Posted by: daw (daw@bellevue-law.com) on Wed Nov 28 09:37:23 2007

> ""I have never agreed with the “X Factor” theory because it equates muscle tissue with the elastic properties of a rubber band.""
>
> Nonsense.
>
> I think people don't want to understand.
>
> If I "load" my thumb against my forefinger so as to "flick" someone, the issue is not the "elastic" properties of the muscle tissue involved, it is the 'load' of one part of the body against another. And there is definitely an advantage gained.
>
> Similarly, when the upper body goes rearward as the hips open the "elastic" properties of muscle tissue involved isn't the issue. You have simply turned one part of the body in a direction "against" the other.
>
> And there is an unmistakeable advantage gained.
>
> To truth seekers.



More silliness from you, "teacherman". You "load" your thumb against your forefinger by CONTRACTING MUSCLES IN YOUR THUMB AND HAND just as you would to move it in the first place. Holding your forefinger over the thumb simply blocks the movement. (Ever heard of isometric exercises?)

Of course the thumb will "flick" once you suddenly remove the forefinger/block. The reason for this is that you are ALREADY contracting the muscles that move the finger, which indeed "stores energy". This has nothing to do with "unwinding" (the term YOU used in your original foolish post), it has to do with the basic fact of human locomotion: Our bodies move by a combination of muscle PULLING bone, and gravity.

The only way to duplicate what I guess you're now calling the "Teacherman Thumb Flick Effect" (as opposed to the "Teacherman Unwind Like a Rubber Band Effect") with a baseball bat would be to have someone (maybe the bat boy) HOLD ONTO YOUR BAT while you try to initiate your swing as you wait for the pitch. Then at the precise moment you decide to "go", the bat boy (or whomever) would LET GO OF THE BAT (and then, presumably, get the heck out of the way).

Now that I think of it, it isn’t the bat boy holding the bat. We’d see him. It’s Sue Richards, The Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four. Makes sense to me; she’s married to Reed Richards, the Rubber Band Man, who is of course the hero (albeit comic book hero) of your “unwind like a rubber band” theory.

Simply twisting your hips one way and your shoulders the other isn’t going to store any energy that’s useful in coming back around. Do you even understand that you use DIFFERENT muscles to launch than you do to coil? Try this: Pull your body into the launch position, or for that matter twist your hips as far as you can one way and pull your shoulders as far as you can the opposite way, then RELAX all your muscles.......does your body snap back to normal position? Nope. Whatever slight movement you feel will be gravity. You may feel awkward or get uncomfortable and decide to move your body back to its normal position, but you'll have to do that by contracting the appropriate muscles to apply force to the appropriate bones. And THOSE muscles will have been RELAXED until you fired them up to turn back into the normal position. (Again……….Do you even understand that you use different muscles to launch than you do to coil?)

The references in other, more respectful posts on this string, seem to me to be a bit suspect, because the "research" that "shows" the "stored energy" is not specifically identified, and also the quote uses hedge words like "may" in describing the effects.

The fundamental fact remains, whether hitting linearly, rotationally, "Thumb Flickily" or whatever, the force is generated by muscle pulling bone.