Posted by: rql () on Wed Mar 6 05:47:48 2002

Tom we had talked about the lean back on the i.s. pitch.I use to think that I leaned back to bring my hands in tighter but as I was doing this the other day I felt that shortening the radius of the swing actually created the lean back.I felt like I started rotational as though it was a middle pitch then reacted to the tight strike by really pulling the lead elbow in tight across my front side as my shoulders turned.Seemed like I made the adjustment as my bat was in the lag position and rapidly got tighter.I felt like I was using the elbow to speed up the radius shortening but actually I think I was using the upper arm and lead scapula like a turbo booster to the already firing shoulder turn.I focused on the lead elbow some and it seemed to me as though it started circular but kind of took a hard 90 or flattening of the chp across the front of the body not toward the pitcher.All this seemed to stop my forward torso movement and may have pushed it back and I just thought I was leaning back.If I was leaning back on purpose I feel like I may not have been getting off my back side stronly.Any thoughts
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> rql-
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> Some speculation.This may be helpful only if it doesn't result in pursuing some approach that fights the underlying fundamentals of the swing.
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> It would be difficult to figure out what's the chicken and what's the egg here.It is hard to see how the small muscles of the arms/hands can do much to change the trajectory of the swing slightly before or after launch.Leaning back may well be a compensatory movement that happens later rather than anything that causes the setting of a certain trajectory.Jack makes an argument for controlling the trajectory by changing how torque is applied at initiation.The torque may be driven by changes in motion of the shoulder complex as you suggest(scapula/rotatorcuff,associated muscles).I don't think it's the arms.I'm not sure it matters.The body needs to learn how to create a trajectory/timing that matches the location.These automatic motor programs are then executed with a certain feel which may be associated with cues/descriptions/images of some portion of the swing which could be before during or after contact.As an example,things like leaning back or extension or "weathervaning the elbow" may be cues that are associated with the feel of body positions that will be achieved in the future once execution of the right motor program is under way.

>Tom,I felt the lead elbow, though it is a small muscle, is a cue for igniting the larger scapula and front shoulder to tighten the hand path.From this I have come to see clearly what you mean by hooking the hand path.To me this as a cue is similar to using be[ quick with the hands],we don't swing with the hands but by thinking of them being what has to get the barrel out I think we can turn the shoulders faster.Shoulders are a slow thought to me hands fast.If we do things right some cues speed up reality.Yes getting the feel of what the body has to do to be in the right position to hit this pitch fair is the key,when I played I used the lean back thought,did that cause the swing or did the swing cause the lean back ,Not sure,getting hitters to even think and understand that as a variable I believe is the key.