Posted by: Jack Mankin (mrbatspeed@aol.com) on Fri May 14 14:13:49 2004

>>> I have been reviewing many clips of hitters such as Sosa, Jones and the likes and have been noticing that most are getting their back heel pointing to the sky prior to contact with the baseball. Most of these players are actually dragging their foot, like a pitcher would coming off the mound, prior to contact. In the clip I have of Chipper Jones he is actually off the ground with his back foot prior to contact. I do not notice any mention of this in any of your information and I would like an analysis of this in your own words. I have my own theories on this which may or may not be correct (theories are not usually 100% correct, as they would then be called FACTS).

My theories revolve around the ability to generate more seperation between the hips and shoulder rotation (xfactor) due to no internal rotation of the back foot and subsequent upward placement of the back heel. Increased ability of the hitter to keep their hands back during the initiation of weight transfer to the front foot prior to the application of THT.

For me to explain my theories in deteail without a video or personally showing them is very wordy and difficult and will require a couple of days to find the time to capture them in writing. If you need them prior to responding please email me personally. <<<

Hi Dave

Let us first address your theory. You stated, “more seperation between the hips and shoulder rotation (xfactor) due to no internal rotation of the back foot and subsequent upward placement of the back heel. Increased ability of the hitter to keep their hands back during the initiation of weight transfer to the front foot prior to the application of THT.” – Dave, that is an excellent observation. Keeping the hips and shoulders in-line restricts the upper-body movements necessary for THT. Opening the hips 20 to 30 degrees allows much freer movements of the arms and shoulders especially while the back-elbow in lowering.

I am not sure of the definition of “xfactor.” I do not agree that a batter should try and attain "maximum separation” before initiating shoulder rotation. Below are couple of post from the archives on this topic. Your input would be appreciated.

Great post Dave.

Jack Mankin
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It is quite obvious to anyone who has studied the baseball/softball swing that the hips are ahead of the shoulders or hands at the start of the swing. The hips start to lead the shoulders well before the swing is initiated. In the Frame-by-Frame section of the site (Swing Mechanics) I wrote, “The batter has rotated (inward turn) his lead shoulders away from the pitcher.” So the hips already lead the shoulders by 20 to 30 degrees as the batter prepares his launch position (look at Frame #B).

Frame #D shows that some (not all) batters develop even more separation during their stride. I stated, “The lead knee has started rotating around toward the pitcher;” (not all - after Barry Bonds' stride his lead knee still points more toward the plate than the pitcher). This means the hips now lead the shoulders by approximately 30 degrees. All of this occurred before the swing was fully initiated. From viewing the “Frame-by-Frame” section, everyone should see and understand that the hips lead the shoulders at the “start” of the swing. ---But we must also remember that at the “finish” of the swing, the shoulders will have rotated past (and now lead) the hips. And after full initiation, the hips and shoulders do rotate at the same time. When studying the swing in frame-by-frame motion, you can really see this happening.

I used the term “unison” to denote mechanics that during initiation have all the muscles in the legs and torso are contracting in unison to drive shoulder rotation. This is to distinguish it from “sequential” mechanics where the batter first contracts the leg muscles to rotate the hip (while holding the shoulders back) and then later fire the torso muscles.

Note: There is a 3-stage type of mechanics being taught where the batter is taught to (1) stride, (2) use the leg muscles to fully rotate the hips while keeping the shoulders closed (3) fire the arm and torso muscles to bring the hands and rotate the shoulders. --- I refer to the hips rotating while keeping the shoulders closed (no load rotation) as “freewheeling.” For there to be a “kinetic chain” (or rubber-band effect), continuously energy must be supplied from the ground upward to rotate the shoulders. This means, all muscles in the legs and torso must be contracting in “unison,” not “sequentially.”

Although all the muscles are contracting in unison at initiation, the hips will still rotate a few more degrees ahead of the shoulders due to the increased load of accelerating the upper-body mass and overcoming the inertia offered by the bat to acceleration – not from sequential timing.

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You stated, “This is what Mike Epstein called "tilting to avoid the tilt." In other words, you must tilt if you are going to get on the plane of the low pitch.” - A number of good hitters, including Hank Aaron, swung around a more upright axis. On a few of Aaron’s home runs, his axis actually leaned forward on some low pitches and he did not swing down at the ball. Therefore, even though I teach hitters to have their axis leaning 10 to 15 degrees away from the pitcher, I cannot call it a “must” or absolute.

BHL, as I tried to explain to you before, you are equating body tilt at contact to having more weight on the back-foot at contact. This is just not the case. Many hitters, especially those with longer strides, have a tilted axis but will have little to no weight on the back-foot at contact. In fact, some will have the back-toe off the ground or sliding forward. I seriously doubt that those hitters feel a lot of weight on the “back of the rear thigh.”

I also feel little weight on the back of my rear thigh at contact when I use the extension of the lead-leg to assist in body rotation. Even though my axis is tilted, my front leg seems to be supporting most of my weight through contact. --- As far as controlling lunging, I have found that stressing to the batter to have their lead-shoulder pulling back toward the catcher at contact is more effective (and produces a better swing) than having them drop the back-shoulder.

Jack Mankin