Posted by: Doug () on Sun Oct 5 19:50:28 2003

I've got 4 text books sitting in front of me, none of which regard
> 12/14 as being the age at which skill acquisition ceases. The
> motor program can be changed through specificity of practice
> and afferent cues. Swing mechanics do not fall under the
> category of automaticity to the degree that something like
> reading does, and can therefore be re-learned with proper
> coaching.
> >
> > Thank you. A baseball player with talent can be taught and
> improved at 10-20-30 years of age if he has a good teacher. If he
> has a poor teacher, he will be passed by others. If he does not
> have talent, he needs to take up another sport if he wants
> success. I have seen it for almost 40 years and I don't see it
> changing anytime soon.
> >
> >
>
>
> I believe(personal interpretation of "evidence",much of the
> evidence from Nyman,not necessarily his interpretation) that
> "abilities" are genetically determined/limited and that skills are
> built on abilities.Abilities can be developed and tailored into
> skills.These type skills can function as abilities which are the
> foundation a new level of skill can be built out,and so forth.
>
> The three similar skills I have tried to study somewhat in
> baseball/fastpitch are the overhand throw,windmill throw and
> rotational hitting.At a deep level,all are built on basic abilities that
> are common to "open kinetic chain" principles-the sequential
> transfer of force/momentum building up to an explosive
> acceleration/deceleration,much of which is too fast for
> conscious control.
>
> My comments about the age limit were with regard to overhand
> throw/pitching.I don't believe I have ever seen someone throw
> overhand well/flluidly if they didn't start young.By "well/fluidly",I
> mean the "best" overhand mechanics which are,analagous to
> Jack's hitting mechanics, a whole-body pattern which Nyman
> might refer to as "buggy whip" or even "flyrod" type(mechanical
> model).Surprisingly,many college baseball players and the great
> majority of fastpitch girls have never developed to this optimal
> pattern(my video observation).This is due to lack of adequate
> trial and error learning at a young enough age(don't play all day
> as kids) and to poor coaching which interferes with "natural"
> learning due to lack of understanding on the part of coaches.As
> Brent Strom ( pitching development coach of Expos,ex-mlb
> lefty,2nd person to have Tommy John surgery). in Ron Wolforth's
> pitching central newsletter-paraphrasing from memory- a kid is
> better off with no coaching than "overstructured" coaching by
> someone without adequate understanding/experience."Good"
> coaching can successfully accelerate/improve learning/
> mechanics.
>
> As an example,the skills of throwing and hitting in fastpitch have
> been severely limited by overly simplistic cookie cutter
> ideas(promoted by national team/governing bodies) that have
> insidiously spread over the nation's youth development
> leagues.If you see this,run the other way.In addition to being
> "overcoached to death" and not throwing enough,girls face the
> additional challenge (if someone isn't thinking about it) of
> throwing a large ball which makes handbreak more likely to be
> performed in a way that dooms the throw to failure,and which
> limits the way the wrist is snapped which is an action near the
> end/goal of the throw which shapes the earlier mechanics.
>
> There is a level of foundational ability development which must
> happen at an early age to make the most of one's genetic
> potential.How this limits the more advanced skills is
> variable.Overhand throw is by far the most sensitive to/
> dependent on this early "critical period".Native accent speech
> producton is a similar ballistic activity which is a marker of the
> period of enhanced neuromuscular learning ability.If you start to
> learn the overhand throw after this ability is gone,you will always
> look/be a little "funky" at best.
>
> Windmill pitching and rotational hitting seem somewhat less
> sensitive.However,the less trial and error and the more horrible
> coaching "religoins" the kid is exposed to,the more abilities and
> skills will be undeveloped or maldeveloped which can create
> insurmountable barriers at a young age.Many can be "salvaged"
> later (probably due to some phase of successful trial and error
> and coaching and genetic fortune).Certainly,an attribute of the
> successful/hardworking player is ongoing adaptibity/learning,but
> this is probably built on successful ability developent and skill
> acquisition during a critical/young learning period so there is
> formation of an adequate foundation for subsequent skill
> acquisition/mastery.

> Tom, Thanks for your explanation. What I was thinking about was that I had read in some posts on different sites that if a hitter was not locked in to a good rotational technique by age 12/14 that he could not be changed due to a "window of opportunity". I thought that that was nonsense, because I have seen players that were Lau Sr. and Hriniak type hitters who have changed to a good rotational swing at age 19/25 and then have success.
The learning and teaching process of hitting and pitching can happen at a later age too. Mike Marshall was a good minor league SS (2 time all-star) who converted to pitching in his mid 20's and went on to have a great career.
Kids need to play catch and today there are about 15 baseball games on TV every day and if the young ones don't watch and then copy the big leaguers, then they don't care enough about their game to get better anyway. Sorry that you are suffering through the softball thing, but I would rather watch paint dry than watch a girls softball game.

Doug