Posted by: Steve (laflammesteve@ymail.com) on Fri Aug 26 12:32:13 2011

> I think that focussing on moving the hips first (and not focussing on the shoulders) is bad all around actually. Moving the hips first introduces slack. Ideally, you want the hips and shoulders to be still moving when you strike the ball, but the range of movement of the hips is less than that of the shoulders, so if anything, you want the shoulders to start to rotate first. Additionally, the hips only rotate horizontally, whereas shoulder rotation can have both horizontal and vertical components to it. Rotating the hips first can cause you to have a fatal mismatch between pitch and swing planes if there is any late break to the ball. Overall, discussing power maximization is a fun exercise, but you still have to make contact that a decent clip.

Hi GB,
Good discussion sir. Respectfully disagree that slack is induced by early hip rotation. Maybe you could clarify what you mean by slack? The way I understand it is if the kinetic link is lost during transfer. The fact is I've followed this site for a couple years and I used to totally agree. I stumbled across some posts from 2003,
when a nice guy named Andy Green (played for the Diamnondbacks at the time) contributed a series of posts from a pro's perspective. Here is one that explores this same discussion:
http://www.batspeed.com/messageboard/13414.html

For the last two years my son (10) has practiced a shoulders first approach mainly taught from the mechanics adhered to on this site. I'm forever grateful for this site. I even consciously avoided hip cues, as Jack recommends that by focusing on moving the bathead back to the catcher and through the plane, the mind will "devise a motor program" for the legs to aid that goal. Last year, in the spring he hit .394 over 63 games with only 9 k's against Texas' best teams, so he is an excellent contact hitter. I'm NOT bragging however because he had a total of TWO extra base hits. This last couple months' offseason he worked on activating his hips at heel plant, and making sure he hides the hands at load with a high back elbow, and applies THT via swiveling his shoulders (to your point, a vertical component to the shoulders rotation) while the hips start to rotate, and he is hitting it much harder. He still gets great CHP and shoulder rotation, and remarks that his swing now feels effortless. Anyway, that post and the resulting replies by Jack really highlight the importance of having strong core muscles, and that those torso muscles are the link between the hips and shoulders that keep the chain moving from the ground up.
Jack, has your position changed since those posts in 2003?
Thanks,
Steve