Posted by: Bart () on Thu Aug 22 15:34:01 2002

Jack and others:
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> > > I film my son a lot & put his swings on my my computer, frame by frame.
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> > > The problem is that when he lands, toe & then heel, rather than immediately starting his swing his body will shift forward about 3 frames before he starts his swing. This results in his knee being even more bent by the time he actually starts his swing.
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> > > I know you say this forward body shift is bad and I agree with you. The question is HOW to restrain this forward body shift.
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> > He needs to work on his hip rotation to specifically get the front leg and hip involved. What tends to happen is the fron leg and hip are used as a pivot point and the back leg and hip do all the work to push the hips around. Have him think that the front leg and hip also need to pull the hips around. A good example would be if you were to put your hands on his hips and rotated them you would have to push forward to make his back hip come around and at the same time pull backward to make his front hip come around (by the way this is another example of using torque in the swing). For your son to duplicate these movements he is not going to be able to bend the knee because he is going to have to use the front leg to push his front hip back and around.
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> "He needs to work on his hip rotation to specifically get the front leg and hip involved.". Thank you , but we already know that.
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> " Have him think that the front leg and hip also need to pull the hips around.". Thank you, but a hitter is thinking "swing", not what is pulling what around.
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> I'm sorry I asked.
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Phil, you said "when he lands, toe & then heel, rather than immediately starting his swing his body will shift forward about 3 frames before he starts his swing. This results in his knee being even more bent by the time he actually starts his swing." I agree that Alan gave you pretty sorowful advice. You asked a specific question about the body shifting forward 3 frames before the swing starting and what you got were platitudes about using the hips.

From what you are saying, I think his stride timing is off (too early). If the weight is shifting forward 3 frames before the swing is starting, what else can the body do? It can't just simply freeze. My guess is that if he starts his stride just a little bit later there will be less "dead time" between landing & swing iniation.

I hope this helps. Getting info from the internet is risky business but so is getting help from hitting instructors! I think you are on the right track with the filming because that way you yourself can identify problems instead of a dozen different opinions from a dozen different "experts".

One last thought: for anyone who cares for a serious study of teaching hitting, it does absolutely no good to tell a hitter to "get the hips moving", etc. The body does not "think" in terms of turning the hips, or doing A first, then B, etc. The hitting instructor has to search for workable cues. Of course, the hitting instructor has to be able to diaganose the problem in the first place.
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