How to know “who/what” to follow – by doing swing experiments
Swing eval at home & future case study Jam Sessions
Q/A
You can also CLICK HERE to view the original video and comments from the Jam Session on Facebook.
Show Notes
At about the 30-sec mark, the whole point of these Jam Sessions, equipping coaches to do petri dish evaluations at home collecting data, bringing us this data, and we can help coaches get their hitters better using real data and human movement principles validated by real Science.
At about 5-minute, 30-sec mark, Perry answers what he thinks is the biggest mistake coaches make in boosting ball exit speed, watching videos on YouTube, the lead arm shape (bend or straighten?), locking out beforehand causes a chain reaction that stretches out rubber bands, going from bent to straight right at impact doesn’t optimally stretch out rubber, not most important thing – is a piece of the machine, a bunch of things pieced together.
At about 8-minute mark, addressing why a barred front arm gets a bad rap on causing “longer” swings, correlation DOES NOT equal causation in this case, a consistent front arm shape equals consistency at bat-ball contact, Perry talks about “laser” experiment comparing a bent lead arm versus a barred out front arm(about 11-min mark), interestingly laser was all over with bent arm versus closer to “line” with straight front arm, getting barrel in line and keeping it there, with front arm bend there’s too much free play, at least twice as good arm bar versus bend when it comes to consistency.
At about 13-minute mark, talk about the main benefits to a front arm bar, longer levers multiply force at the end of the lever, a longer swing IS NOT about a bent or straight front arm – it’s about when the barrel leaves the rear shoulder, end loaded heavy bats are fantastic for training barrel path for different pitch depths, look at hitters hitting 95-mph inside – they use shorter more compact swings (the barrel leaves the shoulder later).
At about the 17-minute mark, Perry shares another experiment where he used a ball attached to surgical tubing attached to an anchor, pulling ball back 8-feet, then letting go and measuring speed, then stretching the tubing back further, speed increases and ball hits wall sooner than the shorter pull back, Perry explains shortening front arm can help get on time but hitter gives up hard ball contact (70% their 1-arm max).
At about 20-minute, 30-sec mark, talking about when you’re teaching hitters, what is your hitting “operating system”? Is your goal for hitters to increase hard ball contact? Is it to reduce strikeouts? Based on your hitting operating system, you’ll choose specific hitting mechanics that organize that support the specific operating system, barrel path will change based on pitch depth, swing to match timing – reactionary hitting, the other side of the coin is to max out 100% on-time, 100% swing effective.
At about 25-minute, 30-sec mark, how do we know who to follow or what to follow, Perry goes over swing evaluation you can do at home (CLICK HERE for a PDF spelling this out), build a target – Home Depot tarp, 2-foot diameter circle, cut hole in middle of circle (1-foot) creating donut, bottom of target is inline with bottom of ball on tee, target is 10-feet in front of hitter, hit top of target roughly 20-degree, middle roughly 10-degrees, measure ball exit speeds, give points: 1-point for hitting it through the middle, hits outside ring 0.5-point, miss target = 0. Out of ten swings good is 4/10 (or .400). If not at .400, then something is missing. Average ball exit speed should be around 90% of your 1-rep. max. Plot where the misses are, and number which hits they were. (Ask Perry for blank diagram on this). Measuring ball exit speed with Zepp, SwingTracker, BlastMotion, PocketRadar, Bushnell Radar gun,
At about 33-minute mark, Perry talks about use of imagination or visualization, physical changes are tough under competitive pressures of a game, practicing your game swing, changing intent changes the swing, i.e. hitter hitting pop ups, changing intent to hit a low screaming line drive helps brain organize body to change the swing without thinking internal cues.
At about 39-minute mark, imagine a bendy tube attaching the pitcher’s release to contact, we want the hitter to hit the ball back through tube the pitch came from, external cues versus internal cues, getting a ballpark of what the hitter is doing by setting hitter up on a tee that is positioned as a middle middle location, if hitter is pulling all the time or going other way too much or popping ball up too much or hitting a lot of ground-balls, along with ball exit speed measurements.
At about 42-minute mark, Perry asks me about the springy fascia, the idea of a “rubber suit” creating stretch in the suit as you twist up, springy ‘X’ pattern – ‘X’ on chest and back, compression and tension forces, Granite has a high compression rate but has a terrible tension rate, Boom crane tension forces can be found in the cable holding the wrecking ball, body uses both compression and tension forces, hitter’s front shoulder comes in and down (shortening chest leg of the ‘X’), other leg of the ‘X’ on the chest lengthens, on the backside – the corresponding legs of the ‘X’ does the opposite, Scapula Row? Biggest mistake coaches make is forcing hitters to keep front shoulder straight instead of protracting the front Scapula, Arm barring front arm helps with ‘showing numbers’ AND ‘hiding hands’.
At about 60-minute mark, hitter lets go of bat hits 370-foot homer, while holding on hits ball 480-feet, pitch velocity and location were same, timing was a little different, Physicist Dr. Alan Nathan says once bat is in motion hitter doesn’t have to hold onto bat at impact – force is already there, locking out at impact helps transfer energy better, look at all the data on batted balls that go the farthest – they look the same, arm is locked out, test hitting a fully inflated basketball exit speed should be around 80% of 1-rep max – if not then losing swing effectiveness, Newtonian Physics v. non-Newtonian Physics, Physics is limited to Physics (external forces), Bio-Mechanics is limited to Biomechanics, etc.
About about 57-minute mark, Perry answers question: “Best drill for being out in front all the time, always makes contact way out in front, weak hits and no power?” Every pitch location has one ideal contact point, make swing in slow motion to find what’s optimal, body is reaching too much, one drill: the “Riiiiiight-Now!” Drill (“Right” is at release, where impact is the “now”).
Swing Study reveals how tens of thousands of hitters are adding 40-feet to batted ball distance by using one simple strategy.
Click the button below to access the FREE video that's been downloaded over 30K times!!
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/perry-joey-jam-session2-e1551215625485.png279500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2019-02-28 06:33:062019-04-08 04:24:06What’s The BIGGEST Mistake Coaches Make In Boosting Ball Exit Speeds?
Here’s A Quick Way To Help Hitters Understand Springy Fascia Power…
Most coaches understand the function of bones and muscles in the body, but don’t understand springy fascia, which is:
A cotton candy or spider webby like material,
What bones and muscles float in,
What gives muscles their shape,
Made up of mostly collagen fibers (and some elastin) – ask the Kardashians,
To the human body as steel is to the building industry,
Great at resisting change in shape,
A material of the body that DOES NOT need much in nutrients (e.g. food) to move like muscles do,
An injury to connective tissue (springy fascia) can take over 200-days to heal, whereas a muscles can take only 90-days to regenerate,
Like the bag carrying potatoes you buy at the supermarket, whereas the potatoes represent the bones and muscles.
CLICK HERE for a post we did titled, “4 Tips On How To Train Springy Fascia”. In the above video I use the Thomas Myers Anatomy Trains ‘snapping finger’ test to demonstrate the power of springy fascia.
'Add 40-Feet' To Batted Ball Distance
Swing Study reveals how tens of thousands of hitters are adding 40-feet to batted ball distance by using one simple strategy.
Click the button below to access the FREE video that's been downloaded over 30K times!!
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/springy-fascia-demoyt-e1548268891977.png281500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2019-01-23 19:50:542019-01-23 19:55:04Discover Where An Elite Hitter’s Secret Weapon Is Found
Here’s A Quick Way To Demonstrate Reaction Time Versus Timing…
A special THANK YOU to Taylor Gardner for this reaction time versus timing demonstration. Above is a quick 4-minute demo video coaches can use to teach their hitters the difference between reaction time and timing.
Can timing be taught?
Is the Pope Catholic?!
Of course it can…
Grab This FREE 'Timing Master Class' Video
Struggling to get your hitters ON-TIME in games? Discover HOW TO build effective laser-focused timing, so your hitters can be ON-TIME more often. These principles are validated by REAL science.
Click the button below to access the FREE video that has been downloaded over 6K times!
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/reaction-time-versus-timingyt-e1547831906121.png280500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2019-01-18 17:20:462019-01-18 17:50:31Reaction Time Versus Timing (What’s The Difference)?
How To Fix The Hitting “Guru” #57 Problem Once And For All – A New Year’s Resolution…
Consider the following Tweet from Matt Pierce, who I highly respect in hitting circles…
2019 Want
For Coaches to stop mocking other coaches. For coaches to stop blasting guys bc of the level they coach. For coaches to stop using the word guru in describing a coach that they disagree with. For coaches to spread info without the need to attack others in their teach.
I love what Matt is saying here, and I agree with him 100%! I’ve wanted to address this for some time, but couldn’t figure out how to frame it without coaches thinking I’m delusional. However, I’m about to reveal this is a Mount Everest “ask” because:
We can’t control what we can’t control (e.g. other people’s actions or reactions).
We don’t know what we don’t know (knowledge – and/or common sense – isn’t always what people are seeking).
People don’t want to leave their chosen “tribe” (when we put many years into thinking one way, it’s hard to change, no matter the mountain of evidence to the contrary).
Fixed Mindset is a REAL thing (nothing is more fragile than a 40-year-old male ego).
At the end of this post, I will share 11 things I think cuts to the heart of the debate (HINT: it has to do with a case of “mistaken identity”)…
PLEASE NOTE: I’m no saint in this conversation, so let me get that out of the way. I’ve been called “unprofessional” in some of my responses on the Socials. I own that. I’m not a robot devoid of emotion. To my defense though, I do let people have their say, and seldom “hide” or delete Social media comments – no matter how ridiculous – because I feel coaches should see us with all bumps and bruises.
Now, let’s address Matt’s big asks:
Want for coaches to stop mocking other coaches.
Want for coaches to stop blasting guys bc of the level they coach.
Want for coaches to stop using the word guru in describing a coach that they disagree with.
Want for coaches to spread info without the need to attack others in their teach…
It starts with the fact…
We can’t control what we can’t control (e.g. other people’s actions or reactions)
Here is one of my personal rules for posting on Social media: DO NOT respond to another hitting person’s Social media post, Tweet, etc. that I don’t agree with. And I see A LOT of garbage out there, believe me. But I don’t feel the need to tell them so…I keep my hands to myself. Imagine for a moment, you sell a hitting aid, book, or online course, and you get one the following dandy comments… (think about how you’d react)…
And here’s a YouTube comment on one of my videos…
If you can’t read the YouTube comment, then it’s because the image is too small…here you go (incorrect spelling and grammar intact)…
“This video is silly to me. First and most importantly, you do not teach any player especially a young player how to hit deep fly balls or “in the air with power. Why and the hell would you do that? Don’t pollute the internet with this garbage any longer. Btw, every hitter “gets shorter”. It is impossible to gain any ground and not drop. There is no strategic advantage in it nor should it be stressed in instruction. It’s a natural part of any swing and has nothing to do with power or hitting fly balls. Your messing up swings with shit.”
By the way, the above comments aren’t too bad, I have others 10X as bad. Look, I don’t mind healthy debate, but it MUST be respectful, and no respectful conversation can start with any one of the above comments. Sue me for coming off as “unprofessional” in responses. Good times is Taylor Gardner (Backspin Tee), Matt Lisle, and I snapshotting them on our phones, and laughing over drinks…true story.
So NO, we cannot control how others react or respond. Building the case of our “mistaken identity” solution is starting to take shape. Now, let’s address the fact…
We don’t know what we don’t know (knowledge – and/or common sense – isn’t always what people are seeking)
As you were reading those dandy comments above, were you thinking, “I don’t think this person knows about the Hitting Performance Lab.” Therein lies the frustration.
To their defense, they’ve only seen ONE post or ad from us on the Socials. They…
Don’t know us from “Adam”.
Haven’t done their homework.
Have been burned by others in the industry (a clue to our “mistaken identity” solution…).
I don’t take the comments personal anymore. They don’t understand how we’re:
Sharing nearly 300 FREE blog posts that hold nothing back when it comes to breaking down the what, how, and why of our system.
Blessed to have an Amazon best selling book on hitting, over 11,500 books sold and downloaded, and has accumulated well over 100 Amazon books reviews with an average star rating of 4.3 out of 5(includes both first and second edition of The Catapult Loading System).
Gifted frequent positive testimonials from our readers on a weekly basis via Social media and over email, which you can read on our About page.
So yes,
We’re dealing with people who don’t know what they don’t know. And,
We can’t control what we can’t control.
…Coaches, we MUST understand this. Building the case of our “mistaken identity” solution is picking up speed. Now, let’s address the fact…
'Add 40-Feet' To Batted Ball Distance
Swing Study reveals how tens of thousands of hitters are adding 40-feet to batted ball distance by using one simple strategy.
Click the button below to access the FREE video that's been downloaded over 30K times!!
People don’t want to leave their chosen “tribe” (when we put many years into thinking one way, it’s hard to change, no matter the mountain of evidence to the contrary)
I talked to Dr. Tom Hanson about this recently. Consider the “Church of Baseball” or “Politics of Baseball”. The idea is that based on our life experiences, we stick close to our current “tribe” for fear of missing out, being ostracized, and/or being abandoned when seeking another tribe. Even if the “other” tribe provides a mountain of evidence to the contrary of our thinking.
I call it wearing hitting “beer goggles”. Refusing to take off the distorted glasses to seek real facts and actual truth. In 2013, I completely jumped out of the hitting industry, refused to read or watch anything hitting, and completely pivoted to researching Physics, Bio-mechanics, Engineering, Body Work, etc. I didn’t understand it at first, but kept reading and re-reading – eventually it started to sink in.
We’re seeing this “beer goggle” theory play out in the Politics right now. Most of you have seen ridiculous comments on your Facebook feed from others…past or current friends about Political issues. I’ve seen people on both sides “un-friend” each other because one believes one thing and the other believes the complete opposite. People are retreating to their tribe’s boxing corner, and staying there.
Look familiar? Because it’s happening to our hitting community. People become attached to certain hitting “gurus”, a word I know Matt said not to use. I had quite a few talks with a current professional hitter, who has had quite a few cups of coffee in the Big Leagues, saying many “gurus” are out there trying to reinvent the wheel. And what he means by that is, they’re teaching the same thing as everyone else but calling it something different and claiming ownership.
The reality is originating something new occurs with far less frequency than innovating something new. Give credit where credit is due coaches. If people took the time to research where ideas originated, then the number of “tribes” people stick to would shrink to one or two. And even with those, hitting agreement would probably reach 98%.
So yes,
We can’t control other people’s actions or reactions.
Knowledge – and/or common sense – isn’t always what people are seeking. And,
When we put many years into thinking one way, it’s hard to change, no matter the mountain of evidence to the contrary.
We’re almost done building the case for our “mistaken identity” solution. Now, let’s look at the fact…
Fixed Mindset is a REAL thing (nothing is more fragile than the 40-year-old male ego)
I won’t get into this here because I got into it here AND here. But I will say this, I’ve fallen into the Fixed Mindset trap. It’s like a cozy warm blanket, and much easier to misplace blame when we don’t know the answer. For example, how do you explain a kid by the name of Hudson White at 14-years-old blasting 11-dingers in a row at the National Power Showcase, averaging 395-feet in batted ball distance – when he’s only 5-foot, 7-inches, weighing 135-pounds?
“What bat did he use?” …a few may ask…metal minus-5…“See!!” they exclaim, “The bat is HOT!!” But what if I were to tell you eye-witness accounts have said that Hudson consistently hit balls 395-feet with an old Hickory wood bat? How do we explain something we may not understand?
“He’s just a special case”
“He’s using a HOT bat”
“He can’t do that in a game though”
“They’re lying or mistaken about the distance”
These are FIXED Mindset coaching responses (from real people by the way!). Look, it’s okay to say you don’t know, and here’s an even better TIP…if one does not know something, then keep the “pie-hole” shut. The above bullet point comments take away from the hard work these hitters have and are putting into their swings. Shameful.
Instead acknowledge maybe your knowledge is limited and seek to understand, not to be understood. Ask “WHY”, not “Why Not”. Every day, ask: “Is there something I may be missing”. This is what Growth Mindset coaches do.
So yes,
We can’t control what we can’t control.
We don’t know what we don’t know.
People don’t want to leave their chosen “tribe”. And,
Nothing is more fragile than the 40-year-old male ego.
Fixing the issue of “mistaken identity”
Before getting to fixing the issue of “mistaken identity”, let’s review Matt’s big asks:
Want for coaches to stop mocking other coaches.
Want for coaches to stop blasting guys bc of the level they coach.
Want for coaches to stop using the word guru in describing a coach that they disagree with.
Want for coaches to spread info without the need to attack others in their teach…
Before agreeing to his “asks”, I want to scribble in a few more…
Parents and coaches start conversations with respectful first comments.
Parents and coaches seek to understand first, then to be understood.
Parents and coaches be willing to try a new-to-them concept first, before resorting to being a negative Nancy armchair quarterbacks. And,
I think if the previous three are checked off, then setting ego aside and looking at issue from a Growth Mindset perspective will be 10X easier.
Possible? Maybe, but it’s a TALL order. If those points cannot get checked off, then I claim my 1st Amendment right to call out Hitting “Guru” #57. Do we have a deal Matt!?
Now, to solve the case of mistaken identity…
For those who know how we operate at the Hitting Performance Lab, remember reading through those Facebook and YouTube comments in the beginning of this rant, and thinking they’re falsely associating and projecting a bad experience they may have had with another hitting “guru”? Here are my BIG “asks”:
Quit basing your teachings on because-I-said-so “bro-science” (What is that? CLICK HERE). It doesn’t work predictably. I know because I used to base my teachings on it, and can now compare our hitters’ performance to what we teach now – WOW! What a difference. Apply human movement principles validated by REAL Science. Success leaves clues, and principles work predictably. Btw, failure leaves clues too!
It’s not about how many years you’ve coached. It’s not about what high level you played at. It’s not about how many hours of video analysis you’ve masterbated with. It’s not even about how many long hours you’ve put into the cages. At the end of the day, it’s about getting your hitters predictably positive hitting results. Think of human movement principles as a shortcut (a good one) to spotting common patterns amongst elite hitters – saving you many hours of spinning the tires. Work smarter not harder.
Data IS NOT Science. Data is a component of the Scientific Method, not the end-all-be-all. Basing your teachings ONLY on data or video analysis without human movement priorities is like randomly shooting an arrow and calling whatever you hit.
Don’t strike fear into parents that if they don’t spend money with you, they’ll be doomed to hitting purgatory for eternity. This is a bonehead move, and I’m tired of getting these projected comments thanks to bad business practices.
Help people by actually helping them. Over the years, we’ve written nearly 300 free blog posts that detail our system. Don’t just try and sell people…help people…then selling becomes the next logical step.
Ben Brewster Twitter quote: “In the process, a few percent of our followers are willing to invest big time to know that last 2%. But I hate the paranoid, protective mentality thinking that people might steal your one good idea or philosophy. They might. Keep innovating and learning, you’ll have many more.” Right on! SHARE what’s working. Keep learning. Keep innovating. Give credit where credit is due. You will be greatly rewarded, believe me.
Moderation is key. Hitting IS NOT rotational OR linear. It’s not Launch Angles OR ground-balls. It’s not sacrificing swing quality for power. It’s NOT swing down OR swing up. We can build a hitter that embodies linear AND rotational elements…who hits more line drives…who can hit for power AND average without dramatically increasing strikeouts…who can use “swing down” cues to fix an uppercut AND use “swing up” cues to fix a down swinger.
Understand we can eat tomato soup with a spoon, fork, or knife but only one tool is more effective. Teaching hitters is the same. There may be many ways to teach hitting but there’s one MORE effective way…by applying human movement principles validated by REAL Science to hitting a ball. The principles remain constant and limited, but I do agree there are hundreds – if not thousands – of ways (methods) to teaching them. Listen, I don’t “own” these principles, I just happened to look where most weren’t looking, and stumbled onto them.
If someone posts a video of a swing online, DO NOT pick apart without the owner asking you. Video analysis of a hitter is a snapshot in time of the swing. It’s a work in progress. So unless otherwise solicited to give your advice, don’t. I see a few “gurus” out there “red-lining” through swings of 8yos, 12yos, and 16yos – unsolicited, to prove a point. That’s a real kid, someone’s son or daughter…niece or nephew…or client. STOP doing this, or you’re a bully.
Don’t drunk dial Social media. Don’t lie, you’ve done this (I know I have). Don’t drink the liquid courage and then comment. Remember what I said about taking off your hitting “beer goggles”?
Coaches, if you promote digital products, books, and/or membership programs, then STOP “tricking” people into signing up. Be upfront and honest with people. It gives the rest of us working to do it right a BAD name.
I think a combination of Matt Pierce’s “asks” and my additional “asks” will turn this ship around. OR, we’ll get much of the same thing in 2019! Coaches, go forth and make awesomeness…
'Add 40-Feet' To Batted Ball Distance
Swing Study reveals how tens of thousands of hitters are adding 40-feet to batted ball distance by using one simple strategy.
Click the button below to access the FREE video that's been downloaded over 30K times!!
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/old-man-yells-at-cloud-e1546454894204.jpg225400Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2019-01-02 18:52:272019-07-22 03:35:24“I WANT For Coaches To: Spread Info Without Need To Attack Others In Their Teach…”
How To Loosen Tight Hips, Importance Of Playing Multiple Sports From Steph Curry, Jalen Hurt Advice On Overcoming Adversity, & More! (Non-HPL Links)
Georgia’s Jansen Kenty hits game tying dinger in LLWS this year. His hitting coach teaches Catapult Loading System principles.
2018 was fantastic, and these were the HOTTEST topics on our social media throughout the year, according to you – the Hitting Performance Lab tribe. Thank you ALL for the vote by: click, share, like, and comment – you guys rock! My personal favorites were numbers: 3 (for selfish reasons of course 😉, 6, & 7… have a Happy and Safe 2019, and ENJOY the following 2018 lesson learned links…
#11 – Joe Maddon On The Importance Of Playing Multiple Sports
#10 – A Message To Parents: Why It Bothers Me That You Coach From The Stands
#9 – Too Many Kids Leave Sports Because Of The Car Ride Home
#8 – Parents Need To Stop Trophy-Chasing And Let Their Kids Learn
#7 – 8 Exercises for Tight Hips
#6 – Japan leaves touching thank you note and a spotless locker room after World Cup loss
#5 -Youth sports referees across the US are quitting because of abusive parents
#4 – #MannyMachado dirty or clean? “Sports do not build character. They reveal it.” – Heywood Broun
#3 – Georgia Little League dad goes crazy for son’s game-tying HR – ESPN Video
#2 – Alabama’s Jalen Hurts Quietly Shows Young Athletes How to Handle Adversity
#1 – Steph Curry: Play Multiple Sports To Get Outside Your Comfort Zone
'Add 40-Feet' To Batted Ball Distance
Swing Study reveals how tens of thousands of hitters are adding 40-feet to batted ball distance by using one simple strategy.
Click the button below to access the FREE video that's been downloaded over 30K times!!
What Deserves The Label: “Bro-science Fixed Mindset Garbage”?
I want to share a story…
Right before the Great Depression hit the Oklahoma panhandle, rain was plentiful, causing Doctors and Lawyers to quit their practices and join the ranks of farmers to buy land and plant crops that were being subsidized by the US government. In other words, the gold-in-them-hills was harvesting and selling wheat and other bumper crops.
Millions of acres of 6-foot high beautiful Buffalo blue grass were plowed under to make room for crops. Fast forward to the beginning of the Great Depression, the rain dried up, and so did the crops. Unbeknownst to the new farmers who moved to the area, typically rain was sparse in the location, and by coincidence, they had just experienced a rare wet 5-10 year period.
So now there’s NO rain. And you know the 6-foot high beautiful Buffalo blue grass they cut down? Well, it used to hold the soil down despite seasonal 60 to 70 mile-per-hour wind gusts. So NO crops are growing now. Grazing cattle have nothing to eat but tumbleweeds brought over by the Russians (people often sprinkled salt to eat them as well). The livestock soon get sick and die. Wind is eroding dry soil and tossing it up in the air. The drought is fatal for the majority who stay, while other smarter – in hindsight – individuals move west. Enter the “Dust Bowl”.
The farmers who stayed behind were so desperate for rain, they hired so-called rain experts to “create” rain. The bro-science at the time went that an explosion in the air could bring clouds, and with clouds, rain would fall from the sky. So what did these so-called experts do? They sold the idea that if they lit a stick of dynamite and timed the throw just right, they could get the explosion that would bring water.
…And doggonit, it worked on the rare occasion, convincing everyone that this was a predictable-enough strategy for “creating” rain. I know this sounds like a stupid idea, but you have to understand, the people were DESPERATE for rain. However, nobody paid attention to the countless other times that followed, where it didn’t work and people lost limbs, fingers, etc. from timing the lit dynamite wrong.*
(*By the way, the above passage – in which I paraphrased – came from interviewed first hand accounts in the book Dust Bowl: An Illustrated History. Fascinating stories of how a dust storm rolling in looked like a slow moving wet dog haired tornado turned on its side, miles high and wide. True story.)
So what deserves the label: “Bro-science Fixed Mindset garbage”?
Hitting “bro-science” is:
Blindly trying methods, ignoring principles.
Like throwing dynamite in the air and expecting it to rain.
Running east looking for a sunset.
Missing the forest for the trees.
Shooting an arrow randomly and calling whatever you hit.
A bad decision waiting to happen.
Urban dictionary defines “bro-science” as:
“Word of mouth knowledge passed off as fact, primarily among bodybuilders + weightlifters. Generally spouted most by guys who have used loads of steroids and are huge, have no idea what is happening to their bodies and then share that same cluelessness with others who make the false assumption that their experience means that they have knowledge.”
“Broscience is the predominant brand of reasoning in bodybuilding circles where the anecdotal reports of jacked dudes are considered more credible than scientificresearch.”
You can easily substitute “bodybuilders”, “weightlifters”, & “bodybuilding” in the above definitions with “baseball” and “softball” hitting coaches. It’s a Fixed Mindset. Believe it or not, I saw a comment on Twitter, with my own eyes, of a so-called hitting guru (I won’t mention him by name so as not to give him oxygen, but you would know him), claim what he teaches isn’t found in Science – Ha!! True story. He’s as fraudulent as those dynamite “rain men”.
Look, we have to be careful as coaches with the correlation equals causation link. Just because the dynamite might have worked on the rare occasion, doesn’t mean it will work bringing rain on a predictable basis.
REAL Science, the opposite of “bro-science”, is held to a higher standard. The Scientific Method, as a matter of fact. Sure, there’s Bad Science out there, but we’re looking for testing, experimentation, and research showing that correlation and causation of specific inputs are more predictable, not less. Just like how success leaves clues, so does failure.
A Growth Mindset coach will zero be hyper-focused on this. Sure there are 100’s of ways to teach hitting, but if you had the choice to eat tomato soup with a spoon, fork, or knife, which tool would you use to be most effective?
Teaching hitters is the same.
By applying human movement principles validated by REAL Science to hitting a ball, you’ll be eating tomato soup with a spoon. NOT shooting an arrow randomly and calling whatever you hit. And definitely NOT strategically throwing dynamite in the air hoping and praying the explosion will make it rain.
“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” – Eric Hoffe
Fixed Versus Growth Mindset Coaching
When it comes building consistently powerful hitters, this book will provide you with the mechanical pathway to get there. However, I think the most important aspect to coaching has to do with Mindset. Coaches can be split up into two categories:
Fixed, or
Growth Mindset.
…and which Mindset a coach falls into a majority of the time, can make or break a young athlete’s development. Don’t believe me? According to Dr. Carol Dweck, in her bestselling book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success,
“In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort.”
Here are some things you hear FIXED Mindset coaches saying,
You can’t teach a Little Leaguer to hit like a Major Leaguer because they aren’t strong enough.
Hand speed can’t be coached.
Natural hitters are just born.
Hitting is subjective and is different for everybody (this leaves them off the hook if player doesn’t succeed with their guidance).
The greatest hitters just have great hand-eye coordination.
That 12u 100-pound hitter can consistently hit the ball 300-feet because they’re hitting with a HOT bat.
He/She can hit the ball hard and far because of their body mass.
All of those are to the contrary of Dr. Dweck’s definition of a Growth Mindset coach:
“In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.”
These coaches find a way. They ask the right questions. They ask, “Why not?” They don’t rest on elite-level playing or decades of coaching experience. The objective of a Growth Mindset coach is to learn human movement principles first, or the “rules”. Then, design methods to stay within those lines. Predictably positive hitting results don’t work the other way around. You’ll learn more about this in CHAPTER 1.
I’ll let Billy Murray give Growth Mindset coaches a heads up in dealing with Fixed Mindset coaches:
“It’s hard to win an argument with a smart person, but it’s damn near impossible to win an argument with a stupid person.”
I’m not saying Fixed Mindset coaches are “stupid”. What I am saying, in my experience in dealing with them, is they let their ego and pride get in the way of helping hitters get consistently better. They make emotional arguments, NOT rational. Here’s more evidence from Henry Ford:
“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, then you’re right.”
One puts the forest before the trees (versus missing the forest for the trees), while the other is swatting a piñata with one eye blindfolded and both arms pinned behind their back! Trust me, I get it. We all want to be heard and validated as being knowledgeable in a subject, but seemingly high credibility in the wrong place is misleading for everyone involved.
Some go to extreme lengths to IMMEDIATELY make their presence known. Here are some Fixed Mindset saying tip-offs:
“I’ve played [X-number of] years professionally and I should know.”
“I’ve been coaching for 30+ years, and this is why you should listen to me.”
“I’ve studied millions of hours of video analysis of only the best hitters. I know what I’m talking about”
“I’ve put a lot of work into the cages, and that’s how I know what I’m talking about”
Don’t get me wrong, the last two points have their place and can be effective in learning and seeing successful movement patterns, BUT massive effort going in the wrong direction can be gross negligence. Besides, it takes A LOT of effort in the cages and hours of video analysis to stumble onto the right answers. The problem I have with this process is it takes too dang long! Especially for the new coach. Rest assured, I have a more elegant solution that will dramatically cut your learning curve in half! You’ll know what to look for, so you can SUPERCHARGE your time in the cages and when doing video analysis. You’ll read about this in CHAPTER 2.
Willful ignorance.
As you probably already know, coaches defend their hitting philosophy and theories to the death, even if human-movement principles validated by REAL science, reveal the opposite. Just like in Politics and Religion. I mentally play the “What if I strip them of…” game with Fixed Mindset coaches. WHAT IF this person NEVER…
Played in the Big Leagues…
Coached for 30+ years…
Studied millions of hours of video…
Put a lot of work into the cages…
…IF we stripped them of their primary credibility indicator(s), THEN I ask:
What do they actually know and why?
Who or what have they studied? (i.e. Physics, Bio-Mechanical, Psychology, Exercise Science sources? Not baseball or softball)
What kind of consistent or inconsistent results do they get with their hitters? (Truthfulness in scale is key). Look, a blind squirrel can find a nut every once in awhile, but it’ll inevitably starve.
Don’t worry, we’ll get deeper into the Credibility Fallacy in CHAPTER 3, so you can navigate the red flags effectively. Look, Fixed Mindset coaches are stuck, and what I find is they regurgitate the same information they’ve been taught in the past without question. They may even say their hitting philosophy is a science, but it’s not. It’s a pseudo-science, or what I like to call a “because I said so ‘bro-science'”. Their copy and duct-taped together hitting philosophy reeks of uncertainty. It’s a paper tiger. A house built on sand. Their hitters deserve better information…and can be better. We’ll get more into that in CHAPTER 4. Consider one of my favorite quotes by Dan Farnsworth:
“Doing a thing and understanding a thing do not automatically qualify you to teach a thing.”
It’s so true! I can tell with 100% confidence that I have not:
Played Professional baseball,
Coached for over 30 years (yet!),
Studied millions of hours of only the best hitters on video, or
Put in as much work in the cages as others say they do…
So, why listen to me? Because of:
What I actually know,
Who and what I’ve studied (outside baseball/softball circles), and
The predictably positive results my hitters are getting.
We’ll drill deeper into these points in the following CHAPTERS. What I think is VERY IMPORTANT to know, for those who never played ball past Little League or 12u softball, is that you too can be a hitting expert. Yes! You don’t need professional playing experience (or even college!). You can be new to coaching. You don’t have to clock in millions of hours of video analysis. You can even be new to instruction.
All you need is a passionate curiosity to learn and apply the human-movement principles that are validated by REAL science, NOT “bro-science”, to hitting a softball or baseball. I’m going to teach you how to conduct fool-proof swing experiments, so that you can use your findings to show people who won’t take you seriously. You’ll learn my swing experiment blueprint in CHAPTER 4. And I’m going to break it down for you, so don’t worry if you didn’t do well in science class.
CHAPTER 5 will take you through the science of springy fascia and spinal-engine-mechanics. This is the WHY behind the methods we discuss in the later chapters. You can skip this one, but please return to it later, so you have ammunition for Fixed Mindset coaches who won’t believe the predictably positive results your hitters are getting.
CHAPTERS 6 through 11 will take you through the practical methods my hitters are using to consistently triple, or at least double, their body-weight in batted ball distance.
Lastly, CHAPTER 12 will walk you through how to train these newly-learned hitting techniques. I believe the training is as important, if not more critical, than the mechanics you’ll be learning in this book. To give you an example of the value, I had a third-year pro-hitter drive up from San Diego (about a 7-hour drive, one way, without running into Los Angeles traffic), comment that he thought the training by itself was worth the trip! And he spent a small fortune in time and money to work through a whole weekend with me.
What You’ll Learn
Here’s what you’re going to learn in the upcoming pages:
Why hitting philosophy fails and principles that are validated by science succeed.
Why you shouldn’t make video analysis FIRST-priority, when modeling elite hitters.
What 30+ year coaching experience and pro players won’t tell you, and how the information source you focus on can dramatically cut down your learning curve.
How to become a hitting expert when you’ve never played higher than Little League.
There’s a BIG advantage to learning how the body actually loads (and it’s not what you’re thinking).
A simple method that helped Babe Ruth to consistently crush the ball with some of the heaviest bats ever used.
Elite-hitters revealing ways to hit balls with High-Exit-Speeds, swing after swing, using three elements even a 4-year-old can understand.
At last, the secret to transitioning grooved batting practice swings into game at-bats is revealed.
And to reiterate what’s new in the 2nd edition of this book:
This Preface addressing major objections to the first edition,
“How to drill” section at end of each Principles Chapter complete with drill video, sticky coaching cues, and STEP-BY-STEP breakdown to teach,
Appendix Chapters covering: science of successful learning, how to transition practice into game swings, is rotating back hip through zone necessary for power, how to smooth out ineffective swing paths, & hitting low in the zone and to opposite field,
Updating of each Chapter, new sticky coaching cues, metaphors to help get concepts, condensed paragraphs (more formal paragraph structure and less like I write for the blog), less bold font, and fixing of minor spelling mistakes,
And lots more links to free blog posts to see elite MLB hitting examples applying the principles.
WHY is this Important to you now?
There are four reasons…
Most “hitting stuff” we’ve learned is DEAD WRONG. It’s based off philosophy, theory, and “bro-science”, and with the technology available today, we can test the value of those hitting philosophies.
Nowadays, everyone seems to be Hitting Guru #57. How do we differentiate between an effective versus an ineffective approach? This is important because it’s not how PRO someone is, how many years of coaching they’ve accumulated, how many man-hours of video analysis they’ve done, or even how many hours of lessons they do in a given year. There are hitting academies out there teaching wonky information, working with literally thousands of hitters in a year, and one parent would be better off wiping their butt with the money. Don’t worry, we’ll help you navigate these waters. You can’t argue with REAL science and predictably positive results.
“Confusion” between mechanical causation equaling correlation. Can you put backspin on a ball by swinging down on it (i.e. negative barrel Attack Angle)? Yes, you can. But, will the hitter consistently get the ball in the air that way? No. Unless you’re playing slow pitch softball. In the case of hard-ball and fast-pitch softball, swinging down does not consistently put the ball in the air with authority, and IS NOT what the best are REALLY doing.
Big difference between what’s “real” and what’s “feel”. When Mike Trout says he works at ‘getting on top of the ball’, that doesn’t mean Johnny’s coach should go out and share with his team this method. In fact, Mike Trout says this to himself to protect his swing from HIS natural tendency to upper cut too much, like he says to ‘chicken wing’. The cues that MLB and professional hitters use are often lost in translation to the coach, and inevitably with the younger-end user. We can use these cues too, but it depends on specific hitting adjustments. You’ll discover what’s referred to in psychology as “Paradoxical Intention” in the Appendix Chapters. This will teach how to make educated hitting adjustments.
Is the Information in this Book for you?
First, we WILL NOT be talking about:
‘Squishing bugs’,
‘Swinging down on the ball’, OR
‘Loading & exploding the hips’ (this is harmful to your lower back by the way).
Second, this is specifically about how to apply human movement ‘rules’ to hitting a moving ball, and not about hitting ‘philosophies’, ‘theories’, or ‘bro-science’ that DO NOT predictably work in LIVE case studies at scale.
Third, the information in this book is based on the success my personal hitters have had both online and locally, plus literally thousands of coaches who’ve duplicated the results, if not bettered them, by using this system.
The House Rules
Enough of what this book is promising, now let me be clear about what it’s not…
No “get powerful hits, quick”.
No “do nothing, and crush the ball”.
My results aren’t remotely typical.
Most people who buy ANY “consistent power” hitting product, will not have success with getting consistent power in their hitters.
I addressed this previously, but it bares repeating…
Some of my 12u hitters and younger, weighing around 100-pounds, don’t start consistently driving the ball 300-feet right away. Some take 2.5 years to get to consistency, whereas before they do it “every once in awhile”. Other hitters, although rare, achieve this in less than 6-months. It depends on good old fashion effort, work ethic, and the athlete’s ‘learn-ability’.
I encourage my hitters to work hard on the things we go over, and to keep on trying even after hitting major obstacles. Most young hitters don’t do that. They just show up for a lesson or gather information and “get ready” to work…or they throw in the towel and quit at the first bump in the road. It took a lot of hard work for my hitters to start seeing favorable hitting outcomes. Interestingly, it was the work with my hitters that gave me the inspiration to write this book.
The bottom line is, I have no idea what your results may or may not be. And it’s not my place to try to predict that. Your success is up to you, as always.
In following, you’re going to discover why the coach who understands human movement principles, can successfully select his own hitting drills. But the coach who tries drills, ignoring principles, will have trouble optimizing hitters.
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/bro-science-e1545243115350.jpg400400Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2018-12-19 19:10:432018-12-19 19:24:07ATTN Coaches: Are You Throwing Dynamite In The Air & Expecting Rain?
Timing Question Answered About How To Get Kids Consistently On Time In Games
This week I want to share a question that Keith Soldra, one of my coaches, had for me in a recent survey. Keith is a private hitting instructor who teaches both baseball and softball hitters. Take it away Coach…
“How to get kids consistently on time in games. Most are consistent in a lesson/practice but are struggling to transition that to game ABs. I’ve used the two plate drill, a check swing drill, varying speeds in front toss, throwing live from different distances, the pitching machine, wiffle balls, etc…. I’ve even suggested having their eyes checked. LOL. Still in games they tend to get anxious and everything they’ve learned goes out the window. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Keep up the great work Coach!!!”
Fantastic feedback Coach. You’ve definitely been doing more about this than most, who don’t believe timing can be taught by the way! Let’s first breakdown how to transition practice swings into game ones…
Whenever there’s a hitting challenge that pops up, whether it’s mechanical or mental, I go to the principles.
PLEASE NOTE: principles are guidelines, then it’s important to channel your inner creativity to solve the problem. Not using principles is like the following statement:
“Using video analysis WITHOUT setting human movement priorities is like shooting an arrow randomly and calling whatever target you hit.”
I’m a private instructor too, and here are some thing that may be jamming the signal (that I hear from my own players and parents) you’re giving to your hitters because it sounds like you’re pulling the right strings:
Coaches not reinforcing what you’re teaching,
Coaches using bad cues like “get your front foot down early”, and
Players NOT getting their 4 to 5 hitting homework days in on their own at home…
Unfortunately the instructor cannot control any of these. We can influence, but not control. But let’s assume the opposite of the above points is true…
What is a Coach or Instructor to do About Transitioning Timing, Mechanics, Mental Processes (Approach), etc. into Games?
In this video post, we discuss: over-coaching OR giving instruction during games, promoting focused quality OR unfocused quantity swings at practices, and training timing, plate discipline, and pitch recognition.
How You Can Teach Effective Hitting Mechanics Almost Instantly – in this post we’ll breakdown: Mechanical steps to focus on first – scratch the itch, breaking down drill progressions, mindset when working on something new, transitioning practice into game swings, and player’s homework for home.
17 Little Known Ways to Optimize Learning at Home – I’ve done a tremendous amount of research and study into the science of successful learning since 2013, and wanted to share 17 quick down-and-dirty tips with you.
What Every Coach Must Know About Giving Feedback To Hitters – this is a fantastic self evaluation post answering the following three questions: Do you give verbal feedback between each swing? OR, wait till the end of a round? 2. Do you use internal cues like a focus on the feet? OR, focus on external ones outside the feet? 3. Do you physically move the player into a better position yourself?
Ultimately, my favorite sticky learning principle for timing is variance…also known as random training, training ugly, or chaos training. We use much of what Coach Keith has done:
2 or 3-plate drill (hitter switches plates set at different distances for a specified amount of swings),
Random pitches drill (mixing curveballs and fastballs – approach based),
We pick different pitch zone locations to hunt (up/down/in/out),
We hit using different bat sizes, weights, end loaded/balanced, skinny diameter (stick), short/long, etc.
We hit different ball sizes, weights, and colors, and
We started using the ‘showing numbers’ technique as a trigger for the turn, timing it according to different pitching tempo (i.e. windup v. slide step).
I tell my hitters that hitting MUST be harder in the cage than it is on the field. Use that frustration experienced to grow using a combination of these elements. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
Grab This FREE 'Timing Master Class' Video
Struggling to get your hitters ON-TIME in games? Discover HOW TO build effective laser-focused timing, so your hitters can be ON-TIME more often. These principles are validated by REAL science.
Click the button below to access the FREE video that has been downloaded over 6K times!
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/2018-12-12_1029-e1544639505635.png487500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2018-12-13 06:15:392018-12-13 06:15:39How To Adopt These 12 Timing Gems & Get Hitters On-Time More Often In Games
Is There A Point At Which Doing Less (But Thinking More) Will Actually Produce Better Outcomes?
Photo courtesy: TechGenMag.com
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln
Coach Bill Masullo sent me an email this week tapping into his network of coaches to answer the following question (btw, I did a couple interviews with him here AND here)…
“I had a young coach ask me a question, regarding player commitment during the season…my question is how do you influence or address player motivation?“
“Is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. Essentialism is a disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, of those things almost effortless.”
Questions ARE POWERFUL.
So much so, that Tony Robbins highlighted their importance saying something to the effect of…“The quality of your life originates from the quality of questions you ask.”
I think coaches, instructors, parents, AND athletes lose a sense of their biggest priorities in life, and is the #1 reason I’ve decided to take the majority of my hitting business online, rather than run a brick-and-mortar facility.
Please note, below you’ll find the word “Question” in bold, so you can skip to them. Yes, I know the essence of some questions below seem similar, but sometimes the same question asked in a different way turns the light bulb “on”. Enjoy!
Question: Is this the very most important thing I should be doing with my time and resources right now?
If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.
Question: What would happen if we could figure out the one thing you could do that would make the highest contribution?
Question: Will this activity or effort make the highest possible contribution toward my goal?
We are looking for our highest level of contribution: the right thing the right way at the right time
Question: If you could do only one thing with your life right now, what would you do?
Question: Is there a point at which doing more does not produce more? Is there a point at which doing less (but thinking more) will actually produce better outcomes?
Working hard is important. But more effort does not necessarily yield more results. “Less but better” does.
Sometimes what you don’t do is more important than what you do.
By creating space to think and focus, students can step back to see more clearly.
In order to have focus we need to escape to focus.
Whether you can invest two hours a day, two weeks a year, or even just five minutes every morning, it is important to make space to escape in your busy life.
In every set of facts, something essential is hidden.
He was listening more for what was not being said.
Question: …the question you should be asking yourself is not “What, of my list of competing priorities, should I say yes to?” Instead, ask the essential question: “What will I say no to?”
Question: If we could be truly excellent at only one thing, what would it be?
But when people make their problem their problem, we aren’t helping them; we’re enabling them…he doesn’t have a problem because you have taken it from him.
Question: What is the obstacle that is keeping you back from achieving what really matters to you? By systematically identifying and removing this “constraint” you’ll be able to significantly reduce the friction keeping you from executing what is essential.
This approach goes beyond just solving problems; it’s a method of reducing your efforts to maximize your results.
Question: What is the obstacle that , if removed, would make the majority of other obstacles disappear?
*So we introduced a token system. The children were given ten tokens at the beginning of the week. These could each be traded in for either thirty minutes of screen time or fifty cents at the end of the week, adding up to $5 or five hours of screen time a week. If a child read a book for thirty minutes, he or she would earn an additional token, which could also be traded in for screen time or for money. The results were incredible: overnight, screen time went down 90-percent, reading went up by the same amount, and the overall effort we had to put into policing the system went way, way down…the key is to start small, encourage progress, and celebrate small wins.
Multitasking itself is not the enemy of Essentialism; pretending we can “multi-focus” is…what we can’t do is concentrate on two things at the same time.
After a moment of reflection I realized that until I knew what was important right now, what was important right now was to figure out what was important right now!
Question: What do you need to do to be able to go to sleep peacefully?
Choosing to regularly spend a whole day on that day’s priority, even if it means doing nothing else on my to-do list.
…know of someone who visits cemeteries around the world when he travel. I thought this was odd at first, but now I realize that this habit keeps his own mortality front and center.
*This is a great strategy, and one I wanted to include here. It’s less philosophy, and more application. My wife and I do something similar with our kids using a “sticker” system. They earn stickers for doing certain things (productive age appropriate things), and can spend them on getting a toy (within financial reason) after earning 10 of them. This works fantastically well for motivating young humans…
As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” This was a man who understood priorities. Do you?
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/essentialism-e1542176298619.png278500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2018-11-14 06:30:312018-11-15 06:21:4426 Different Ways To Influence Or Address Player Motivation
The NEW Way Pitchers Are Getting Hitters Out That May Be Hiding Under Your Nose…
Know WHY, according to Baseball-Reference.com, strikeouts (41,207) edged out hits (41,018) in the Big Leagues in 2018? In my opinion, the above MLB Tonight Brian Kenny interview of Trevor Bauer has the answers.
Carlos Pena fouling a ball off in 2009. Photo by J. Meric/Getty Images
Could it be…
The Launch Angle craze? Maybe…
Hitters just don’t care about strikeouts anymore? Maybe…
The front office putting higher value recruiting players based on key Sabermetrics? Maybe.
However, in my opinion, these are all symptoms to the direct cause. Yes, hitters are being taught that ground-balls are gross. And since the book and movie Moneyball came out, Math revealed key metrics measuring how often:
A hitter gets on base, and
They hit for extra bases…
…are better predictors to scoring runs. Here’s a shot across the bow for the hitting coaches…
Back to the Trevor Bauer Evolution of Metrics conversation above,
Perry Husband, of HittingIsAGuess.com, has been sharing Effective Velocity principles for almost 2 decades, and it’s finally getting people’s attention. WHY? Because more and more pitchers are starting to apply the timing disruption principles. Unlike golf, timing is a MAJOR factor in how consistently hard a hitter hits the ball. And it’s THIS factor of a hitter’s success that’s under MAJOR attack.
Do you think I’m exaggerating? Read on, because Perry, myself, and many others see the writing on the wall…remember when Wayne Gretzky so famously said, “Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.”
I speak to MANY MANY coaches, and a majority of them, are disgusted with the sheer number of offensive strikeouts over the last few years, so their solution is to teach a defensive “just get on base” swing. Are you kidding?! More pitchers are throwing 96-mph+ at the higher levels nowadays, they LOVE facing hitters being taught a defensive “just get on base” swing. And it’s not just at the highest levels, overall average velocities are going up across the board because of better training programs.
And by the way, it’s not about the higher pitching velocities per se, because we can train hitters to see faster speeds in the “lab”, making the increased game velocities “seem” slower. That’s only one-dimension to pitching, as Trevor Bauer puts it in the interview.
It’s what pitchers are being taught to do with added velocity, manipulating hitters’ reaction times. Don’t you see, the game is speeding up for hitters, and coaches are ill equipped to deal with the adjustment right now. They’re running east, chasing a sunset!
Rest assured, we’re going to make a better decision and train differently. Coaches, you’ve been WARNED. In this post, we’ll discuss:
The NEW way pitchers are getting hitters out, and
How to counter this strategy…
The NEW Way Pitchers are Getting Hitters Out
Trevor Bauer interview with Brian Kenny of MLB Network. Photo courtesy: MLB Network
Here are my notes on Trevor Bauer’s scouting report on hitters…
At the 40-second mark, Trevor talks about having a specific “pitch mix”. And he adds that the delivery of that mix is different for every pitcher – how does he utilize it the best. He looks at hitter’s heat map and compares strengths and weaknesses to his “pitch mix” heat map strengths and weaknesses. What gives a pitcher the best chance of being successful?
At the 2-min, 20-second mark, Brian asks Trevor about pitch sequencing – which pitch should follow the next? Taking away as many “tip-off” cues hitters use. #1: Changing your body (i.e. tilting off while throwing a CB – mechanics have to be consistent). #2: How does the ball come out of the hand – tunneling, hitters can see “up and down” well, but not “side to side”, so he’s trying to minimize the “hump” in his pitches. The more he can hide pitching cues, the later the hitter sees the ball, and the more likely the pitcher wins. Neutral and clean mechanics.
At the 3-minute, 45-seconds mark, Trevor Bauer talks about starting off his pitches in the middle and let the movement get to the spot he’s trying to hit. He worked on a new pitch to fill a hole in his pitching repertoire – he needed a pitch that could slide to his glove side that didn’t drop like his curveball.
At the 6-minute, 45-second mark, Brian asks when Trevor is getting hit, what’s the checklist he goes through to get back on track? He feels his speed differentials are off, either he’s throwing too hard or too soft, for example in early 2017 the data said he was throwing too high a percentage of hard stuff – 4/2-seam FB and cutters, and not enough slow with the CB, SL, and Change. Once organized, hitters had a tough time. 3-Dimensional pitching approach: dealing with front to back (differing velos 95 to 85 to 78-mph), left to right (2-seam, 4-seam, cutter, slider), and up to down (4-seam, SL, and CB).
Did you catch that last bullet point? There’s the Holy Grail of pitchers’ scouting reports right there. Other than that, a lot of REALLY good intel in almost 9-mins, so how do hitting coaches counter this gameplan? Take it from a hitter’s point of view, Carlos Pena, who studied under Perry Husband back in 2009, and in the following video, makes a good case to a promising counter-move…
How to Counter this Strategy…
Here are my notes on Carlos Pena’s scouting report on pitchers who use Effective Velocity…
At the 15-second mark, talks about hunting pitches, addresses the hitting myth of “looking for the ball away and react in”…pick a spot, a speed, and a rhythm to dance to, react within those parameters,
At the 1-minute mark, looking for ball away and reacting in would work for one maybe two-dimensional pitchers, objective is to make good contact more often, having an EV plan against a pitcher makes hitting “easier”, setting “coordinates” like latitude and longitude, and work within those parameters, having a “blast radius” and only working within those parameters, match the timing to what you’re looking for, helps hitters to lay off stuff, eliminates half to 3/4 of the strike zone when pitchers get pretty good.
At the 2-minute, 40-second mark, Carlos talks about his struggles at the beginning of 2009, he met Perry Husband, and he ended up leading the league in homers by the end of the season.
Grab This FREE 'Timing Master Class' Video
Struggling to get your hitters ON-TIME in games? Discover HOW TO build effective laser-focused timing, so your hitters can be ON-TIME more often. These principles are validated by REAL science.
Click the button below to access the FREE video that has been downloaded over 6K times!
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/carlopena-e1541704947151.jpg377500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2018-11-08 20:24:582018-11-08 20:36:38At Last, The Secret To Decreasing Strikeouts Is Revealed
In some cases, I have go-to instructors like Josh Copeland in GA, Jim Ambrosius in Jersey, or Taylor Gardner in OK. But for most cases, I have no clue. So I’m putting together an Excel spreadsheet of coaches to be a solution to: “How do I find baseball or softball hitting instructors near me?”
SCIENCE-BASED TRAINING:
Improve your hitting strategy dramatically by applying human movement principles.
Learn not only how and what to train but also the science behind the methods.
The list will be continually updated and trimmed. Just like eBay, buyers are protected from BAD sellers with the help of buyer feedback. That’s WHY it’s CRITICAL you provide us with that same kind of honest and transparent feedback on the “hitting instructors near me” coaches. For that, you can contact us here. OR, you can post your “review” below in the comments section. Also note, if there are no “hitting instructors near me” yet, then please feel free to look into our online hitting lesson program The Feedback Lab.
That being said, Click the “GET ACCESS NOW!” button below to access the spreadsheet…
My advice to filter the results is to hold down “control + F” to open the “Find” function on your PC, and type in the desired city or state, and press “enter”. For example, try typing “California” or “CA”. I’m not sure how to do that on a Mac, so please Google it.
NOTE to Instructors
If you’re openly honest and transparent, and support the human movement principles validated by REAL Science, then YOU WILL be rewarded with more local hitting lessons. You’re welcome 😉 That being said, if we get an email or public review in comments down below claiming “bait & switch”, then we reserve the right to remove you from the list. Instructors, please Click the “FILL OUT FORM” link below to fill out the form…
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‘snapping finger’ test to demonstrate the power of springy fascia.
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. Fascinating stories of how a dust storm rolling in looked like a slow moving wet dog haired tornado turned on its side, miles high and wide. True story.)
out there, but we’re looking for testing, experimentation, and research showing that correlation and causation of specific inputs are more predictable, not less. Just like how success leaves clues, so does failure.
, which has amassed over 100 Amazon reviews with an average 4.3 out of 5-star ratings! Over 11,500 copies have been sold or downloaded. The Chapter topic? Growth v. Fixed Mindset coaches…enjoy!
book, WHY we separate PROCESS from PERFORMANCE with hitters learning something new, takes time to change ineffective movement momentum into effective, and training 4-5 days per week, for AT LEAST 5-mins each day.
, by Greg McKeown. I highly recommend reading or listening to it.
came out, Math revealed key metrics measuring how often:
