Ryan Braun early on pitch-plane. Photo courtesy: JTA.org
I often get caught up in my own ways of doing things that I sometimes lose sight of better hitting tips others are using for the same outcomes. I’m not perfect. And I’ll readily admit that I don’t know all the answers. This my wife will surely echo 😉
But I do take pride in submitting and standing on the shoulders of giants. This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson changed my life:
“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”
Think of methods as “the drills.” This post is for you hitting instructors or coaches who’re applying human movement principles, and successfully selecting your own methods. I want to pick your brain, and hear your thoughts below.
But first, here’s the gist of the hitting tips assignment…
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.
Ryan Braun staying long on the plane of the pitch. Photo courtesy: SportsWorldNews.com
I want to focus on efficiently increasing barrel time on the plane of the pitch using the Conservation of Angular Momentum. By the way, it doesn’t matter if you come from baseball or softball. So drawing from your teaching experience, what are your thoughts on the following (PLEASE leave your pearls of wisdom in the hitting tips comment section below):
Your go-to hitting drill for boosting barrel time on the pitch plane (pics or vids are welcome),
The best sticky coaching cue (or cues) that you use with young hitters, and/or
Any kind of underground (i.e. DIY) hitting aids that help with boosting barrel time on the pitch plane.
Keep in mind, inefficiencies such as arm barring, bat drag (racing back elbow), rolling over, and staying “attached” through the finish are issues you can address. After a week, I’m going to have my readers vote on the best approach, and we’ll announce a winner. Please share your thoughts in the “Leave a Reply” section below…
Grab 'Finger Pressure' Video
Frustrated with fixing BAT DRAG? Beat it!
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/ryan-braun-pitch-plane-e1419284176917.png207600Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-10-18 09:30:182022-10-19 05:08:42Flat Swing Bat Path Trainer Drills To Square Up Baseball Or Softball & Hit More Line Drives Instead Of Swinging Under Fly Balls And Hitting Top Half Chopping Grounders
Learn how to teach a kid to increase power, hit a baseball or softball farther, and swing harder with the Catapult Loading System. Discover how in this Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve, and Yordan Alvarez hitting mechanics swing breakdown…
Small Slugger Hacking Featuring Alex Bregman Hitting Mechanics
What we’re going over in this Alex Bregman hitting mechanics video:
Catapult Loading System(CLS) principles: Alex Bregman hitting analysis
Compare Alex Bregman’s use of principles to Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, & Ronald Acuna Jr.
I don’t agree with using technology to steal signs as these Astros did, but let’s look at their mechanics purely through the lens of mechanics. Look, they still had to hit in 81 games outside of Houston. Instead, consider how sound are they using human movement principles validated by real Science to hitting a ball?
All these guys, excluding Alvarez, are considered small sluggers. They swing a big stick without not a lot of gifted-ness in the size department. How? The following make up the Big-3 of the Catapult Loading System:
‘Showing numbers’ also known as ‘Neck Pressure’,
‘Downhill shoulder angle’, and
‘Hiding hands’ from the pitcher.
There are other Catapult Loading System principles like Hollow, Finger Pressure, One-Joint Rule, etc., but these are the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to building more consistent power. Now, some guys exhibit all of these, or a couple, but the closer to all a hitter can get to, the more power they can generate.
The following free video takes care of #1…
'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/2019/08/Increase-Power-Hit-Baseball-Or-Softball-Farther-Swing-Harder-With-Catapult-Loading-System.png423800Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-09-26 09:45:282022-10-03 19:02:47Teach Kid To Increase Power, Hit Baseball Or Softball Farther, & Swing Harder With Catapult Loading System | Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve, & Yordan Alvarez Hitting Mechanics Breakdown
Here’s what we’re talking about in this Fernando Tatis Jr baseball swing analysis:
Fernando Tatis Jr Baseball Swing Analysis Part-2 photo courtesy: MLB.com
Distance between feet – Getting to a balanced position on our stride,
Staying sideways with lower half – most still want to pivot on back foot instead of with the hip, and
Front arm shape – Arm bar a problem?
The following is the transcription from the above video. Time stamped of course, so you can skip ahead if you’d like. And in case you missed Part-1, then check it out Here.
Enjoy!
00:38
Remember, in part one, we went over some fangraphs stats, Fernando Tatis Jr. We talked about catapult loading system principles and how he uses them in his swing. And we also talked a little bit about staying sideways there as well. We will go in a little bit more depth in this video.
Distance between feet – Getting to a balanced position on Fernando Tatis Jr baseball swing’s stride
SCIENCE-BASED TRAINING:
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Let’s talk about the distance between the feet and getting to a balanced position in the stride. First, I wanted to give you a little context between these pitches, the one on the left, I think both of these are 2020. The one on the right we talked about in part one, but this one is a low and in breaker. Slower than average pitch.
01:18
And then this one over here, if you remember was a fastball up and in. Just to give each context there. On the left, we’ll go… there’s three swings over here. The first one will be this one, and then the other two I don’t have the pitchers view on, so we will look at the distance between the feet.
01:37
One of the things that elite hitters have in common is they get distance between their feet at stride landing and during their turn. A lot of young hitters tend to either be too narrow, don’t get a long enough stride or if they skip their back foot they skip too far, creating more of narrow feet during the turn itself.
01:55
Elite hitters don’t do that, elite hitters will create distance between their feet. It makes for a more athletic position and allows them to be able to, if they want to use their knees to get to pitches down in the zone like a Cody Bellinger or an Anthony Rizzo or Dustin Pedroia, they can do that. With narrow feet during the turn, it’s not going to happen.
02:16
So as this also applies to getting to balance at your stride landing, you’re going to notice that in Fernando Tatis Jr baseball swing, that he is not going to be very heavy on that front foot as he lands. You can see that, and we’ll get to this a little later in the video, this idea of shifting foot pressure. But if we look at this little ride or float, we like to call the float, Matt Nokes calls the ride and then the stride or the fall we call it the float in the fall.
02:49
You can see that there isn’t a 100% commitment to the front leg yet. It’s a little bit more uncommitted, feeling out, being more controlled, and there’s different drills that you can do for this you can put weight on the front foot, like a band pulling the front foot forward or the band pulling the hitters body forward wrapped around their waist, and the coach is out in front pulling the bands, and the hitter’s got to resist the band. Got to resist gravity from landing too hard and heavy on that front foot.
03:17
But that’s what you’re going to see. You’re going to see that distance between the foot and as he begins his turn, you will see him maintain the distance between his feet. Look out over here. Very light and hover-y with that front foot at landing. And you see there’s a little bit of a glide or skip of the back foot.
03:46
Here’s another swing. You can see this really controlled fall, it is a fall because you will see him unweight that back leg completely with the skipping of that back foot or the scissoring into that back foot. But at first before the stride foot lands, you’re going to see this very tentative with the weight. He’s going to get to the end of his hip, front hip and that’s going to allow him to rotate without having to shift more during the turn as he rotates.
04:31
A lot of hitters, young hitters, will get to landing and then they’ll continue to shift forward with their hips as they’re turning the barrel. In both baseball and softball. We want to get to the end of that hip, front hip. As we land, that’s it. There’s no more shifting of the hip, of the weight. We should be done shifting, then as we start to turn, that head should stay still, shouldn’t move anymore once a stride foot hits the ground.
05:07
Here’s the fourth swing. You can see this hover, he’s still committing his weight forward, but it’s controlled. Again, we can stand out in front of this hitter, and we can wrap a band, resistance band around their waist, we can hold the handles and pull them forward and they have to resist our pull forward, that is a way to help with this… not committing that weight 100% at stride touchdown.
05:37
We’ll get the hip to the endpoint, which is right there. And then as the turn starts, and on this pitch Tatis is a little bit out in front looks almost like a Jose Bautista swing. But that is a way to stay balanced and making sure we maintain distance between the feet.
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Staying sideways with lower half – most still want to pivot on back foot instead of with the hip
05:57
Now let’s talk about staying sideways. There’s this tendency for hitting coaches out there, and for usually the older kids, the younger ones that are under coached tend to do this correctly. But the ones that have been over coached a little bit will tend to want to pivot on that back foot. And these coaches are teaching them to pivot on the back foot to get the hips through. And that’s not what we’re looking for.
06:20
The hips aren’t, rotation of the hips, maximum rotation of the hip isn’t where power is coming from, not most of the power anyway. The hips and the pelvis are about 33% of the equation when it comes to the spinal engine. Thoracic spine, the spine is split into three, the cervicles – the neck, thoracic – the middle, the bigger part of the spine, and then you have the lumbar is the lower part.
06:43
Those three sections, along with the shoulders, and the pelvis surrounding that are where most of the power is. The pelvis and the hips are a very small percentage of that, 33% or so, if you split it in three. What we see is this shifting foot pressure, you’ll see where you got foot pressure on the outside of the back foot, inside of the front foot up to landing.
07:14
And then same over here. This is a different angle. But you can see the inside of the front foot here, can see it over on the right and outside, it’s starting to shift. And then as the turn starts, the foot pressure on the part of the foot will shift completely opposite side. Back one will go from outside to inside. You can see the insides already starting to shift here on the left pane. Same thing on the right pane, you’re also going to see the front foot do the opposite, it’s going to go from the inside to the outside.
07:47
Staying sideways and making sure we get to the end of the front hip at landing. We’re going to see that bowing in here. The inside of the back foot when we see kids turning that back foot. By this point, the foot is almost vertical. And they’re turning what we say is with the middle of the foot instead of the inside of the foot. What we should see is what Fernando Tatis Jr baseball swing analysis is doing, one on the left you’re seeing a little bit more vertical but then he pushes that heel down and stays inside.
08:25
Remember this pitch was the breaker the slower breaker down and in. He was a little bit out in front of this you can tell just by where the barrel is entering the zone. It’s not knocking off the real catcher’s glove, which is back here. It’s actually between the back-foot catcher’s glove and the belly button catcher’s glove. A little bit out in front, over here on the right, can see the same inside back foot, you can see the front foot clearly go from inside to outside, pushes that back heel behind him.
08:59
The hips are for direction, not for 100% complete rotation. That’s not where the power is coming from, the hips set directional force. Here’s another swing, same thing outside of the back foot inside of the front foot. You’re going to see that all the way until about landing, and then we’re going to see the shift happen inside of the back foot outside of the front foot. push that back heel behind them.
09:29
Fourth swing, outside of the back foot, inside of the front foot going to stay sideways, we’re not going to pivot on that back foot. Like most young hitters do that coaches have taught him to do that. The youngest hitters 7, 8, 9… They tend to do this on their own if we don’t touch them. Same shifting the foot pressure. This one he actually scissors is a little bit more out in front than he was on that first swing, and you can see big time skip and hop, don’t like the hop so much, but this is just a compensation, you didn’t see that in the other three swings, but he is scissoring here to keep his balance on this swing.
10:13
You can see our lower half, combination of distance between the feet. This allows the hitter to keep a balance into their stride by staying sideways, and in doing so, shifting our foot pressure from outside of the back foot, inside of the front foot to, during the turn inside of the back foot, outside of the front foot allows the pelvis in the lower half to control and guide our directional force.
'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!!
Alright, let’s talk about is the arm-bar okay? I hear a lot of coaches out there like to teach the adjustable swing, meaning look away, adjust in, or look in and adjust the way. And when you start facing better pitching that just doesn’t work. We can’t get to balls and be able to maximize our ball exit speed inside with an elbow bent at 90 degrees.
11:08
You’ll see in the four swings of this Fernando Tatis Jr baseball swing analysis; he’ll do a very good job of maintaining the shape of that front arm. Maintaining the shape of the front arm will allow consistency in the performance of the swing. And the longer the front arm, the longer the lever is, an engineering principle, the more the force gets multiplied at the end of the lever. It’s both power or ball exit speed, batted ball distance, and consistency.
11:40
We can get to an inside pitch, or a pitch up in the zone with a straight barred out front arm, but it’s when the hitters barrel enters the zone is what really matters. It’s not about the length of the front arm if it’s getting locked out. As much as it is when the barrel enters the zone, and the coaches that teach the barrel to get into the zone super early, knocking off the real catcher’s glove. Are going to have a hard time getting the barrel to the ball on the inner half part of the plate or getting to the ball on the middle up part of the zone.
12:16
But it’s not because of the front arm shape, it is because of when the barrel is entering the zone. The best hitters in the world change, instinctively, we can teach it but instinctively change when their barrel enters the zone. That’s another topic for another video. But let’s look over here at our first swing. Fernando Tatis Jr baseball swing analysis, you’re going to see that front arm shape almost from the start of the turn.
12:45
Again, this one is a breaking ball that was probably 80-ish miles an hour, located down and in the part of the zone. You can see the arms fully locked out, see where the barrels at? Barrel is tight to the back shoulder. And then you’re going to start to see him unwind and release the barrel, like I said earlier in this video, is going to be somewhere between the back foot catcher’s glove… If you can if you can imagine a catcher’s glove in line with his back foot, and a catcher’s glove in line with his belly button.
13:15
He releases it somewhere in the middle of those, being a little bit out in front of this ball and this ball being on the inner, the lower inner part of the zone. See the front arm shape there, is a different angle, but you can still see he pulls in just a little bit here you can see he’s a little bit bent. But he works it to get in, it’s very minimal. That will screw up consistency a little bit, if we have a hitter that’s doing this all the time. Fernando Tatis Jr is doing this to be able to catch up to this fastball. And this one was remember, located up and in, in the zone, a fastball up and in…
13:27
A little bit, but we don’t see a 90-degree chicken wing getting to this ball especially at a contact. You can see that front arm shape is complete, almost completely barred out to get to this ball. And he’s got something we’ll talk about another video wrist snap, beautiful wrist snap, you can see in this swing, same thing. Watch that front arm shape. From the start of the turn, you see the front arm shape, almost completely barred out slight bend can be argued with it.
14:25
Can see barrel’s entering the zone, again we don’t have a pitcher’s view of this pitch, but you can see is entering the zone off his back foot. He’s releasing that barrel off his shoulder and then slamming it into the back-foot catcher’s glove, not in the real catcher’s glove because real catcher’s glove you can see is farther away. But he’s releasing it off his back-foot catcher’s glove.
14:51
But look at the shape of that front arm. Got a lot of consistency there and you have a long lever so that at impact it’s going to amplify the force at the end of that lever. Last swing, front arm shape, started the turn, you can see it’s almost completely barred out. He’s a little out in front on this one, remember, probably more out in front than the other three swings.
15:27
You can see the blur of the bat, is happening again, he’s releasing this into the belly button catcher’s glove. Because he’s out in front, we’ll see that on timing. When they’re out in front, we’ll see the barrel get released later into the zone, not early. Later. You see that front arm shape is completely barred out on this one. Trout does this too. If he’s out in front, and the balls middle away or middle down, you’ll see that straight up front arm, but he’s a little different when it comes to middle in, middle up especially if it’s something hard. Plus velocity, you’ll see a 90 degree bend in that front arm…
16:04
But you can see boom, completely arm barred with the front arm at impact. This is going to amplify the force at the end of that lever. And because he’s keeping a consistent long shape with that front arm to get to this ball, it’s going to lead to some consistency. And in this Fernando Tatis Jr baseball swing analysis, those of you who have been charting him in the 2020 season, have seen the consistency throughout the season. Albeit a shortened 60 game college season. We’ll see what happens in the playoffs.
16:38
Just a quick recap of this Fernando Tatis Jr baseball swing analysis video,
We talked about the distance between the feet getting into a balanced position on our stride.
We also went into staying sideways with the lower half a little bit more depth, because most still want to pivot on the back foot instead of with the hip, the front hip we talked about.
And front arm shape, is the armbar a problem? And we saw in four separate swings that Fernando Tatis Jr. in his baseball swing does a very good job of keeping a longer front arm, which helps with consistency and batted ball distance.
Make sure that we’re swinging smarter by moving better, and before I let you go…
'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/2020/10/fernando-tatis-jr-baseball-swing-analysis-part2-e1601580598695.png281500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-08-08 09:30:472022-08-08 22:09:56Fernando Tatis Jr. Swing Breakdown: How To Use Legs In Lower Half, Stride, Hip Rotation, And Arm Bar For Baseball & Softball Hitting
This newly UPDATED article (video isn’t updated) presents a fun youth hitting drills approach to help fix bat drag for baseball and softball players. We go over what causes and what is bat drag, how to cure and stop it tips for batting swing beginners.
#1 Youth Baseball Swing Fix To Deflating Bat Speed
Awhile back I posted the following youth baseball post to my Hitting Performance Lab Facebook fan-page (CLICK HERE if you haven’t “Liked” my fan-page yet…new content daily):
This video blog post will target one of the worst youth baseball swing offenders to deflating bat speed…bat drag. In this article, we’re going over:
What is and What Causes Bat Drag?
The science of Bat Drag (to hitting an unknown moving pitch), and
1 Way How to Fix, Cure, & Stop Youth Bat Drag
What Causes AND What is Baseball Youth Bat Drag?
Notice the difference in Charles’s barrel angle.
Article UPDATE: Bat drag is when a young hitter’s upper and/or lower body rotates way passed the hands and bat to cause the back arm elbow to race passed the hitter’s belly button. We call this racing back elbow.
Youth bat drag is causes mostly by over rotation of the upper and/or lower half. It is NOT like what some coaches say, being caused by a dominant top hand or back arm, quite the opposite actually. Bat drag can be caused by a weak and disconnected top hand and back arm.
This article I originally posted back in 2015, and blamed bat drag on a barred out-front arm. I’ve since revised my position on this thanks to Perry Husband. A barred out-front arm DOES NOT result in a long slow swing, an early barrel in the hitting zone does. Specifically on pitches that are middle in. For a refresher on how barrel path changes based on pitch depth, then click this post.
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.
Myth#1 – sometimes coaches say get the back elbow up in the batting stance. We do teach this to help get the front shoulder slightly down at stride landing. Lifting the back elbow without this principle is irrelevant to fixing anything.
Myth#2 – the hips before hands argument is old and stale. This is EXACTLY what’s happening with bat drag, the hips are way out front of the hands, resulting in a connected swing. The two main problem with bat drag are 1) Not taking slack out of system (fix below helps with this), and 2) over rotation of upper and or lower half. Over-teaching myth #2 tends to promote over-rotation.
Myth#3 – again, hip rotation is not the end all be all to power, contact, etc. in the swing. It’s over coached. If anything, we should be coaching LESS hip rotation, NOT more.
Bat drag is a disease of over rotation, so rotating more will only make matters worse. Here’s a great place to start…
1 Way How to Fix, Cure, & Stop Youth Bat Drag
See Cutch pulling his top hand, while bottom hand restrains that pull forward (look at muscles in left forearm and triceps). Photo courtesy: MLB.com
Typically, I have my youth baseball hitters practice the Catapult Loading System when we have an arm barring issue. The finer points before a hitter lands in the Fight Position are:
Showing pitcher your numbers,
Hiding hands from pitcher, and
Slight downhill shoulder angle.
Another piece I’ve just added to the puzzle comes from Homer Kelly in his book The Golfing Machine. The following quote may shed additional light on “educating the hands” to combat arm barring…
“Power Accumulator #1 (for right handed golfer) – is the bent right arm. Even though the right biceps is active, the backstroke is always made with the right arm striving to remain straight. But the straight left arm restrains this continuous extensor action of the right triceps with an effortless checkerin action. Consequently , during release, the right arm can straighten only as the left arm moves away from the right shoulder.”
You see, the problem with bat drag at the youth baseball level isn’t the move itself, but how the compensation is triggered. What’s happening before the front arm bars out? Is the hitter properly activating the springy fascia within the torso?
If you “Click here to ‘Get Instant Access'” button below, you can get a free video that explains:
Why the following advice: “Power is all in the hips”, “Load and explode the hips”, and “The hips lead the way” won’t produce the repeatable power you’re looking for…
Where power really comes from – the answers to how the body actually loads are validated by science…
The 3 Do’s & Don’ts that will help you execute this simple strategy without any hitches in swing quality…
'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/2022/08/Fun-Youth-Hitting-Drills-To-Fix-Bat-Drag-For-Baseball-Softball-Players-What-Causes-What-Is-It-How-To-Cure-Stop-Tips-For-Batting-Swing-Beginners-e1659417919879.png280800Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-08-01 10:00:052022-08-02 18:04:33Fun Youth Hitting Drills To Fix Bat Drag For Baseball & Softball Players | What Causes, What Is It, How To Cure & Stop Tips For Batting Swing Beginners
“Braves star Freddie Freeman gives in-depth tutorial on how to hit off a tee” Video
If you liked this Freddie Freeman swing analysis, then you may want to take a look at this…
🚀 Unlock the Secrets: FREE VIDEO on Mastering Powerful Oppo Field Hits & Pulling
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/freddie-freeman-swing-analysis-e1570509855677.png492500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-07-19 09:45:442022-07-19 22:47:42Fix Swing Loop, Dropping Barrel, And Pulling Vs Hitting Opposite Field With Power For Baseball, Softball, & Slow Pitch | Do Stay Or Keep Hands Inside Cues Work? | Overload/Underload Bat Training Workout | Freddie Freeman & Ronald Acuna Jr. Analysis
Debating the intricacies of hitting a baseball (or softball) can be as bad as discussing religion or politics. This is why we look to proven human movement science first. Hitting a baseball NOT easy, but we can make it easier. It has a lot of failure built into the fabric. The objective of every coach, instructor, or parent should be to build as many “fail-safes” into the system as possible.
We’re going to explore the following, as they relate to impact:
Perry Husband & Effective Velocity,
90-Degree Angle to the Spine Rule NOT True?
University of Miami Study: The Biomechanics of the Baseball Swing
Conclusion…
First I want to start by setting the table…
Perry Husband & Effective Velocity
“Pluses” take-away from hitter’s reaction time, “minuses” add to hitter’s reaction time (images are pitcher’s POV). Photos courtesy: HittingIsAGuess.com
The one thing I like about Perry Husband’s contribution to hitting a baseball is he goes by “data, not feelings”.
He’s made a science out of a hitter’s reaction time. Perry Husband has accumulated, “Over 10 years of study and testing of amateur hitters and two years of intense study of major league at bats in a 4 million plus pitch database”. At his site Effective Velocity, Perry Husband explains his Effective Velocity system for pitchers:
“The Downright Filthy Pitching Series is a very in depth study of speed as it relates to the hitter’s reaction time. Initial velocity is the speed of the ball as the radar gun sees it, perceived velocity is the speed of the ball as the mind’s eye sees it and Effective Velocity is the speed it actually is. Effective Velocity (EV) is the initial velocity plus the location effects of the pitch due to different locations having different reaction times…A 90 MPH pitch can and does equal many different speeds, depending on where the pitch is located. “
His data (photo above) suggests that a hitter has to be quicker to pitches up in the zone, and in. And pitches down in the zone and away, give a hitter more time to adjust. Perry Husband reports from his findings:
“Did you know that the highest exit velocities off Major League hitters’ bats come off the pitches in the lowest part of the strike zone? How about that the most homeruns hit are off pitches at the very bottom of the strike zone as well?”
Over the past year, I’ve softened to some of Perry’s hitting a baseball mechanics. His information is vital to understanding if…
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.
90-Degree Barrel Angle to the Spine Rule NOT True?
Giancarlo Stanton: 90-degree barrel to spine rule. Note: outside pitch slightly up in zone. Photo courtesy: MLB.com
CLICK HERE for the post that explains this Rule. The preceding post link refers to the barrel, not the front arm to spine angle. There are FOUR ways a hitter gets to pitches at the top/bottom of the strike-zone, and/or inside/outside of the plate…
Tilting at the waist with the upper body (the lower the pitch, the more the tilt),
Another reader got upset saying that I’m teaching two different swings. And enlightened me about his extensive study into the brain, and that taking a bent arm from the initiation of the swing and changing the shape to straight is impossible for the brain to do. Click Here for a conversation Perry and I had on the arm bar.
Remember, Perry Husband said that the highest ball exit speeds and home-runs were off of lower pitches? Do you think it could be because the front arm was able to extend at impact? Creating a longer lever and allowing for a smooth transfer of bat speed (angular velocity) into ball exit speed (inertial force). These are fundamental rules in the Conservation of Angular Momentum.
Look, if our goal as coaches is to get hitters 100% on-time, 100% swing effective, then we must take a serious look at the front arm bar. High exit velocity is key to batted ball distance, and without it Launch Angles alone won’t score more runs. Besides, how many commercial and/or passenger airplanes get off the ground without high horizontal velocity? CLICK HERE for an interview we did with Perry Husband about his system.
One last thing to look into hitting a baseball…
University of Miami Study: The Biomechanics of the Baseball Swing
Josh Donaldson game winning dinger high inside pitch. Photo courtesy: MLB.com
Major shout out to one of my readers and local lesson parents, Nieszka, for bringing this to my attention. This study was done by Dr. David Fortenbaugh at the University of Miami (CLICK HERE if you want to download the 200+ page pdf). Here’s the gist of how the study was put together:
Study Objective: to compare swings against pitches thrown to different locations and at different speeds.
AA-level Minor League Baseball players (n=43) took extended rounds of batting practice in an indoor laboratory against a pitcher throwing a mixture of fastballs and changeups.
An eight camera motion analysis system and two force plates recording at 300 Hz captured the biomechanical
data.
The swing was divided into six phases (stance, stride, coiling, swing initiation, swing acceleration, and follow-through) by five key events (lead foot off, lead foot down, weight shift commitment, maximum front foot vertical ground reaction force, and bat ball contact).
Twenty-eight kinematic measurements and six ground reaction force measurements were computed based on the marker and force plate data, and all were assessed throughout the phases.
The findings?
According to the Study:
“A large number of biomechanical differences were seen among the swings against various pitch locations. More fully rotated positions, particularly of the pelvis and bat were critical to the batters’ successes on inside pitches while less rotated positions keyed successes against outside pitches. The trail and lead arms worked together as part of a closed chain to drive the hand path. Successful swings had the trail elbow extended more for HIGH IN and flexed more for LOW OUT, though batters often struggled to execute this movement properly. A distinct pattern among successful swings against fastballs, successful swings against changeups, and unsuccessful swings against changeups was witnessed; namely a progressive delay in which the batter prematurely initiated the events of the kinetic chain, especially when unsuccessful in hitting a changeup.”
Hitting a Baseball Conclusion
Miguel Cabrera “power-V” post impact. Arms extended, high moment of inertia. Note catcher’s glove position. Photo courtesy: ToledoBlade.com
So, let’s tie up everything we talked about in hitting a baseball…
On pitches low and/or away, the hitter has more reaction time (Perry Husband research), so tilting at the waist (on lower pitches) and extending the front elbow to impact is key (90-degree barrel spine rule). And because the outside and lower pitches will be hit slightly deeper than inside and higher pitches, the trailing elbow will have more bend in it at impact (Miami Study).
There can be a harmonious relationship between an arm bar, and consistency getting to pitches up and in the zone. CLICK HERE for this post that gets into the different “catcher’s gloves” on how to do this. HINT: it has to do with the “belly button” catcher’s glove.
Readers, I want to hear your thoughts on hitting a baseball in the Comments below…
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Frustrated with fixing BAT DRAG? Beat it!
Swing Study reveals how majority of hitters are correcting 'racing back elbow' bat drag within 1-2 weeks WITHOUT overhauling swing mechanics OR buying fancy and expensive hitting aids.
Click button below to access FREE video that has been downloaded over 20K times!
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/hitting-a-baseball-robinson-cano.jpg415525Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-07-11 09:15:432022-07-11 23:50:29How To Swing Bat And Hit Baseball Softball Faster, Farther, & Harder Every Time | Beginner Practice At Home Hitting To Increase Bat Speed, Power, Exit Velocity & In Certain Direction
Discover how to spot disconnected front arm swing drills and learn how to STOP hitting inside out, casting, bat drag, and looping baseball or softball swings. Perry Husband (EffectiveVelocity.com) and I will discuss bat lag drills for power validated by science.
5,000 Swing Experiments Validate Locked Out Lead Arm Is Superior To Bent
Here’s the Hitting Jam Session Interview Collection with Perry Husband:
At about the 2-minute mark, disclaimers…I was a skeptic on the locked lead arm since about 2 years ago, some out there cannot subscribe to a locked lead arm BECAUSE of what they teach – the “deep barrel dump” on every pitch depth, instructors are confusing what “casting” is and is not, it’s not a locked lead arm, it is a deep barrel dump regardless of pitch depth, nobody is 100% right or wrong, if stay in Science, then most will come to the same conclusions (on macros – maybe not micros),
At about 5-minute mark, what is and is not working for Mike Trout – bent lead up arm v. locked lead arm, fastballs up and in 80.8-mph avg. BES in 2018 (bent lead arm), and down and away 101.8-mph avg. BES (locked lead arm), what if the only fastball he gets is what produces the 80.8-mph avg. BES would that change Mike Trout’s offensive stats? Trout is hitting in a target rich environment where pitchers are throwing fastballs DOWN and off speed and breaking stuff UP, which puts timing that sequence VERY similar – easier to hit, pitchers are STUPID to keep fastballs down to him, Perry’s categories for pitches: #1’s – fastest version of the fastball – 96+ mph, #2’s – slowest version of the FB and fastest version of off speed (splitter/cutter/slider up in the zone), #3’s – slower versions of splitter/cutter/slider down in the zone, and #4’s – curveballs, Trout killed 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s, Perry referenced the SBNation article about Trout on Effective Velocity, article had wide reach and pitchers started pounding Trout up – and he adjusted to an up/in approach, changed his attention of where he focused and hunted, can only cover so much as a hitter when it comes to hitting 1, 2, 3, and 4’s,
At about 14-minute, 30-secs mark, hitter using bent lead arm comes at a cost, in Trout’s case 80-mph avg. BES v. 101-mph BES, split A/B testing metaphor on Facebook ad changing only 1 thing – see what ad wins out over being shown randomly to an audience, split A/B test locked lead arm versus keeping it bent, what if all FB’s down/away disappear to Trout? What would happen to his numbers? What happens when an EV minded pitcher like DeGrom, Scherzer, Verlander, Bauer face Trout or Miggy? What about bettering reaction time? What happens to policeman when you take away time? Ugly stuff – they have less time to make a decision (Perry referenced the book Blink), give extra time, see pitches easier, slow down fast stuff and speed up slow stuff…allows Trout to cover A LOT of pitches with same timing, as a pitcher you’re more likely to get away with hanging off speed or breaking stuff up in the zone than a fastball down and/or away,
At about 27-minute, 30-secs mark, Perry talks about how Jacob DeGrom ONLY mixed in a higher percentage of fastballs up in the zone (61% of the time – avg. postseason team was 44%) one year and cut his ERA in half! Debunking the “deep barrel dump” – great for pitches on the outer 1/3 of plate or lower in the strike zone, but is TERRIBLE barrel path for inner 1/3 to inner half part of plate, some confuse “long swing” with locked lead arm, but it’s because of casting or deep barrel dump, Perry talks about the ball bungee attached with surgical tubing experiment: found bigger the stretch, the faster and less time it takes ball to hit wall, connection to hitting is taking slack out of the system (more elastic energy built up!), fence drill – can do drill with locked lead arm if hold angle of bat close to following shoulder, keep 90-degree wrist angle tension w/ locked lead arm versus bent,
At about 36-minute, 30-sec mark, Stanton, Donaldson – when they hit 114-mph BES they’re in a closer to lead arm lock out position, why not find out how to figure out how to get hitters doing it versus explaining it away, multiple 100-mph BES younger hitters hitting balls off the tee, how many 100-mph BES players are being cheated by inferior mechanics, locked lead arm doesn’t just increase power but it also improves consistency of sweet spot to ball, Perry’s done 5,000 swing experiments on locked out front arm(Jay Bell was most known), in golf if golfers could hit it farther with a bent lead arm, then driving ranges across the world would be using bent lead arm, goal is still the same in baseball as in golf – hit it at max
At about 42-minute, 30-sec mark, locked lead arm being longer…it’s not a question of locked lead arm causes long or casting swing – it’s about when the hitter “releases” the barrel from the rear shoulder that causes the long or casting swing, the stubborn “deep barrel dump” barrel path being taught will become extinct when pitchers get more EV efficient and begin using hard stuff up in the zone, even if pitchers miss their mark by a foot they’ll still be effective – execute one in three pitches, you’ll be a super star just as long as you understand what your misses are doing, hitters must apply 100/100 all the time – 100% on-time, 100% effective, pitchers like Scherzer will be the norm and not the exception, dumping barrels on all pitches WILL NOT work, can lock at load or at start of the turn – objective is to take slack out before the turn,
At about 56-minute mark, pitcher and hitter adjustments over the decades: Bob Gibson days attacking up, hitters adjust and get good at driving up, then in 70’s and 80’s pitchers attacked down in the zone, now pitchers are beginning to adjust back up again, Perry says we’ll see one more drop with hitting, which will force hitters to rock bottom, buy a little more time swinging with bent front arm but at what costs, going to be really hard when hitter sees 100-mph up, then followed up with curveball that looks the same in the tunnel and drops, how longer arms effects contact points, all data right now is based on control of bent front arm, JUST TEST IT! CLICK HERE for testing protocol Perry and I have talked about in these Jam Sessions, any change you make MUST positively affect ball exit speed AND frequency of line drives, message to those who are anti-tee, bent lead arm ball exit will be close to the same off tee and LIVE
You can find Perry Husband at EffectiveVelocity.com, use EV25 coupon code for any of the online courses. @EVPerryHusband on Twitter, and @PerryHusband on Facebook
My offer…FREE Catapult Loading System 2nd edition print book – just pay $8.95 shipping and handling (retails on Amazon for $19.97) – in addition you’ll get our essential consistent power online video mini-course Power Hitter 2.0: Engineering The Alpha: https://www.truthaboutexplosiverotationalpower.com/pl/60039
'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.
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/perry-husband-joey-myers-hitting-jam-session-5-blog.png282500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-06-07 09:00:482023-09-14 18:21:18Disconnected Front Arm Swing Drills: STOP Hitting Inside Out, Casting, Bat Drag, & Looping For Baseball Or Softball Batting
Backspin Bat Tee Co-Founder Interview: If One Of The Best, Mike Trout, Is Giving Up An Average 20-mph Of Ball Exit Speed, How Much Do Mere Mortals Give Up Doing The Same Thing?
Here are the Backspin bat tee co-founder interview with Taylor Gardner topics that we discussed:
What do bat tee adjustments mean to you when it comes to talking to your hitters?
True or False: Hitters MUST straighten their front leg to be effective…
What if hitters used a more precision approach like golfers when operating between 90-degrees?
Instead of writing off the arm bar as it doesn’t work, why not ask how can it work?
Is there ever a time when ‘swing down’ or ‘barrel above the hands’ bat tee cues can work?
If one of the best, Mike Trout, is giving up 20-mph of ball exit speed, how much do mere mortals give up doing the same thing?
Where can people find more about you Backspin bat tee guys?
The following is the bat tee transcription of the video above. This is a sneak peak at the expert interviews we’ll be including in Volume-2 of the Swing Smarter book series. Enjoy!
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"Swing Smarter: Science Based Hitting Training Built To Understand How, Why, & Reasoning Behind It"
Oh, there’s the baby. You got that mixed up? I don’t think that’s supposed to go in your mouth.
Taylor Gardner 00:21
Probably should.
Joey Myers 00:24
Look at you.
Taylor Gardner 00:26
Yeah.
Joey Myers 00:27
Causing your parents so much so many sleepless nights.
Taylor Gardner 00:30
Yeah, momma needed a shower time and dad had an interview here.
Joey Myers 00:38
Double interview.
Taylor Gardner 00:40
Yeah. Oh my
Joey Myers 00:45
Look at that, first time I think we’ve done a zoom interview.
Taylor Gardner 00:49
Oh it has been working out, better adjust my camera?
Joey Myers 00:55
No, I think you’re good. What do you need to adjust?
Taylor Gardner 00:57
All I was going to bring it down a little bit. I think I always fall down.
Joey Myers 01:01
Yeah, I think you’re good. Okay. Are you ready? Let me do the official bat tee start. Hello and welcome to Swing Smarter Monthly Newsletter. This is your host Joey Myers from HittingPerformanceLab.com and probably for the half a dozenth interview. I have Taylor Gardner here from Backspin Bat Tee. Welcome to the show. Taylor looks like you brought a little friend.
Taylor Gardner 01:26
That’s right. Yes. Yeah. She has been influenced by any good or bad and…
Joey Myers 01:37
there. There we go. You froze for a little bit. Say it again? Say No. So, she’s been influenced by what?
Taylor Gardner 01:46
I said. No, we got we got a fresh template here. She hasn’t had any good or bad instruction to start working with this.
Joey Myers 01:54
Yeah, yeah. Tie the right arm behind your back and… is your brother? Is he lefty? Or is he righty?
Taylor Gardner 02:03
He’s a switch hitter. You can do both.
Joey Myers 02:05
He does both. But what about throwing? Is he a righty?
Taylor Gardner 02:07
He’s righty.
Joey Myers 02:09
Okay, cool. Well, hey, I wanted to get you on the on the other side of the screen here and wanted to talk about making bat tee adjustments. So that we could go into the hitting side we could go into the strategy side we can go into any different things. So, what do adjustments mean to you when it comes to talking to your hitters?
What do bat tee adjustments mean to you when it comes to talking to your hitters?
Taylor Gardner 02:30
The adjustment is, must be understood and adjustment is something if a hitter is already attempting to be on time, it’s really hard to make adjustments if you’re not in the time window to start with. If you’re going up there to hit and you’re just purely reacting your adjustments are also reacting maybe even twice as long or twice as late as they should be.
Taylor Gardner 02:56
Within the understanding that people were syncing up release point we have the timing window of the pitch coming in. Maybe we’re sitting on fastball and all sudden we a pitcher throws a changeup, and whether you recognize the spin or the speed or the trajectory angle, whether an off-speed pitch, what do you do?
Taylor Gardner 03:15
Well, if your plan was there to help you your approach is there to help you not hurt you, so within your plan or approach if you’re on time for fastball, and oh no it’s an off-speed pitch. What do you do? Well, easy answer is, you don’t stop your swing. I know we get told a lot of wait, let that curveball get a lot deeper. Now we’re talking about changing depths and it’s really hard to change depths of timing on the fly. So as instead of being reactive to making your adjustment proactive and making your adjustment one thing that my baby down actually brought a bat here to show you…
Joey Myers 03:55
Use the baby as a bat…how cute she is.
Taylor Gardner 04:02
One thing that we see a lot with hitters. He was left-handed here. I do apologize. Is they’re sideways, they’re pretty lined up with a pitcher in some fashion bat tee stance, and then we start to ride and stride as they start to witness that. Okay, this ball isn’t a perfect fastball down the middle. What do I do? Well, we see them not only continue to take their head and posture to the ball, but you see a lot of hitters start turn in and sit with the ball.
Taylor Gardner 04:33
As opposed to going uh oh, I’m a little early, let me pull out and then have to release my arms and hands to hopefully start to see hitters actually sit with that ball. Then because, you sit, any movement takes time. And if the plane is correct, you’re on time for the pitchers fastest pitch and then if you’re making an adjustment is to bite. This is where a lot of young hitters especially they don’t do a good job of buying time.
Taylor Gardner 05:00
They end up staying on their backside and opening up too soon and all they have left is like it with their own risk. And yeah, you can hit a ball and do that, and you probably get on base and feel good about yourself. But the faster you know that speed starts to go up and level and the more drastic change of off speed, you get a 90 mile an hour fastball and 80-mph changeup. That’s a little different than facing a 75 mile an hour fastball and 70 mile change-up.
Taylor Gardner 05:27
As a pitcher supposed to extend those timelines, adjustments and variables, the hitters have to as well. The ability to be ready for the fastest pitch and also be able to buy time while staying in a good posture position on the ball is something that we see really good hitters do and you know, quite frankly, amateur hitters don’t do as well. Oh, sure at some level. Yeah, won’t be a good fastball hitter. Every great hitter is known to be a great fastball hitter.
Taylor Gardner 05:55
If you’re looking off speed looking for that, that slow curveball every fast ball is going to beat you. On the timeline you got to be prepared for the pitches, pitchers fastest pitch as the fastest timeline. Therefore, your plan is there to help. Yeah, he’s going to be perfect every time, well of course not, it’s baseball. It’s tough. But at least the plan was in place to help you be on time for fastball and buy time for off speed.
Taylor Gardner 06:23
For example, this last weekend, my nephew, faced his first knuckleballer. 13 years old didn’t know this pitcher had a knuckleball it wasn’t his main pitch, so you know first at bat I don’t know hit a fastball for double, second a bat gets a strike or two on him a ball or two and then all the sudden, whack! He hits a single, steals second base eventually gets to third base and the coach at third goes, “good job Maverick you know you really sat well in your legs on that change up”, he goes “wasn’t a changeup coach, it was knuckleball”. He goes, “Oh, when did you realize it was a knuckleball?” “After I hit it!”
Taylor Gardner 06:59
It reminded me that he took a good plan to the plate, ready for fastball he happened to adjust instinctively to this crazy knuckleball, but it was more about controlling this contact depth. I’m not quitting on my swing. Did he sit more in his legs, sure. Did he have a locked out-front leg? No. But he found a way to keep his spinal engine and posture on the ball. By the time he pulled the trigger. Sure, the ball got a little deeper, he barreled it up, he got a good hit out of it. At the end of the day, it didn’t fool him, this random pitch that he really has never seen, didn’t make him react and freeze.
Taylor Gardner 07:36
It didn’t make him react it to slow down and touch it, his reaction was to stay on the ball and give it a chance. And it sounds easy to do until you start seeing a pitch come flying at your body. For us older coaches that aren’t playing anymore, I think sometimes we forget that. There’s a little fear involved. And so, a good plan leads to good adjustments. And sometimes knowing how to get over that fear or filter out your situation really helps that plan starts to stick together better.
Taylor Gardner 07:57
And therefore, those bat tee adjustments really become valuable. As far as other types of adjustments. And that was one type of sitting in your legs, other types of adjustments. We’ve seen Mike Trout sit in his legs; we’ve also seen him bend over a little more at his waist a little side tilt. That’s another way of buying time. Adjustments to me, in our world is a place to buy time, every movement takes time. But unless you’re ready to line your posture up for the ball on time to begin with, adjustments are just going to slow you down. You’ve got to make sure those adjustments are there to help you not hurt you.
Joey Myers 08:48
Well, you said a couple bat tee things that would blow a couple people’s minds they were listening to this… number one is sitting on your backside and swinging from that position number one, and number two, that you don’t have to straighten out your front leg that you can keep that bent. And I love that and that’s something that I’ve learned from you and your brother and Matty, Matty Nokes that the legs really set direction like the lower half basically sets directional force, it does contribute to some of the power.
Joey Myers 09:16
And we’ve learned discussions on that over the last couple of years saying you know, probably between 20 and 30%, it probably contributes to the power of the overall power thing. But the idea that you can use your knees bending your knees at front knee to adjust to pitch height like those are bat tee adjustments that we can make that if you’re from a train of thought that says you have to straighten it you have to brace that leg out, right, I mean that’s really not… We’re trying to like you said buy time.
True or False: Hitters MUST straighten their front leg to be effective
Taylor Gardner 09:46
Right. Speaking while the bracing the front leg, the front leg can obviously we can see it YouTube it, Google it. Now of course you can hit with a straight front leg and even sitting in your legs may still turn out to be a brace straightening front leg, you still bend your knee and still walk and brace into that front knee.
Taylor Gardner 10:06
But I think a lot of times as coaches and instructors that usually come to… an issue that I’ve seen come around is their teaching to push the leg straight, as opposed to letting the hip pull the leg straight. Pitchers do a really good job of this, they don’t just land in their front leg and then push straight up. Is their vertical ground force? Of course, there is.
Taylor Gardner 10:29
Now in hitting though, there may be little more of that vertical into horizontal ground force, it sounds funny to say, but you’re not just going to push up away from the ball every time. Sure, could you get away with it, of course, and there’s nothing wrong if you are on time and you get the barrel to it, great job. But like you like to say Joey, if it happens too much to ignore, I’ll just start paying attention.
Joey Myers 10:52
Yeah, and on that note, that was the one big bat tee thing that I pulled from you, we’ve been friends for probably over 6, 7, 8 years now, was that idea of staying sideways and keeping that back foot from completely turning over. Like a lot of coaches will say pivot that back foot, pivot that back foot, and meaning, that back heel will turn towards home plate. And it’ll continue to keep rotating. And so, I think we’ve developed almost a generation or two of hitters that are over rotating the lower half.
Joey Myers 11:23
And you say, using Matt Nokes’s lingo is stay sideways, stay sideways, I think is a great one. And to your point, or to our point that it happens too much to ignore, and you can’t just write it off. Some of our buddies in the past have said well, that hitter can do that because he XYZ that hitter can do that because it’s… no it happens if you take the top 100 hitters, 50 hitters, you’ll see half of them stay sideways and maybe the other half, get to this neutral with it. So that happens a little bit too often to be ignored.
Taylor Gardner 11:57
For anyone that’s listening, if you’ve ever played golf and if you haven’t fine taken a baseball bat take it slow, practice golf swing, go YouTube, Rory McElroy, Tiger Woods, anyone you want. Golfers have figured out how to stay sideways with their back foot. Now, their balls on the ground and it’s generally between them. Like ball being on a bat tee for hitters. They’re more allowed to buy but positions of contact with golf. However, you’re going to see baseball players do it too. But since the contact point in baseball can be further out front. Sure, you’re going to see that that back foot rotates a little more before contact. I get that told a lot. “Well, look at this hitter.”
Taylor Gardner 12:33
Yes, but look what happened the first 80% of his swing before contact, he was still sideways, he was still… now was he turning his shoulders, was he loading his core, the spiral engine. Sure, but the back foot was still sideways to hit, the back foot ends up becoming a bit of a rudder. I won’t even take that too literal. But you wouldn’t start with your back foot facing the catcher, you wouldn’t face with your back foot facing the pitcher. There’s a reason, it’s a natural position for the body.
Taylor Gardner 13:05
The ball is thrown in front of us and quite honestly, ball comes in and it is in front and to the side of us. If you’ve ever swung an axe, it makes sense to shift your weight and leverage up. That’s why we want to have a little more shift, not only for taking your head to the ball and be able to judge depth before moving very good and feeling your depth and putting a nice sense to it.
Taylor Gardner 13:34
But at the same time spinning against my back foot. Step on my dog… [laughs] spinning too soon. Now the ball is essentially to the side and behind us. Not that you can’t hit from here we opened up too soon. My swing’s wanting to go this way, I crossed my face this way, we want to cross our face into contact with the ball. Again, golfers understand this and their balls in front of them. They want to cross the face you don’t want to spin out and then cross their face too late that ends up turning into a slice and anyone who has played golf, probably vouch for that, my goodness I’m spinning off the ball. balls on never fixed.
Joey Myers 14:19
Well, and what I love the golf analogy is because in golf, you have a ridiculously small margin for error, you have we’re talking in hundreds of yards, not hundreds of feet and your little ball that’s got to get hit by this clubface and then the square center center contact with the clubface in the ball the straighter the ball is going to go. You can take that clubface and slightly like a couple of millimeters you can slightly pull it in like you’re going to hook it or slightly away like you’re going to slice it and those little, teeny millimeters by the end of that 200-yard journey is going to be way pull or slice.
Joey Myers 14:55
What I always tell my hitters, I say when we’re teaching this concept of staying sideways and keeping that back foot from over rotating is, we have to play almost like a golfer, where a golfer’s looking at one shot to the pin, I call it one degree of fair territory. And outside of that 359 degrees of foul territory, because in golf, the objective is the least number of strokes to get it in the hole. In baseball, of course, we have 90 degrees to play with, but we want to act like we’re doing like golf, we want to act like there is a smaller margin, and we have to operate within that smaller bat tee margin, right?
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What if hitters used a more precision bat tee approach like golfers when operating between 90-degrees?
Taylor Gardner 15:29
Along those lines, that it’s incredible you say that because the whole outside pitches, let it get deep, inside pitchers you’re magically allowed to pull for some reason, we’re talking about different depths there. Where in golf, obviously, the ball’s not moving, but to their benefit, they’re more precise, they have time to get their stance set up, time to adjust their face angle. So yes, maybe we don’t have that luxury in baseball, but we do have the luxury of knowing our contact depth.
Taylor Gardner 15:58
Do I like hitting the ball more? You know, some hitters like hitting the ball more off their front hip, some even further out front, some like hitting it a little deeper, more or middle of the other ball, whatever it is that you are super comfortable. That’s your decision. That’s what you’re going to battle with the best. And, again, based on your timeline. I have a lot of young hitters, and we constantly have to work on reminding them. Where is your preferred contact?
Taylor Gardner 16:29
And not to make them look like robots, but you’ll see them when uh, I don’t know, maybe like right there or up here. It’s like, Oh, you got to know, if you don’t know, you’re guessing, like your close, good job of being on time. We want to be on time with our contact point. This is a lot more precise. And as you know, aim small miss small, it’s may not always show up in baseball, maybe you had a day where you didn’t hit well. But you know what my plan was good. My adjustments were sound. And maybe I was just a little early or tad late, whatever that may be over under the ball.
Taylor Gardner 17:06
But you can sleep well at night knowing, man I had it at 99% today. And you don’t realize how much you haven’t figured out. You start thinking about more precision, besides movements. And then suddenly you go out three years ago, I was going to battle with a 50%. efficiency. That shocks a lot of hitters and I really do think a lot of good college players get to pro ball and maybe it doesn’t pan out for whatever reason.
Taylor Gardner 17:32
I think a lot of them whether they can say it or not verbiage that happens to a lot of if they get exposed, we get told at every level of baseball, you better swing faster Jerry, you better figure out how to get that faster pitching, you better, have quicker hands, whatever. Of course, we must make those adjustments because we’re being exposed. What if we got ahead of that being exposed?
Taylor Gardner 17:56
I don’t know if you saw the video that I posted on the baseball Illuminati page. I was actually crow hopping of doing run and guns, a nine-year-old ballplayer shuffle stepping out 25 feet in front of them throwing the ball 60-mph our reaction time stupid fast. So never seen anything that fast in their lives. As far as timing wise. And you know what he did? It took him a bit. He filtered it out. He figured out when to go when to shift, how to track the ball.
Taylor Gardner 18:26
And yeah, that ball was getting to him quicker than any pitch he’s ever going to see in baseball. And he started barreling balls up. Our brain’s a supercomputer y’all know that problem is if that supercomputer is putting in the wrong formula, it’s still going to, there’s still going to be a glitch. You still have to help it out.
Joey Myers 18:44
Shoot, I’d even go another step with the wrong formula and just saying that it’s becoming impossible, or you hear that from coaches? Well, that’s impossible, that’s not going to happen, or that’s not reality, or it’s not going to happen. And instead of saying that something’s not possible, why not ask why? or How can it be possible, right? We’ve talked about the front arm shape and trying to get that thing extended out. Whereas everybody in their mother seems to teach this bent front arm, right.
Joey Myers 19:13
The question that I always get when I put that post out there, people will go well, you know, I’ve tried to test it out and beer league softball and works there, but it doesn’t work in the big leagues and whatnot. And if you go way back, Joe DiMaggio and Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, all those guys locked out. So instead of saying, oh, that doesn’t work, today’s pitchers throw too hard and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Why not ask how can we make that work? Yes. How does that work? Right?
Instead of writing off the arm bar as it doesn’t work, why not ask how can it work?
Taylor Gardner 19:42
What if we made 90 miles an hour feel slower? Nothing’s any easier to hit. But what if? What if it wasn’t impossible. And clearly, it’s not, people do it every day. It’s not impossible. I’d like to say maybe the way we’re rationalizing it and maybe even practicing. Maybe we’re not doing our own job as a baseball coach, making, maybe it’s 75 miles. Now, if you’re struggling, maybe that’s what it is, whatever it is get ahead of that curve, not that you’re going to just start jacking home runs. But don’t be late. There’s no excuse for being late. There’s no excuse for not filtering out and understanding your environment.
Taylor Gardner 20:19
Maybe you don’t get to face a live picture every day or practice, that’s fair. I’m sure you have your work cut out for ya. But there’s no reason to get your doors blown off, when you have all of the potential to be as early as you want. Once you’re late, once the ball gets behind your timeline, and it gets behind your back. Pitcher starts in front of us. We as hitters, let ourselves be late. Maybe because we’re trying to do some crazy swing, like, oh, let it get deep and snap it or something, I don’t know.
Taylor Gardner 20:50
But whatever it may be, again, kind of back to the approach and those adjustments. Got to clean that up. And maybe you got to study more time. Maybe you got to study more spinal engine springy fascia and figure out where to get your running position. To your arm bar point… I think a lot of… uh oh, we have a wandering baby…
Joey Myers 21:13
Wait till she starts walking…
Taylor Gardner 21:15
I know I can’t wait! I understand folding your levers and engaging muscles, getting correct shapes. That makes sense. But when you see arm bar, and it starts to walk out, or to do slow motion. Yeah, looks funky in slow motion to arm bar. When you engage the body and it starts out, it starts to feel a little more natural golfers do the same thing. Luckily for us that in golf, you get to start with it extended and just connected to your body from there.
Taylor Gardner 21:55
But this bat is heavy, I completely understand why people want to hold it close to their body, it is rational. And it’s still close to the body. It’s not like we’re arm barring out here. If you’re still arm barring across our core, this bat is behind you, want lag and you want leverage, leverage, and just loose and lever sometimes, your hands are so close to your body. And even so close this way to the middle of your body. By the time you do a swing, yeah, you’re getting the barrel off your foot. And it may be a strong position depending upon position.
Taylor Gardner 22:34
But if I never got the benefit of the lag, and a clearing, and time to speed up the bat, it takes time to speed up the bat. This is not an instantaneous thing. I know this swing only takes like point two seconds; I get it. That’s slow through the world of everything happening, there is plenty of time and so that hand, grips on the bat. For most people they’re bottom hand is the weaker hand. Not doing anything left-handed if I have to. But you want your dominant arm to do his job.
Taylor Gardner 23:09
Not that you have to do it all with a dominant arm. But you certainly don’t want your weaker arm to be your dominant arm. Now, how do you get them in position? Well, as you get a swing, if it happens to lock out, you’re getting the benefit of lag and leverage. How is that wrong? If I understand timing, if I understand off your positions and swing plane. And armbar is nothing in the scheme of arguments. I’m linked into the lever. If I do it correctly, then of course, I have more leverage and more bat speed.
Taylor Gardner 23:42
But bat speed takes time. And so, when I see a lot of kids, they start here and the lever pull even more on their hands get across the face really soon, elbows way behind their hand and not even close to be slotted. And next thing you know, you’re chopping down or they slice it, and more important, their swing radius and swing arc may only go so far. Versus if I clear, I can get a further reach. And it’d be right within my wheelhouse of comfortability.
Joey Myers 24:13
If we go back to your contact points, right, knowing what your contact points are. When we work with our hitters on what we call our horizontal approach, or our line-to-line approach. Being able to hit the ball the other way, pull it, and go up the middle things like that. We talked about that there are two main things to be aware of… one is what you’ve already said is your contact point. But number two is when that barrel enters the hitting zone.
Joey Myers 24:38
And it’s going to be different for we call middle in and middle away. It’s going to be different. So middle away and middle down. That snapping early getting the barrel in the zone early makes sense. It’s a great middle down of the strike zone middle away approach. But when it comes to middle in the middle up, it doesn’t make sense, and I use those bad cues that I thought were bad about four years ago. Swing down, barrel above the ball, we do use those but only for middle in, middle up.
Is there ever a time when ‘swing down’ or ‘barrel above the hands’ cues can work?
Taylor Gardner 25:05
But right. Speaking along those lines… Yes, have you ever had a kid trying out a new baseball bat and Oh man, he’s struggling with the weight or it was too long for him. But that’s some of the stuff you’ve been told, just remember that when this bat is laying horizontal, is heavier, as far as where the balance is. There’s a reason we stack the barrel. And there’s a reason we hold this bat up, you can hold it with one finger.
Taylor Gardner 25:34
That’s how life, if you will, work how to control the bat, Matt Nokes talks about this, why, the barrel above the hands, it’s taken me a while, the feel can be down, in fact there is a down move in the swing, hold your posture. It’s called your head. The balls is below you. Yes, we want to swing on plane. Of course. But how you get to that barrel entering the zone. And before it starts that actual upswing? That is paramount.
Taylor Gardner 26:07
That also was still wrong with the down early method. Yeah, you’ve got there. But did you give up timing, to get to position at contact. Did you give up adjustments, because your only move is to get there. If you were able to just keep your hands and be ready for that high and inside pitch, as Perry husband would say we get to focus on EV tunnels.
Taylor Gardner 26:34
If I’m ready for that, then great. And then I can always adjust if I need to. Wait adjustment patterns, that kind of dynamic plan. Not everyone would agree with me on this, but just from a third party perspective, if the high and inside pitch is the ball that we have to get the barrel out there quickest to, it makes sense to me to be on time with that and adjust down and away with that, because you have more time or space, ball is further away from me to do so, obviously, you get in the baseball stuffs like, well, if you’re looking middle middle, and then that gets tougher if you’re looking away if you’re looking wherever.
Taylor Gardner 27:19
I don’t want to get into the approach part of it. But it just makes sense to me that you can practice, play around practicing with looking high and in, get that pitch locked in, and then we’ll work it down to middle middle, get that adjustment pattern locked in. Maybe for some people, it’s not so much that they have to change their approach, maybe they just need to be comfortable getting to all these pitches vertically, you might not have to worry about what my timing is good, I’m swinging at the right pitches, just getting jammed a lot on high.
Taylor Gardner 27:51
Well, maybe it’s just because you’re dumping your barrel too soon. It’s okay, you got to find where that issue is, and not fight it. But again, let your plan help you get there. The barrel above the hands is a great plan. It helps me already be ready for that movement pattern… sure, maybe you get to that pitch well maybe you’re facing speeds you can handle and you’re struggling with low and away. So maybe you do have to think about releasing that barrel sooner. Okay, nothing wrong with that.
Taylor Gardner 28:23
I would give everyone hesitation to just go out and put out a YouTube video saying this is the one and only way, of course it’s not. But we must understand all of it so that when you hear someone say something, to filter through what they’re saying, you’ll see why he’s doing it, that makes sense. When you come out and some of these instructors say just one swing plane for every pitch. And if I just wait longer than I can see it longer. We know that’s not exactly be true. Eyes don’t see the ball much longer just because we’re not swinging.
If one of the best, Mike Trout, is giving up 20-mph of ball exit speed, how much do mere mortals give up doing the same thing?
Joey Myers 28:56
Well and what’s also interesting is what the actual hitting operating system is when you can watch somebody, when you have been around the block and you’ve seen a lot of these different teachings, you can see what their main operating system is. And I know you and I were similar in this and we want to maintain high ball exit speeds.
Joey Myers 29:16
When you get a hitting guy that’s talking about a certain thing like hey, we need to get that at high and inside pitch with the bend in the front arm we need to get there, well we know that Perry Husband said Mike Trout, one of the best in the world will go down is one of the best top five probably, ever top five top 10 and down and away average ball exit speed is 101 miles an hour, not his top out but his average. And that’s where he’s locked out with that elbow at contact.
Joey Myers 29:45
And then at up and in, he’s reduced to a high school baseball player at 80 to 83 miles an hour. So he’s losing almost around 20 miles an hour ball exit speed that’s 80 feet. That’s 80 feet of batted ball distance that he’s giving up by looking away and adjusting in. Well, some people go well, that’s fine. But here’s the deal. And this is what I tell my players I say, Mike Trout is a once in a lifetime player. He’s just one of those people that we will look back on when he’s done with his career. And we will say he’s one of the best. One of the best ever is giving up 20 miles an hour ball exit speed.
Joey Myers 29:50
20 miles an hour.
Joey Myers 30:24
You know what the amateurs are probably giving up. 30-35 miles an hour ball exit speed? He’s one of the best he can get away with it. You’re going to be given up a lot more.
Taylor Gardner 30:34
Yeah. I can’t remember if it was you or someone else had brought to my attention. It was before COVID happened. I think it was the baseball season before. And they asked, who hit their highest exit speed most often? Try and word that correctly. And I was like, Oh, I don’t know. And there’s Jose Altuve. And Aaron Judge. I was like, oh, okay, wow, two different types of hitter’s sizes body length. They said, Oh, you know how often they hit their hardest exit speeds?
Taylor Gardner 31:06
And at first, I’m like, Oh, these big leaguers? Oh, man, I bet 20% of their hits or they’re popping out near their top exit speeds. It was less than 2%. Wow, less than 2% of all of their hits, on miss hits in the realm of hitting is as hard as you can. What does that mean, though? Does that mean maybe they’re slowing their swing down and touching the ball? No, I don’t think so. And in my opinion, obviously get fooled on some pitches. Okay, fine.
Taylor Gardner 31:33
But I think most of their base hits that they reported, I think their miss hits are that powerful. And once you start to realize that homeruns are the best result, okay, but maybe your best result is a hard line shot, single or double, whatever. However hard you get whatever type of hit is your hardest hit, which for most people is a low launch angle, I dunno, maybe 0-5, maybe 10 degrees. And then that makes sense. Balls coming down about 5, 7, 8 degrees.
Taylor Gardner 32:03
And you can imagine that plane, you’re going to give up exit speed when you raise or lower your launch angle. And I see a lot of people don’t understand that. Oh, no. My hardest hits home runs. Not exactly. I want to say the highest ball ever recorded was a ground ball. Double play. It’s okay. It’s okay that if your exit speed fluctuates, based on how well you struck that ball for a single, double, triple based on how high or low you hit it, that’s fine. And you want to start tightening those windows up.
Taylor Gardner 32:33
But Backspin tee, you know Taylor, Joey, you can’t control your launch angles, not saying you can control your launch angles. It’s just like I’m not saying you can even hit why I’m saying though, is you can work on the precision of contact and work on your precision posture and swing plane. And when it lines up, you smoke a ball at the pitcher’s head, you did your job. And when the next at-bat, it probably feels the same and you hit a homerun, guess what you did your job. You hit the ball far. But more importantly, your plan gave you the ability to fall as hard as potentially could that swing.
Taylor Gardner 33:08
And that’s Oh man, how many young kids have you seen? You throw them one change-up… They’re crushing balls… you throw them one change up. And then the next 10 swings are crap. They just can’t find it… it just ruins their world. It’s like, oh, man, you got to filter that out. Trust the plan and get to the next pitch. It’s okay.
Joey Myers 33:29
Yeah, exactly. That’s crazy. Yeah, that’s a good one to end on. And that’s another call for another day. I want to be respectful of your time because you’ve got a little one that’s down there. And she’s been great. By the way.
Taylor Gardner 33:40
She’s sleeping now.
Joey Myers 33:41
She’s asleep. Yeah, she’s asleep. I’m talking too loudly. I’m talking to you loudly. But hey, I want to let you get back to the baby and get back to the family. hopefully get some sleep. Maybe she’ll take take a nap with her. But hey, where can people find you? socials, website, any kind of deals that you got going on right now? Go ahead. And…
Where can people find more about you guys?
Taylor Gardner 34:04
Yes, so find us on Google backspin bat tee to find backspintee.com, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, we have a 20% off code at the moment. If you use the code BATBROS. For those of you that follow the baseball bat pros, I’m very good friends with them. They are great people Bill Taylor and them and they’re amazing people. But you’re also going to find our bat tee in Dick’s Sporting Goods here soon. So be on the lookout.
Taylor Gardner 34:28
Hopefully, Academy is a follow that as well for those that maybe that’s closer to here. And we’re trying hard to get Mark word shields and some other big retail stores. But the Dick’s Sporting Goods we’re shipping that out here in a couple days. Extremely excited to make that next jump to the big retail because we’ve done so well on the individual bat tee sale and it’s time to make that move.
Joey Myers 34:50
Yeah, congratulations, buddy. I’ve been with you for a lot of this bat tee journey. I think we jumped on probably we start building our relationship maybe your second year I think you guys are. So, so I’m just excited for you guys. And I know you guys have been just like all of us been through our ups and downs and stuff and it sounds like you guys are starting to starting to rise again. So yeah,
Taylor Gardner 35:12
Yeah, it all started with Joey Myers experiment video, my bat tee versus the other tee, and we didn’t know each other so you have to watch that video.
Joey Myers 35:20
Again. See how they turned out? Yeah, it was in a very bias thing, I was probably, we had run into each other a couple times. We talked on the phone maybe once or twice and I was like, you know what, let’s try this out. Let’s do a bat tee experiment on it. I think it turned out well for you guys.
Taylor Gardner 35:34
Yeah, I think well back to the precision of contact, just changing that visual. You had a more funnel effect with the Backspin Bat Tee, and with the traditional tee, it was a little more scattered and it just makes you wonder, not promoting my bat tee over another tee… Tee just are you working on your precision and in your vision obviously has a lot to do with that so, pick up a Backspin Bat Tee, give it a shot, if you don’t like don’t like it, then I’ll give you your money back. Yeah, definitely.
Joey Myers 36:01
Right. Then percent off and you get 20% BATBROS. B-A-T-B-R-O-S, and that’s all caps, correct? Cool. All right, brother. Well, thanks. Keep up the good bat tee work. Congrats on everything and congrats on the little girl. My first time seeing her.
Taylor Gardner 36:13
Thank you bud.
Joey Myers 36:14
Alright brother. Take care of yourself.
Taylor Gardner 36:16
Have a good one.
Joey Myers 36:17
Have a good Easter.
Taylor Gardner 36:18
Thank you.
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"Swing Smarter: Science Based Hitting Training Built To Understand How, Why, & Reasoning Behind It"
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/bat-tee-e1617902685923.png281500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2021-04-08 17:31:572021-04-08 18:14:29Bat Tee Co-Founder: How To Make Adjustments [VIDEO]
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?
Discover how to teach a kid to increase baseball or softball (fast-pitch and slow-pitch) hitting power and bat speed with LESS hip rotation batting drills. PLEASE NOTE: power isn’t ALL in the hips as some may say. After exploring this post, you’ll see why we feel ‘load and explode the hips’ or ‘fire the hips’ cues are overplayed, doing more harm than good.
“What Baseball Batting Drills Work To Stop Dipping Back Shoulder?”
Fascia is like a cotton candy or spider webby like material that our bones and muscles float in. Photo courtesy: Thomas Myers in his book Anatomy Trains
PLEASE NOTE: this baseball batting drills post presupposes the hitter is getting an extreme barrel vertical angle at impact. In other words, they’re intersecting the pitch plane from down to up. Dipping the back shoulder is inevitable…this blog post goes into fixing extreme uppercut cases.
In this baseball batting drills video, we answer the reader question above. We go over:
Watch Josh Donaldson drop hands, then bring back up. Also, notice downhill shoulder angle, and him leading with back armpit in the last frame. Photo courtesy: YouTube users PicPlayHost & PastimeAthletics
Here is a baseball batting drills list of faults I find that CAN contribute to upper cutting:
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!!
#1 would be a hitter having a flat bat, or close to flat, at stride landing. This shifts the bat’s center of mass behind the hitter (instead of above).
#2 can exist on any pitch height or just pitches down in the zone. The hands don’t travel down, then forward. They travel down AND forward. Think of hand path like a right triangle – we want hypotenuse. The higher the pitch, the flatter the hypotenuse. The lower the pitch, the steeper the hypotenuse.
An upward shoulder angle at landing, #3, will most likely result in uppercutting and/or a collapsing of the backside.
#4, racing back elbow causes the barrel to get really steep early in the hitting zone, which leads to a lot of weak fly balls to the opposite field. AND, because of the steep vertical angle of the barrel, a significant roll over correction will happen later in the barrel’s path, resulting in grounders to the hitter’s pull side.
About #5, if the front elbow gets caught ‘tucked in’ at landing (elbow pointing down at the ground), then an uppercut will most likely happen. And this ‘tucking’ will happen most likely because of #6, too steep of a shoulder angle.
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/2016/03/How-To-Increase-Baseball-Softball-Hitting-Power-Bat-Speed.png423800Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2016-03-25 03:40:472023-05-06 02:50:35How To Teach A Kid To Increase Baseball Or Softball Hitting Power & Bat Speed With LESS Hip Rotation Batting Drills
. The following quote may shed additional light on “educating the hands” to combat arm barring…
), give extra time, see pitches easier, slow down fast stuff and speed up slow stuff…allows Trout to cover A LOT of pitches with same timing, as a pitcher you’re more likely to get away with hanging off speed or breaking stuff up in the zone than a fastball down and/or away,
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