Posted by: South () on Fri Sep 11 15:05:56 2009

That is the definition of torque. The torque you are refering to on the tire iron is what is needed to make a object rotate with no translation(movement forward). This does not change the speed of an object(d/t). The torque from the tire iron is going to the nut. This is the same concept as turning a steering wheel. The turning power is going to the CENTER. This is not what you want to accomplish when hitting a baseball, you don't appy torque to a center point in between the top and bottom hand.

Your application of the physics is not correct, though most people see these unknown principles and are amazed.

When did I say I wanted a top-hand dominate hitter? That would be applying the force from the top-hand at the very beginning of the swing. In my explanation, since you rotate the bat to contact point, both hands are acting on the bat. **From your description of pulling back with the bottom and pushing forward with the top you are hoping to develop a hitter who cuts his swing off and rolls over pre-maturely.

Again, your mechanics are contradictory all throughout the site and discussion boards For Example off your site:
"But by contact, the rotation of the shoulders and the rolling of the forearm from vertical to horizontal will cause the force of the top-hand to be directed toward the pitcher. The bottom hand is just the opposite. The bottom-hand is first being pulled in an arc around toward the pitcher at initiation, but by contact will be pulling back toward the catcher.)"
You are indicating pulling toward the pitcher which sounds linear. Also due to rotational inertia and application of forces, the force required to bring the bottom hand moving forward to a speed of zero, and then accelerate it back towards the catcher is not physically possible. Your hands are not that strong!!

My point again, the body is rotating and torque is being produce by front hip/shoulder pull and back hip/shoulder push along with all the muscles in the core area, which cause the body to not move forward, just rotate. BUT the bat is moving a distance being accelerated by the body, this is LINEAR motion based on PHYSICS. In order to get the sweet spot to different contact points closer or farther from the body, the hands have to come into play some where, AND I'M NOT SAYING SWINGING WITH THE HANDS, I HAVE ALREADY ESTABLISHED THAT THE BODY SWINGS THE BAT. Since our body is a complex machine that has lots of levers in it(joints) and the bat is a lever in the hands, this concept explains how the bat is accelerated and you hit.

Take a look at the swing of Utley. Two different ball locations, and the hands/bat is in different locations in the pictures. <a href="http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/multimedia/photo_gallery/0807/mlb.memorable.first.half.moments/images/0526-chase-utley.jpg">Picture A</a>, he pulls hands around to front hip to hit inside half of ball to keep fair.
<a href="http://photos.upi.com/slideshow/lbox/e16f51c1c7ea92385422dfec602d89b9/MLB-METS-PHILLIES.jpg">Picture B</a> since the pitch was middle-away he could take the barrel to the ball from my description of rotating the hands to contact AND still be inside of it. His upper body is still tilted the same meaning he is not leaning out a little farther to get it. You can see this by the position of the back elbow to the belt. Also, if you tilt over more to get an outside pitch, you would become off balance and fall over.

Both mechanics exist in the swing. The problem is of people misapplying or interpreting the "cues" given. I do agree some cues are misleading and I avoid using a lot of them. Just like driving the back elbow into the side and accelerating the bat back to the catcher first are cues that will cause flaws in the swing. Every hitter is different and not capable of hitting 30 homeruns a year. Having nine hitters like that in your lineup will not get you anywhere. Higher batting average guys have less angle up on the ball which allows them to have more room in error when making contact and still being able to hit the ball hard. Power guys described on this site have more upward angle on the ball making their swings less forgiving producing more pop-ups or weak rolled over grounders to the pull side.

Instead of matching my ideas/philosophies to the horrible swinging mechanics that have been described for "linear hitting", respond to the justified explanations of torque, rotation vs. translation, the points in Pete Rose's swing, the problem of the camera-plane vs. bat plane, and how a third-class lever works, that I have validly supported with true physic facts and evidence from YOUR video analysis. I want to know how these are defended by rotationally only swinging apart from the mechanics on your web-page that I have already addressed/rebutted.

***Angular acceleration is due to linear forces***