Posted by: Parent () on Wed Sep 5 18:41:04 2001

My 16 year old son hits well for power and average. However he has one flaw that is especially evident on slow motion videotape. He spins on the back foot. I have noticed that big leaguers sort of pivot on the instep portion of the ball of the foot. As a matter of fact many seem to almost pivot on the outside part of the big toe. My son can't seem to duplicate this. When his stride foot lands, he immediately brings weight on the ball of the back foot, but instead of pivoting near the big toe are he keeps the weight on the ball of the foot and simply spins. Any cues, advice, drills taht could help? He seems to do a proper weight shift, that is, when stride foot lands his weight looks 50-50 and he says he feels 50-50. But yet it seems like he's letting his foot drive the hips rather than let the hips pull the pivot foot around. It just doesn't look right. Please help.
> > > >
> > > > Try having him concentrate on driving the rear knee down and in, this
> > > > will open the hips and should help with the rear foot spin.
> > >
> > > Is it the knee/back foot that pushes the hips or is it the hips that pull the pivot foot?
> >
> >
> > Please!!!!! Any other ideas? Thank You
>
> If you drive the rear knee down and in the hips will rotate, try it.

Teddy, thanks for your input, but maybe I wasn't as clear as I could have been. It's not like he doesn't rotate the hips. He does. It's just that I think the back foot spinning is probably siphoning off some of the energy that could/should be going into the hips. He tried what you suggested but it seemed to cause less, not more hip rotation.