Posted by: tom.guerry (tom.guerry@kp.org) on Mon Jan 16 20:25:22 2006

> > >>> I made an earlier post regarding my problem with over-rotating. I concluded that I tended to use my back-side more than front side, pushing my back hip forward and by pulling too hard with my front shoulder. Jack teaches that the hips rotate because of the front knee driving to straighten the leg, which pulls the hips around. Frankly, I'm having a hard time developing a moderate, but powerful amount of hip rotation. I either swing with the wrist and no hips, or drive the upper around too far. So Jack, I have some questions regarding the proper way to rotate the body around a stationary axis:
> >
Doug-

I think you might consider the problem more one of arm action/getting bat started swinging back/transfer mechanics as Jack mentions rather than trying to spend time too much getting the middle/feet right. While not intuitive,spending this time on the lower body is like trying to get the tail to wag the dog the way the swing/learning works.

If you don't load right/develop tht,etc then your hips are going to overrotate/open prematurely and your handpath is going to be pushed instead of starting out perpendicular.

The more you hide the hands (along with rest of arm action sequence) the more this keeps the hips from opening too quickly/power leaking.

This is similar to jack's point about the findings of motionanalysis in this old thread where Zig finds on analysis of his large database of good and bad swings that the hips/torso tend to over rotate/spin in the nonhigh level hitter.

http://www.batspeed.com/messageboard/10571.html

excerpt:

ZIG: "......Equally important to the acceleration of the segments is the deceleration of each segment at the appropriate time. If I cannot decelerate each segment effectively, I will allow that segment to reach a higher speed. In essence, we would call this a power leak.

"The athlete with this power leak will appear to the naked eye to have a pretty fast and effective swing. But in our findings that athlete could be better if the athlete learned to control their body and the release of energy from one segment to the next at the right
time.

"That is why I am trying to get the message out there to you and to others that we need to take a much closer look at what happens with the body and the segmental speed gains on the way to the bat."

Jack: "This site has long maintained that just getting the body to rotate faster does not necessarily equate to greater bat speed. To convert body rotation into bat speed requires efficient transfer mechanics. “Of what use is a 1000 HP engine, if the transmission slips?”
--- Note: when the transmission slips, resistance to engine rotation drops and the tack will red-line in a hurry.


"Hands that are propelled into a circular path cause the bat-head to first arc back toward the catcher. Generating this early angular bat-head displacement produces a higher load (more work done) to rotation which transfers more of the body’s rotational energy into bat speed. The load offered to rotation approaches maximum as the hand-path “hooks” back approaching contact. – We refer the cause of “deceleration” of segments as, “sucking the energy out of the system.” --- Adding THT to the CHP increases the rotational load even more."