Improve Bat Speed & Increase Hitting Power Using Drills For Baseball Or Softball Like Lou Gehrig On YouTube
Learn how to improve bat speed and increase hitting power using baseball or softball drills to look like Lou Gehrig on YouTube.
Here Is A Predictable Swing Method That Helped Lou Gehrig Hit For Both Power & Average…
You coaches (and Lou Gehrig or “vintage swing” fans) are in for a treat. I wanted to REVISIT a video I published on YouTube on Jun 11, 2013 for SwingSmarter.com, that broke down the swing of Lou Gehrig,
And compared his swing to the Olympic World Record Holder of the Hammer Throw Yuriy Sedykh, from the Soviet Union, who threw 86.74 m (284 ft 63⁄4 in) at the 1986 European Athletics Championships in Stuttgart, West Germany on 30 August…according to Wikipedia.
Specifically in the video, I compare the following human movement principles between the two explosive athletes:
- The Springy ‘X’ Pattern, and
- Forward Momentum or Un-Weighting.
I’ve gone into these at length in the linked to HPL posts, so you can click on those to get up to speed. But, what I wanted to do in this post was add a couple things I’ve stumbled on since doing the Lou Gehrig video in 2013. I want you to look out for the following things in the ‘no-shirt’ swing section of the above Lou Gehrig video:
- Lou Gehrig’s top hand finger pressure (bottom three fingers),
- Watch for Lou Gehrig’s ’rounded upper back’ (I call this the hunched posture),
- Check out Gehrig’s head position at impact (notice how he’s strictly adhering to the One Joint Rule, unlike Bryce Harper and Andrew McCutchen)
And lastly, notice how World Record holding Hammer Thrower Yuriy Sedykh uses his head to guide his body just before the throw.
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Does the Head Follow the Body or the Other Way Around?
What Yuriy is doing during his throw is VERY similar to how competitive freestyle Motocross bikers get their body to do what they want it to do, while flying through mid-air:
- When they do a back-flip, they initiate by rocking their head back…
- When they do a front flip, they initiate by tucking their chin to their chest…and
- When they do a twist, they initiate by looking in the direction they want to go.
What are you Seeing in Lou Gehrig’s Swing that Allows him to Hit for both Power and Average?
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Joey,
What Gehrig is doing is loading the scaps. He protracts the front scapula and retracts the back scapula.He does take advantage of the “serape effect”which is the moniker for the muscle connection between the front hip and the back shoulder and the back hipp and the front shoulder. Your moving along.
LARRY
Thanks Larry! Yes, Thomas Myers in his book Anatomy Trains revealed the myo-fascial connection that describes the synergistic relationship of the specific muscles making up the “Serape Effect”.
Excellent work Joey, and I want to remind your readers to watch the demo you gave some time ago on the un-weighting principle where you tried, unsuccessfully, to dead lift a 45 lbs dumbbell and then used the principle to lift it easily. Well … you didn’t actually even ‘lift’ it the second time, but it just came up almost on it’s own – very graphic demo! Science won’t lie … There’s a saying … “You can avoid reality … but you can’t avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.”
I got that test from you Bob!! Thanks. I did link to that particular video in the post. Love the quote, I’m going to post that to social media 🙂 By the way, that quote was from Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged. Love her stuff! How’s your recovery going? How’s Quin been doing?
It didn’t sound like a quote from Yogi … Quin’s doing great. He’s making some adjustments and coming along nicely. I’ll try and get you a shot of him swinging and send it. I’m still up and down. Thanks …
Glad to hear about Quin Bob. He’s a survivor. So are you, just keep grinding brother…my thoughts and prayers are with you in your recovery.
You asked the question at the end… What I see is the bottom 3 as you but additionally the bottom 3 of the bottom hand, the top two if I can call it that of both hands at the hold stage by the time he does the bottom three of the bottom 3….
To see the hands my way I would think of 3 key points like a triangle… So the pinkie, thumb and bottom left of the Palm… I’m not saying I’m right but just to let you know where I’m coming from or at least think…
I see a public bone push which follows the eyes… So if you walk by leading with your public or core… Where your eyes go you go… So the tailbone is key…with the rest of it…Remember if you try walking like this let the body do its thing…so if your walking while leading with the pubic bone let the limbs go along for the ride… The right arm and left leg will be in sync… The tspine should rotate… Don’t resist it….
I love the hunched…. It’s like flexion is king… So if you live in flexion… You will be missing that ride as you just go alone for the ride as oppose to making it yourself…
I also see the body winding so if the shoulder and hip don’t work together something is wrong… The angles are slightly different depending on how much one coils or how ones posture compares….
So what I look for is reflexes too…. So a few points I look at… As you noted… The hands and bottom 3… But I’ll look at all of them and relate that to where the hands are in relation to the player… Back elbow loose or tight and slotted, prior to any movement… Eyes… If the core is moving and the eyes are set… If there not going into the same place… There’s a problem… Either no core push, perhaps the ribcage and pelvis are not locked or said another way… The batter didn’t lock in, perfect posture… Remember that’s different than having perfect posture… Either way… A bunch of issues could be going on…
one joint rule… What I find interesting is your saying Harper and McCutch are breaking the one joint rule… I’ll have to see that as they have real pop but I guess they could have some more… What I would look at would be there natural posture… I think they both have some bowed legs which could mean they are missing some flexion also other movements with some other things to finsh properly… So the hand will move with the front and back fascia lines so if there head isn’t finshing as noted they may have some natural posture issues that prevents them from using the latter parts of those lines…
But in return they get easier rotation… But it’s possible long term they can lose some reflexes especially if they are not balancing themselves correctly….Who knows? Any thoughts Joey?
~DM