separation between the hips and shoulders). Epstein, is slightly wrong on X-factor, too much can be a bad thing. Especially if you do not have the abdominal recovery strength to go with the flexibilty it takes to create a large x-factor. But x-factor is an important part of the swing.

During this first phase of the swing the forward swing there is an expected angular speed gain (progressive speed gain) of approximately 200 degrees per second from the hips to the upper torso, as the hips rotate and peak to a speed of 550 d/sec, and upper torso rotates and peaks milliseconds later at a speed of 750 d/sec. There is an additional speed gain of approximately 250 d/sec from the upper torso to the arms (which reach a speed of 1000 d/sec milliseconds after the upper torso). This is followed by a significantly higher gain of 1000 d/sec from the arms to the bat as the bat releases at a speed of over 2000 degrees per second. Good athlete = 550>750>1000=2000 degrees per second (rotational bat speed)

This is an example of a poor athletic sequence (but can still be successful if the choose the right pitches).... If an athlete has gains that are higher in the early phases, the arms to bat gain is signicifantly lower (Example: 300, 300, 500 (typically looks like hips=600, Upper torso= 900, Arms=1200, Bat=1700) this would indicate a power leak or lack of appropriate pacing through the swing. (Like a 400 meter runner who runs the first 100 meters in 9.9 seconds and finishes in 50 seconds) the pace or rythm/timing is off and causes a loss of energy at the finish.

Teacherman, I would love to send you or anyone else what ever they need, I only have one request. Try to be professional. My tech support guy said you were rude and disrespectful while he was trying to help you. As a result he asked if he was required to help you. I said everyone should be treated like a customer. But rude customers, with a chip on their shoulders should be asked to find another service company's reps to whom they can be rude. Yes, I value you and everyone out there as a potential customer and advocate or our technlogy, but not at the cost of self-respect for me and especially not my employees. I am sure those of us who have read your posts and Major Dan, who also called my office and acted rather rudely to one of my partners and Co-Vice Presidents, can understand why my technician, and I am not inclined to send you swings clips.

You can bet it has nothing to do with fear that you or anyone including O'really, to discredit what we see in an athlete's swing. Because it is just that WHAT WE SEE! (right or wrong as taught by the coach)

In the video clip teacherman has downloaded, you see an athlete's hips, torso, head, bottom hand and bat. The elbows and legs are attached to those body parts, if you know what you are looking for, that is enough. In MLB player, sure we want to see the arms and legs, but your novice athletes, need to focus on the posture and position of those body parts. If you know what you are looking for, you can see when the knees bend and elbow straighten, you can see the weight on the front foot or the back foot based on the bend, twist, and tilt of those body parts.

We are not teaching athletes to swing, we are teaching "coaches what their athletes are doing". There is a HUGE difference. If an athlete, wants to improve, I can give him a few simple drills and strength/flexibility exercises and they will improve, guaranteed! That's because I know exactly what they need to work on, period. I don't have to guess.

The bottom line is whatever you are teaching an athlete, it will show up. Teach them to squash the bug, and I will show you the impact on the swing. Teach them to be linear with their hands, I will show you the results. Teach them to stride, not stride, lunge, not lunge, swing down on the ball, swing up on the ball. It doesn't matter. It will all show up. and if it has a negative effect on the efficiency of the athletes swing, it will show up, if it has a positive effect, it will show up. So teach them whatever you want, and it will show up. I hope that makes things a little more clear for you.

You will never understand the power of our techonology, until you see one of your athletes hooked up, and can see the results of what you are teaching, period. And that is why I have not taken the time to respond to some of your petty questions. It can't be debated. I don't know what you teach. But I can show you what your athlete looks like and if thats what you want, whether it is right or wrong for the athlete. If the athletes has success in high school, with a flawed swing, great for him, but are you really doing him a service if you don't know what is really happening.

Good Luck....I have no more time to post. It is a busy spring and summer for me. I will check back periodically. I hope there are afew changes. I wish you all the best with your athletes. Look for us in your town soon (3D-SkillCheck.com) Jack, I would like to get another copy of your book and new video. I will contact you after Spring Training.

Zig Ziegler