Find the best fascia strength training program for baseball and softball hitters to improve power. Works for pitchers too! See how you can do these workouts and exercises for 11 and 12 year olds at home and in the off-season.
4 Tips On How To Train Springy Fascia
I frequently get questions on how to train springy fascia. The following 4 tips from Tom Myers, author of the book Anatomy Trains, will help shed light on how to do just that. The following videos are NO MORE THAN 2-mins long each. Enjoy!
Tip #1: Varying Vectors
Includes tendons, ligaments, and fascial fabric of the body…not the same as training muscles and nerves.
Vary the vectors – difference between working on gym machines v. Rope systems, throwing things, etc.
Machines are good for rehabbing muscles, but don’t prepare you for life’s movement challenges.
How does this apply to hitters?
How to train springy fascia. Image is of fascia stretching. Photo courtesy: Tom Myers Anatomy Trains YouTube
Functional training in the weight room is great for this. Squatting, lunging, hip hinging, twisting, rolling, crawling, single leg hopping, single arm pressing, horizontal pushing, vertical pushing, horizontal pulling, vertical pulling.
Training on different planes: Sagittal, Frontal, and Transverse. Some of the best environments for varying training vectors are Parkour, American Ninja Warrior, Gymnastics, Martial Arts, Dance, Rock Climbing, Yoga, and Pilates.
A quick tip for training this when hitting would be to do the reverse strike zone drill, where the hitter has to swing at pitches outside the strike zone, and take anything in the zone.
If trying to lengthen fascia, then to be safe, lengthen slowly. Slow sustained stretching like you’d find in Yoga, this avoids damaging the fascia.
Fascia isn’t well vasculated, meaning blood doesn’t move to and through fascia very well, so repair of fascial tears takes a lot of time to heal. Muscles regenerate after 90-days, but ligaments can take over 200-days!!
If you want to stretch the fascia, then think Yoga or Tai Chi speeds. NOT athletic speeds.
How does this apply to hitters?
Studies show today’s athletes are sitting 80% of their day, so again, Gymnastics, Martial Arts, Dance, and Rock Climbing are great counter-balancers to this reality. Long slow stretching in the mid-split, front split, and stretching associated with handstand work are great for young athletes spending a lot of time with their bottom on a seat, and spilling their brain out on mobile devices developing “text neck”.
Tip #3: Hydration
Most important that fascia gets hydrated…did you know your Achilles tendon is 63% water?
Hydrating fascia IS NOT necessarily about how many bottles of water you drink.
The question is, does water get to specific bottle-necked areas of fascial fabric in the body, such as the Achilles tendon. Hydration matters – where the water you drink gets to.
“Squeezing the sponge” – big muscular effort helps this, Fascial rolling using a Self-Myofascial Release tool (SMR), self or professional massage, Rolfing.
How does this apply to hitters?
A couple things…
Young athletes MUST drink water, how much? According to world renowned strength and conditioning Coach Charles Poliquin, take half their body-weight, add 30%, and drink that in ounces. A 100-lb player for example, 100-lbs/2 = 50 X 30% = 15 + the halved 50 = 65-ounces of water throughout the day (that’s about FIVE 12-ounce bottles of water).
CLICK HERE for a SMR foam rolling routine video I did a few years back.
Tip #4: Elasticity (Bounce)
Stretch-shortening cycle – we stretch out the muscle to get it to contract (shorten). Fascia works the same way.
We can encourage and cultivate elasticity in fascia. Elasticity is a property of youthful tissue. If baby falls down stairs, they bounce. Grandma falls down stairs, she doesn’t bounce.
Ballistic stretching. Rhythmic motions such as running, jogging, jumping rope, etc…cultivate “bounce” within a 0.8 to 1.2 second stretch-shortening cycle. This is the opposite of Yoga and Tai Chi speeds.
How does this apply to hitters?
If you want the fascia to perform, then we have to do rhythmically bouncy movements where the stretch-shortening cycle lasts between 0.8 to 1.2 seconds. Running, jump rope, jogging, skipping, single leg hopping, etc.
I’m beginning to sharpen my thoughts on this as it pertains to the Catapult Loading System. I used to teach the hitter had an option to start in the CLS position, in the stance like Hunter Pence, then hold and maintain until stride landing. But now I’m reconditioning my hitters to do a later CLS move (during the forward momentum phase), and to bounce from that into the turn. Miggy, Trout, Khris Davis are great examples of this. As a matter of fact, most elite hitters you see using the CLS, time the move with a bounce into the turn.
What’s funny is, this post has been “bouncing” around in my head the past week (pun intended), and speak of the devil, my good golfing friend Lee Comeaux recently text me a new-to-me resource for training springy fascia. It’s called the Rotex Motion(YouTube channel). Some cool stuff there!
'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/2018/10/how-to-train-springy-fascia-e1539637937726.png335500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-06-07 09:30:382022-06-07 21:31:55Best Youth Fascia Strength Training Program For Baseball & Softball Hitters To Improve Power, Pitchers Too! | At Home Off-Season Workouts And Exercises For 11 & 12 Year Olds
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.
Click the button below to access the FREE video that's been downloaded over 30K times!!
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
At about the 1-minute mark, question: how do I get my son to stop hitting ground-balls OR how do I get my son to stop uppercutting? What drills and mechanics? What’s most essential get barrel on plane of the pitch. If hitting too many ground-balls, then tell hitter to swing up. If hitting too many popups, then tell hitter to swing down. Perry talks about ground-balls most likely indicate being too early, and fly balls swinging too late. Take BP round, up solid, down solid, then find the middle solid. Matching feel and real, set up targets at distances on the field, like at a driving range in golf, and have hitter hit different target distance…hit a one-hopper v. 3-hopper v. 5-hopper v. NO hopper. Now coach can cue that to correct extreme barrel angles. Hitter can feel it but not see it, while coach can see it but not feel it. Match real and feel.
At about the 7-minute, 30-secs mark, Carlos Pena really struggled on the up and in part of the strike zone (in 2009), what did Perry do to fix that…part was physical: he was really bent over at the waist (was at a 50-degree hip hinge – straightened him up a bit), the other part was approach: INTENTION…hunting up and in, trust ball flight to get what the reality is, using Bernstein’s Law of intent to change ball flight
At about the 12-minute mark, Joey Votto trying to cut down on strikeouts and wanting to match the pitch plane to give up some homers, Votto talked about how Mike Trout could put the ball anywhere on the field you asked him, don’t be obsessed with Launch Angles – gotta take care of the horizontals too, Ben Hogan willing changes to happen, Perry talked about demonstration of holding paper clip tied to a string, and paper clip starts spinning in a circle if you think it, control knobs in fingertips, intent is great but may be limited to physical ability, on Votto’s 2-strike approach changes – missing more balls he should’ve driven because he puts more emphasis on weighting the backside
At about 17-minute mark, if hitter swings up and is late, they’ll hit a lot of grounders, how to develop feel for things, swinging different sized and weighted bats (end loaded, balanced, and knob weighted), hitting different sized and weighted of balls, swinging at different points in the zone, hitting targets on the field at different depths, Make It Stick by Peter C. Brown on the power of variance, the Bean Bag study and the 2 bucket challenge, building multiple reference points, Perry played game with hitters in the cage, based on his 10-degree Launch Angle target in the cage 1-5 point scale, only get 10 balls (minimize 1’s and 2’s) – once they think about getting a 5, hitting the 3’s and 4’s are easier…intention: focus on ball flight
At about the 25-minute mark, Aaron Miles and our phone conversation about quality v. quantity swings, screwed up a bunt in game and next day cranked machine up to 95-mph on the field before game and bunted, Miles went on a tear after that, quantity reps are great but they better be quality reps, Aaron Miles coaches indy team in NorCal and says he’ll take a hitter who can hit 40 line drives out of 50 versus only 20, CLICK HERE for Perry’s launch angle tee test chart, I do similar test to get a ballpark of where the hitter is at – before lesson I have tee setup middle-middle and let them take 5 or so swings and make note of where they’re hitting the ball vertically and horizontally, if it’s measureable, then it’s manageable – even if you’re measuring distance (or eyeballing it)
At about the 33-minute, 30-secs mark, I asked Perry’s advice on the following comment from a 13yo hitter I received on one of my YouTube videos…
“I have been doing your catapult loading system method for hitting for about a month and a half now. I am the hitting ball harder than ever and it feels great. A coach yesterday, (while I was was hitting front toss at the beginning of practice) said that he thought I was rotating my shoulders too much and should keep a better posture in my swing. I got the hunch from your book. So I explained to him the catapult loading system method and he didn’t like it. He said it will cause me to pull off the ball and that no big leaguers do it. Then I named josh Donaldson, Aaron judge, and Andre mccutchen and said they all do it. He didn’t give me a really definitive answer after that. This coach uses the method of making a “positive move” towards the ball and “walking away from your hands” which I remember in your book you said is not what you teach. I am 13 and I was wondering how should I tell coaches about the catatpult loading system and why you don’t you like the “waking away from hands” method. I have had 3 coaches now comment on me showing the numbers and hiding the hands and they all said I won’t be able to hit faster pitching with it, but I have been smashing the faster pitchers (70-75 mph) and have done fine with it. Thx“
…Perry asks hitters whose swing do you have, put hitters in charge, our job is to eliminate our job, hitter tells coach “Thank you, I’m going to give it a shot”, takes time to make changes in swing, not going to happen overnight, this player is on the right track, listen, soak it in, let some things leak back out
At about 38-minute mark, comment on my blog from alphabet soup acronym expert bashing tee use (CLICK HERE for link to comment)…you can hit a curveball farther because it arrives with backspin (from hitter’s perspective) and bat-ball collision wouldn’t have to reverse spin like a fastball arriving with topspin, Perry talked about how much farther hitters hit a ball off the “hover-ball” tee when backspin is put on ball before hitting it, 211 players averaged over .400 hitting 100-mph+ ground-balls, type of spin hitter puts on batted ball ball IS NOT predetermined by starting spin from pitched ball.
At about 49-min mark, how batting tees (like the Backspin Tee) can be beneficial to hitters, doing “circle drill” pitch recognition using tee in ideal situation, the only bad thing about hitting off tees is turning the head to see ball hit bat, in reality the brain doesn’t every see this happen, anti-tee people would be a difficult thing to promote,
At about 53-minute, 30-secs mark, Perry shows swing analysis swing-and-miss example of Spring Training game, being late on the pitch and where the barrel is at certain point in time, line of ball is at 4-degrees – barrel path is at about 13-degrees, clearly not in line with line of ball, pitcher ended up throwing right into this guy’s barrel middle away after throwing 3-pitches by him – dinger! Target rich environment out there, most hitting approaches will work until pitchers go EV,
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
Grab 'Finger Pressure' Video
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/2019/03/Joey_Perry_Hitting_Jam_Session_4-e1552593244194.png282500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-06-06 09:00:172022-06-07 20:45:16STOP Chopping Hitting Ground Balls For Baseball Or Fastpitch Softball? Too Many Pop Flies? Want To Hit More Line Drives Instead? Try These Drills!
How Much Ball Exit Speed Does Lower Body Contribute To A High Level Swing?
In this baseball and softball video post, we’ll be looking at whether preloading upper body hitting torque or using lower half hip rotation contributes for more power. Check out this swing drills over rotating experiment…
Do you consider yourself an open minded coach? If not, then this post MAY NOT be for you.
Do you consider yourself a coach willing to try new movements before criticizing them? If not, then this post MAY NOT be for you.
Fair WARNING…this video will make most feel uneasy because it strikes at the heart of their teaching. I believe the quality of our lives and the success we experience in it, depends solely on the questions we’re willing to ask our-self.
In this video, the Backspin Tee Gardner Brothers (Taylor & Jarrett Interview here) did a small thought provoking swing experiment that looked at how much value the lower half contributes to the swing. Most popular hitting instructors treat the lower half like a JoBu shrine in the movie Major League. Don’t get me wrong, the lower half has a role, but I disagree on the importance most put on it.
Using the Scientific Method…
Question
Taylor Gardner doing a Jumping No Hips Swing
They looked at how much value (measured in Ball Exit Speed) the lower half contributes to the swing by restricting its movement.
Background Research
Taylor read my book The Catapult Loading System: How To Train 100-Pound Hitters To Consistently Drive The Ball 300-Feet, and it got him thinking about how much the lower half actually contributes to power compared to the shoulders? Earlier I mentioned how much the movement of the pelvis in the swing is worshiped by so many hitting coaches. “Fire the hips!” “Hip Thrust baby!” Sadly, the torsional forces are taken to the point of being unhealthy for a young hitter’s low back.
Consider what Charlie Weingroff, DPT, CSCS, a physical therapist and trainer in New York City said this:
“Only your thoracic spine (which consists of the 12 vertebrae in your upper and middle back) is designed to rotate significantly — about 40 degrees in each direction, according to Weingroff — when under compression. The lumbar spine (lower back) should rotate no more than about 12 degrees.”
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.
Let me give a clue, coaches want better separation, torque, lag, etc. in their hitters right? We see that a high level right handed hitter’s pelvis starts rotating counter-clockwise at the start of the turn, leaving the shoulders temporarily behind, this is the essence of “lag” or “torque”. But what coaches aren’t seeing is what’s happening before the ‘hips lead the way’? The compression and tension forces happening in the torso beforehand, to make that move possible.
If hitting coaches would do their homework on basic bio-mechanical locomotion and function of the spinal engine as a whole, then they’d find they’re missing 60-70% of the performance puzzle (as you’ll soon see), and quite possibly wearing a hole in the lower backs of their hitters.
I constantly see well intention coaches posting videos on Twitter of their young hitters savagely twisting the pelvis and low back (lumbar), in addition to the hyper-extension of the lower lumbar. Quite frankly, it’s painful to watch. CLICK HERE for an exercise to correct this.
Did you know there’s a much safer way to achieve those high BES numbers and more? Some books to get you started on the right track:
By the way, Dr. Serge Gracovetsky is a Physicist and Electrical Engineer. He said the Spinal Engine can operate in space without Gravitational Forces. His research shows arms and legs aren’t necessary for locomotion, they’re an improvement. Please read that sentence again because it’s important to understand locomotion.
Can explosive high level athletes perform without the aid of Gravitational Reaction Forces? Check out the following videos:
Derek Jeter makes jump throw…
Jeter is jumping up and away from his target, taking his momentum in the opposite direction of first base. This should put him at a disadvantage, but it doesn’t hurt him too much, as you can see.
Big air motocross freestyle jumps…
Notice how these athletes use the head to control their body. No Gravitational Reaction Forces to help here either. But man can these athletes put a big smile on your face while watching this video!
Don’t seek the footsteps of others, seek the footsteps they sought.
Hypothesis
The Gardner brothers thought this mini swing experiment would show more of a minimal role of the lower half in the swing, compared to the “lower half worshiping” hitting coaches out there.
'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!!
4 different hitters (Taylor – High School level hitter College Track & Field athlete, Jarrett – professional pitcher, Rookie in pro ball, home-run record holder at Div-1 college)
Took Full Swings prior to experiment swings (the Control group), so they could compare to when the lower half was restricted
Backspin Tee used on all swings (I know, shocker!)
Every one used the same metal bat, a Copperhead C405 34 inch, 30 ounce (-4)
Data Collected
Based on control swings, this graph shows average BES as % of the control swings, Highest BES as %, & Lowest BES as % of each of the four hitters. Photo courtesy: BackSpinTee.com
Graph shows top BES per hitter on control swings, when Stationary No Hips, when Jump Float No Hips, Falling Float No Hips, Lead Leg Only No Hips, and Avg. BES. Photo courtesy: BackSpinTee.com
Data Analysis & Conclusion
Small sample sizes can cause a lot of problems, so there definitely needs to be more data points to make a conclusive decision. However, with the data we have, the fact four different hitters participated on all swing experiments, in looking at the last graph, you can see that when the lower half was restricted, Ball Exit Speeds were around two-thirds of top exit velocity of control swings (normal swings). Think Jeter making his jump throw! So from this small sample size, we can say the lower half contributes about one-third to the Exit Speeds of these four hitters.
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the Comments section below. Be nice, be respectful.
'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/2017/12/backspin-tee-swing-experiment-e1513375051238.png296500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-05-23 09:00:322022-05-25 17:06:34Baseball & Softball Preloading Hitting Torque OR Use Lower Half Hip Rotation For Power? | Swing Drills Over Rotating Experiment
Now, this Jose Altuve hitting analysis post isn’t about the ‘laser show’…however,
Standing in at 5’6″,
…and weighing in at a soaking wet 165-pounds, we’ll look at Jose Altuve(his height and weight numbers are a little closer to reality I think).
Although,
I do think Jose Altuve has one thing over the ‘laser show’, and that’s dancing (parental guidance is recommended 😉:
In this Jose Altuve hitting analysis video, we’ll go over:
Jose Altuve stats,
Presents of Forward Momentum (FoMo)?
How well he dominates the plane of the pitch,
Where his power comes from, and
Does he practice Pitch Recognition?
FYI: the pitch Jose Altuve is hitting in the video analysis looks like an 87-mph FB straight down broadway, and it does look like he’s on-time.
Without further adieu, here are the notes for the…
Jose Altuve Hitting Analysis Stats (the averages of averages)
CLICK HERE for the FanGraphs.com post I pulled the following stats from*:
ISO = +20 points
BABIP = +34 points
GB% = +4%
LD% = +1%
FB% = -6%
HR/FB% = -3.5%
(*a (+) denotes how many points OR percentage points or above league average, and a (-) denotes below league average.)
Presents of Forward Momentum (FoMo)?
Is FoMo present?
Shifting foot pressure (mentioned landing with closed front foot), and
Moving Center of Gravity (COG).
How Well he Dominates the Plane of the Pitch
Knee Action – ‘getting shorter’ and ‘staying shorter’
Barrel Plane – keeping barrel on plane for as long as possible
Where his Power Comes from…
Showing numbers,
Hiding hands from the pitcher,
Hunch – Posterior Pelvic Tilt (PPT), and
Down shoulders? (not so much here).
Does he Practice Pitch Recognition?
My friend Aaron Miles, who was small (5’8″, 180-lbs), and played 9 years in the Bigs, talks about how his High School coach was forward thinking…in that he did Pitch Recognition training with his troops, and Aaron’s coach said he had the best PR on the team.
My hypothesis in this Jose Altuve hitting analysis is that he does some sort of PR training, OR has a God given early pitch recognition ability that allows him to hit the ball so hard, so often.
Sure, according to this Jose Altuve hitting analysis,
…Altuve may not hit over 30 homers per year, but he sure will hit a boat load of doubles, which is just as good to contributing to team wins…just look at his above average (average) ISO and BABIP scores above!
'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/2016/06/jose-altuve-hitting.jpg15802048Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-04-20 09:30:072022-04-20 20:48:36How To Increase Hitting Power Stats Like Jose Altuve Swing With Fundamental Baseball & Softball Drills In 2022
Mickey Mantle: How To Increase Batted Ball Distance When You’re Not Throwing A Javelin?
Check out Mickey Mantle’s bat lag. Photo courtesy: LegendaryAuctions.com
This post looks into Mickey Mantle’s left handed swing, hitting home runs. We do swing analysis, look at his height compared to current players, strength, and share a bleacher report article with his switch hitting left right split stats. We’ll also compare his swing principles to an Olympic Javelin thrower!
Since publishing the YouTube video, it has amassed over 148,241 views and 500 video “Likes”.
The basic premise of the above video is to compare Mickey Mantle’s right handed swing mechanics to Czech javelin thrower, Jan Železný’s throwing technique. Jan is a world and Olympic champion and world record holder. He also holds the top five javelin performances of all time…according to Wikipedia.
In the video, I brought up my favorite Ralph Waldo Emerson quote many of you have seen me post before:
“As to the 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.“
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And, some of The Mick’s dingers have been the talk of folklore, claiming to have traveled over 600-feet!
Although with the computation of Metrics now, as Christopher Harbour, a YouTube reader commenter on this particular video, put it:
“The farthest official home run in MLB history was hit by Babe Ruth in Detroit at a distance of 585ft. Mickey’s longest shot was 510Ft. It was often claimed to be much farther but that distance was the distance AFTER the ball rolled. This info is proven by SABR historian Bill Jenkinson.”
Whatever the case, it’s still amazing that a guy of Mickey Mantle’s stature, can hit a ball over 500-feet! We don’t see Giancarlo, Miggy, or Trout doing that.
And by the way, everyone thinks Babe Ruth was this hulking mass of a guy…he was only 6’2″, 215-pounds. And according to the above comment, launched the longest dinger 585-feet!
So what was Mickey Mantle doing mechanically making him so special that we as coaches should be teaching our younger hitters?
'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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Mickey Mantle on the Un-Weighting Principle (or Forward Momentum)
Look at Mickey Mantle’s shifting foot pressure… Photo courtesy: http://s685.photobucket.com/user/BillBurgess
I said in the video that The Mick’s back knee wasn’t floating over his ankle, but that’s simply not true. This was knowledge residue from past baseball experts I was listening to at the time.
What Mickey Mantle did really well was shifting his foot pressure.
We can see from the moment he lifts his stride foot to that foot touching down that his foot pressure looks like this:
Back foot pressure – is on the outside, and
Stride foot pressure – is on the inside.
This is similar to a story one of my readers, Stephen Reid, shared about prolific golfer Ben Hogan (5’9″, 145-pounds), saying in an email:
“A friend of mine worked at Shady Oaks in Dallas where Hogan played and practiced. Towards the end of Mr. Hogan’s time of ‘grinding it out of the dirt”, he was allowed the opportunity to sit and watch him hit balls. He said that Mr. Hogan started talking about the stance, and he stated that the way he thought it would come to pass in the future would be that both feet at address would both be turned slightly towards the target- 30 to 45 degrees. By turning the right foot in at address, the golfer would essentially be putting a governor on his/her right side.
He also reasoned that by doing this, the player would create the tension and brace with the right side and would create a strong coil that would not allow for any “over-coiling or over-swinging”. Therefore, you would be presetting the coil or brace of the right side in a controlled manner and would not allow oneself to overturn in the backswing. Conclusion was that the energy from a strong brace and controlled coil, the golfer would create greater energy in the release of the right side while creating greater swing speeds through impact.”
As Mickey Mantle’s stride foot lands the foot pressure shifts as follows:
Back foot pressure – moves to the inside, and
Stride foot pressure – moves to the outside.
Mickey Mantle is also most certainly picking up his stride foot and leading with his hip forward. Just pick out a point of reference in the background, and track how far his hip moves forward. He’s effectively ‘un-weighting’ his bat, or getting a “head start”, to make the transfer of linear momentum into angular (or rotational) easier.
And we can clearly see the Javelin Thrower, Jan Železný, using forward momentum sprinting down the track before slinging his “arrow” A LONG WAY.
The Catapult Loading System
The ‘Springy X Pattern’ I developed through reading the book Anatomy Trains by Thomas Myers. Watch the following FunctionalPatterns YouTube video of Thomas Myers talking about the concept of Tensegrity, or Tension Integrity:
It’s the idea that there are compression and tension forces acting within the body at all times. In the Mickey Mantle video, I talk about imagining a big ‘X’ on his chest and back…connecting one shoulder to the opposite hip. The fascial lines are a little more complicated than this, but let’s take a general look at how this works…
When Mickey Mantle pre-loads his torso – before turning – we see his lead shoulder come down and in towards his back hip (one leg of the ‘X’ shortens), while the rear shoulder and front hip move away from each other (other leg of the ‘X’ lengthens). And the reverse is true on the backside.
This is evidenced by tracking his LEFT shoulder:
Pre-loads DOWN before Final Turn,
Unloads UP during the Final Turn, and finally
Reverses DOWN during the follow through to decelerate rotation.
CLICK HERE for an interesting article titled “Muscle Power Golf?!…NOT!” by Kelvin Miyahira (big thanks to Stephen Lowe for the link). It talks about how the swing – whether we’re talking baseball/softball or golf – IS NOT about activating fast twitch muscle fibers, but engaging the springy fascia. It’s a rant that I wish I did FIRST!!
Other Interesting Resources from Mickey Mantle YouTube Viewer Comments & More
Gabriel Pennington – “Mantle’s massive strength came from blue collar work, swinging a sledgehammer in a lead mine (on top of freakish genetics). Couple that with the workman mentality of your best never being good enough and you have a lethal combination for an athlete.”
koryguns – “3.1 seconds to first. Legend has it when he was a rookie in 1951 they decided to have a foot race among the team. Mantle beat everybody like they were standing still, puked, and apologized to Stengel for being out of shape.“
Also, here’s slow motion video of his left handed swing…
'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!!
Discover how to use the legs when hitting a baseball or softball in the 2023 year. Does a powerful swing depend on footwork, hitting against a firm front side or a straightened front leg, front foot, or do the hips play a big role. Learn batting drills to optimizing legs ARE NOT what you may think…
Answered: “How To Get My Kid To Stop Rising And For Him To Utilize His Legs More During Batting?”
Here’s what we cover in the above video:
Legs DO NOT equal power – water polo example,
What is leg function in swing & Adjusting to pitch height,
Distance between the feet equal more control over line drives,
GRF’s but not as much as you think,
Buying time – back foot sideways, directional force, & pushing the “pause” button, and
How to utilize the legs in the swing?
Hey, what’s going on. It’s Joey Myers again from ‘Hitting Performance Lab’. In this video, we’re going to answer the following reader question:
“How to get my kid stop rising, and for him to utilize his legs more during batting?”
Now this is a question that comes either through a form, survey, or email or even from my local lessons. The coaches out there in the high schools tend to meddle a bit too much, subscribing to the hitting myth that: ‘it’s all about the legs’, or ‘you need to use your legs more’.
In this video, I want to talk about what that means, and what is the function of the legs…
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Legs are only 20-30% of the consistent power equation, and most of that is in the function of the pelvis. If you’re a coach and power is the deficiency in your hitter’s swing, then it’s the spinal engine you want to focus on. The Catapult Loading System is where 70-80% of consistent power is found. The best example I like to share can be found in water polo.
What is Leg Function in Swing & Adjusting to Pitch Height
Now a couple things, one is they help to adjust to pitch height. If you’re looking at hitters like Cody Bellinger of the Dodgers, Joc Pederson of the Dodgers, Corey Seager, looking at Anthony Rizzo of the Cubs or some of the past players like Adrian Beltre or Pedroia. When the pitch is down in the zone, you tend to see them bend their front knee to go down and get it. They tend to do that consistently on those pitches, those lower in the zone pitches, not locking out their front knee like many teach.
I’ve seen these same hitters Rizzo, Bellinger, I’ve seen them with a bent front knee hit balls 440 to 460 feet. So, locking out the front knee IS NOT all about power. So, this raises a question of, if you want a hitter to use their legs more often because you think it has to do with power, well that is just not true – that’s not what we’re seeing. So, adjusting to pitch height, and you can study the hitters discussed as examples.
Distance between the Feet Equal more Control over Line Drives
Distance between the feet, this is a big one, that we can use the legs or utilize the legs to allow hitters to hit more line drives. The problem happens when, say if we are teaching our hitters to skip their back foot that they end up skipping their feet too close together. Or it could be they don’t stride that much. They don’t skip at all and, so their feet tend to be closer together. What we want is what you see with the top 50, top 100 hitters in the big leagues….
You’re going to see distance between their feet. So, whether that is a longer stride and their front foot moves away from their back foot. Whether they don’t skip but they don’t stride as much, you still see that wideness of their feet. You see them scissor, you see different things like that, but what they all have in common, all the top hitters in the big leagues, is they have distance between their feet. When the feet come close together, it makes the hitter taller, which this reader is asking how to keep the hitter from “rising”. The taller the hitter gets, the more in the ground the ball is gonna get hit.
If the hitter knows better, and they try and get the ball in the air, even though they have narrow feet during their turn. Then they’re gonna do something unnatural with their hands to try and get under it, which we don’t want them to do either. Because that is going to cause uppercuts. It’s going to cause inconsistencies in their swing path.
GRF’s, but not as much as you think
I just mentioned that hitters don’t have to lock their front knee out for power. When you think about ground reaction forces (GRF’s), they DO play a role. I’m not taking away from ground reaction forces, or saying “Oh, well the legs don’t do anything in the swing”.
No, they do. It’s about a 20 to 30% increase in power by using the legs. Most of that though is in the pelvis, and the rest in the spinal engine. I tell my hitters that the spinal engine, their combination of your shoulders and how you use them. Neck, shoulders, and pelvis account for about 70 to 80% of the power. That gets you to the wall. The legs help get you over the wall. So, you do need the legs, and it’s like what Dr. Serge Gracovetsky, the author of the ‘Spinal Engine’ said, that locomotion, the arms and legs aren’t necessary for locomotion, they’re an enhancement, they help enhance movement of the spinal engine.
So, we’re not taking away from the legs, the use of the legs, and how they can benefit the swing. It’s just that they’re an enhancement to the spinal engine, the taller the player is, the longer the levers, the more the force multiplier at the end of that lever. So, guys like Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are gonna have longer levers, if they lengthen those levers at impact. When we’re talking about the front arm shape, they’re gonna hit the ball pound-for-pound, apples-to-apples swings farther than Jose Altuve with the locked out-front arm. It’s just because the longer limbs enhance more, they’re more of a force multiplier.
'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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Buying Time – Back Foot Sideways, Directional Force, & Pushing the “Pause” Button
Buying time. So, the lower half, the legs can help buy time. Jamie Cevallos in his book ‘Positional Hitting’ way back, I think it was in the early 2000’s or mid to late 2000’s. He talked about this idea of a ‘Cushion’. You’ll see a hitter especially, if they’re looking fastball, and they see a curve ball or changeup. You’ll see them actually bend, sink, or cushion into their knees. They use their knees by bending them to buy them a little bit of time to get on time a lot better. It’s pushing the ‘pause’ button.
The other thing we want to do to buy time, is keep the back foot sideways.
We talked about this idea of directional force, Matt Nokes, he says that to hit a ball 400 feet, it takes 8,000 pounds per square inch of force in one direction. In hitting, both in baseball and softball, we have 90 degrees to work with. The other 270 degrees is in foul territory, it doesn’t do a hitter any good or a team any good to play in that 270 degrees outside of a fair territory. We have to stay between the 90s, we have to stay between the lines. If you think about a bowler, every single professional bowler out there, “scissors” their legs.
I’m not saying that all hitters have to scissor. I just give my hitters that option. But if you think about bowlers, they bowl between a two-foot Lane. I don’t know if that’s correct or not, but it’s somewhere around that. They also put a spin on the ball, so if they over rotated their lower half, not keeping their back foot sideways, they’re over rotating their pelvis. Then what you would see is that ball bouncing into the outside lanes. Try scissoring your legs, then try and open your hips up more, and it’s almost impossible.
You want to make sure that we’re creating directional force, and that’s another thing the legs do. They help us stay between that 90 degrees, and use all 90 degrees effectively. That comes in handy at the higher levels when hitting to the opposite field is a lot more important, and when we see shifts. Most of the time, hitters are not very good about going the other way. You can see the hitters that do go the other way very well, their batting averages seem to be higher.
How do we Utilize the legs in the Swing?
Now again, if it’s power you want, this isn’t the place. You want to look at the Catapult Loading System, and harness the power of the spinal engine. If you want a majority of power, 70-80% of consistent power.
Getting Shorter, Staying Shorter
To properly utilize the legs in the swing, you want to look at getting shorter and staying shorter. You see most great hitters when you draw a line over their head before they stride, by the time they get to stride landing, you’re gonna see distance between where they started, and where their head is at stride landing. You’re gonna see what we call ‘Getting Shorter’.
Then as they swing, it’s almost like that bottom ladder rung they create at landing, they tend to stay under that line. What we do is, we could take a PVC pipe. We can put it at the start of the hitter swing, before they even stride…we can put it maybe at their nose or their chin, and we can have them practice getting the top of their head under that PVC pipe. As they swing, stay under that PVC pipe. I’ve also had my hitters get next to a piece of furniture that’s about the same height, then have them stride, and get their head to where, now they’re under the top of that, say dresser or whatever, or picture frame, could be anything around the house.
When they swing, do some slow motion swings, and they stay under that line. That’s a way to get shorter, stay shorter.
Okay to “bend the knee”
It’s okay to bend the knee, I also get my hitters to do this if necessary. We don’t really practice this, but I tell them it’s okay to bend the knee, if the pitch is down in the zone.
Distance between the feet
Also working distance between the feet, you can either get them to stride longer, or you can cut down on their skip. We usually try to manipulate one of those two things or both things to get that distance between the feet, so that allows them to hit more line drives or at least control their line drives.
Keep back foot sideways
Then keeping their back foot sideways. You can use the VeloPro, they use it in pitching a lot. But in hitting, we use the VeloPro.
We tell the hitter to make sure they keep their back foot, their back heel on the ground as they swing. Almost like you would see with George Springer, or Altuve, or Mike Trout, any of those kinds of hitters or in softball Sierra Romero. They keep their back heel on the ground and it turns sideways, so they stay sideways. They do a better job of staying between those 90 degrees.
One last thing on keeping the back foot sideways, as mentioned, scissoring helps with that as well. So, that’s something that you can play around with, and let your hitters’ experiment with.
Hope this answered the question of “How to get my kid to stop rising, and for him to utilize his legs more during the swing”. 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/2019/11/use-legs-more-in-swing-e1573766476979.png259500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-04-04 09:01:082023-01-04 19:58:27How To Use Legs When Hitting Baseball Or Softball 2023 | Does Powerful Swing Depend On Footwork, Firm Front Side Or Straight Leg, Front Foot, Or Hips? | Batting Drills NOT What You Think
Are you looking for 1 on 1 or small private group hitting lessons for baseball and softball players in the Fresno and Clovis, CA areas? Or are you looking for the best private online batting instruction and swing analysis in 2022? We do training for both adults and youth. This 20-min part-1 video webinar will give you a little taste of what we’re about…
Increase Consistent Power In 2-Weeks: Baseball Trainers Webinar Part-1…
Please text me at: 559-709-5808 (Joey) if you’re in Fresno, Clovis, or general California area to setup private 1 on 1 instruction or small private group lessons.
CLICK HERE for a link to Our Story and testimonials.
SCIENCE-BASED TRAINING:
Improve your hitting strategy dramatically by applying human movement principles.
Learn not only how and what to train but also the science behind the methods.
The following is the transcript to the baseball trainers near me webinar… (about 18-minutes reading time)
Joey Myers 00:06
Get cozied up to technology over the years, because of the online thing, it is what it is.
Joey Myers 00:14
Let me let these people in. Welcome everybody that are coming in here. Some are coming in by phone.
Joey Myers 00:25
We have a lot of information today, I’m going to try and get through it really quickly, within 30 minutes. It will be good information.
Joey Myers 00:32
If you have any questions, I know, I have a lot of questions, a lot of great questions that Neil relayed over to me, from many of you. There’s a lot of them, like I said, 40-50, something like that.
Joey Myers 00:42
I’m going to do my best to really get through those quickly. Obviously, I’m not going to be able to go through them in depth, but if you have any questions after this, feel free to reach out and email me at Joey, J-O-E-Y, like Joey from friends, at hitting performance lab dot com, and I’ll have that at the end of this too. You don’t have to worry about downloading it into your brain. If you have any baseball trainers near me webinar questions, please, and I will answer them, have them ready.
Baseball Trainers Near Me – Our Story
Joey Myers 01:08
I think we’re adding them here. As they as they come in, we will add them. Today, we’re going to be going over something, about 2012, towards the end of 2012, is when my son, who’s now going to be turning eight in three days.
Joey Myers 01:28
When he was born, and the wife was doing the midnight, every two hours, three-hour milk feedings. I had a book called Anatomy Trains by Thomas Myers, same last name. I’m sure on the family tree, we are related in some way, but I don’t know him like I would know my brother or my uncle or anything like that.
Joey Myers 01:50
Thomas Myers’ book Anatomy Trains was something that really changed everything, how I teach hitting, and how I’m going to teach hitting, and you will hopefully get to see a little bit of that in this baseball trainers near me presentation. So again, welcome.
Joey Myers 02:04
Thank you again, Neil, for putting this thing on and keeping you already to go. Hopefully, we can get a lot of information in and if you got to go, we’re going to record this, don’t worry, we will get that out. I’ll get the recording out to Neil and he can get it out to you guys, so let’s get going.
Joey Myers 02:19
This is the baseball trainers near me seminar, teleseminar, whatever you want to call it, how to teach 100-pound hitters who consistently drive the ball 300 feet. This was something that I didn’t just cook up and create a product and go. This came to me with the results that my hitters were getting, and hitters were soon to be, what other coaches were learning, and were applying with their hitters.
Joey Myers 02:44
Brought to you by Hitting Performance Lab, that’s my website. You got Neil over at MaxBP. One of my favorite quotes is by Ralph Waldo Emerson, you might know that gentlemen,
“As to the 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”.
Joey Myers 03:15
Now this is an important quote, because it distinguishes between methods and principles, principles are rules. Think about playing Monopoly, you got to know the rules of the game before you can play the game. The principles to hitting can come in the form of bio-mechanics, physics, engineering, those are the principles that we tend to stick with.
Joey Myers 03:42
What we’re going to be talking about today, case studies, why legs fail, and spinal engine succeeds in the power equation, discover the springy fascist secret, how to turn the spine into a safe ball crushing machine. We were talking about this with Neil, I talked to him yesterday on the phone, he was having some back pain with his baseball golf swing, and we’ll see if we can get to that in this, but I really want to focus on more of the power side, but we want to make sure the swing is safe, we will talk about that.
Joey Myers 04:17
Before we get there, let’s add some more people in here, probably have Neil do this. That’s right. Thank you for joining everybody. All right.
Joey Myers 04:35
The first question usually when you go to a wedding is how do you know the bride? How do you know the groom? So, how do I know MaxBP? Well, it first started with the Sandlot Slugger, and then MaxBP acquired Sandlot Slugger, and that’s where we connected, and I connected with Neil. That’s probably been, I don’t know, Neil can probably say on this five, seven years ago, maybe, that this happened. Is that about right, Neil?
Neil McConnell 04:58
Yes, that sounds right. We’ve been around about 11 years; Sandlot Slugger ran probably about 14 years ago. Somewhere in that mix.
Joey Myers 05:08
I know them because we started the starting lineup store dot com, where I started it back 2010. I was grouping a lot of the hitting aids that really love to work with my hitters that are proven, whether it’s through science or just data, and MaxBP, Sandlot Slugger at the time, the MaxBP is one of those hitting aids, I call them the best hitting aids in the world, on the planet. That’s how I know Neil and MaxBP.
Joey Myers 05:38
I played four years division one baseball at Fresno State from 2003, I just want to give just a little bit, I’m going to probably rush through this because I know most year, just cut to the chase. I think some of you that don’t know me, would be good to just take a gloss… Over 15 plus years in the corrective exercise industry, and those are some of the alphabet soup that I have certification wise.
Joey Myers 06:02
What’s funny is in college, I was a criminology major and I really fell in love with kinesiology. I wish if I did it over again, that’s what I would have done, but I’m mostly self-taught. I used to train people, I wrote a 2018 Amazon bestselling book, Catapult Loading System, that’s the title of this baseball trainers near me webinar.
Joey Myers 06:24
How to teach 100-pound hitters, how to consistently drive the ball 300 feet, and that started me on this journey that this stuff really works, because you really start to get in with a lot of other coaches reteaching the same information, and you really get to see this stuff.
Joey Myers 06:42
It’s not just me and my hitters, or my magic, but other coaches are able to do the same thing. I’ll have a cool little bonus for you guys, free bonus that you can grab this book at no cost on Amazon. At the end of this baseball trainers near me webinar, we’ll talk about that.
Joey Myers 06:58
We’ll get a couple more of these, about almost 30,000 online courses, lessons and books product sold online, over 333 blog posts at Hitting Performance Lab dot com, giving away over 8500 copies of Amazon best selling book…
Joey Myers 07:19
We applied human movement principles that are validated by science to hitting the ball. Like I mentioned, I played four years of division one baseball at Fresno State. I didn’t play pro ball, I didn’t play major league ball, but I played probably more than 95 and 98% of the baseball population.
Joey Myers 07:34
I don’t say that to brag, I say that most of the teaching that I teach has nothing to do with how I was taught. I do use some of that stuff. I do use some of the cues and different things like that in certain circumstances, but most of my stuff, if not all of it, is validated by science.
Joey Myers 07:53
The other thing, that we talked about is, I’m working on a new book that’s going to be published, we are working on January- February of 2021. It’s called “Swing Smarter: Science-Based Hitting Training, Built to Understand How, Why and the Reasoning Behind it”.
Joey Myers 08:09
Those are all things that we stand for and set us apart from a lot of the others that you’ve probably read, heard, watched out there, purchased their products, watched their YouTube videos.
Case Studies
Joey Myers 08:19
Let’s get started, case studies, so the only reason I got, I’m not here to brag, and I could give you a hundred other ones, but I want to give you an example since Neil talked about that there’s a huge smattering of different people on this call. There are parents that are just coaching their kids, there are team coaches that are coaching a group of kids from 14 to probably 30 plus in high school, professional and there are instructors out there like myself, there are probably academy owners out there.
Joey Myers 08:27
I just want to put it up front on the people that we help and how these human movement principles that are validated by science can help anybody.
Joey Myers 09:04
At 14, a 130 pound hitter that was driving the ball 385 feet and by the way that was with a hickory wood bat. That wasn’t the hot metals that everybody says, “oh they always try and explain these case studies away”. This particular hitter, I think it’s Texas Tech, he got a full ride to Texas Tech, Hudson White is his name. I do have a blog post on him that is featured on my blog, but he’s one of them.
Joey Myers 09:31
Sixty-seven-pound hitter at the time, soaking wet. I think that 67 pounds, he had eaten a Costco chocolate muffin, that I think after he went to the doctor to get that measurement or something like that, he might have even been easy, 65 pounds before eating that muffin, but he was hitting the ball 180 plus feet and this is consistent.
Joey Myers 09:50
I always tell my hitters that I’m just the compass and the flashlight in the dark, you have to walk the path, I don’t have to walk the path for you, I’ve done that on my own. I’ve walked the path plenty of times, but now it’s the hitters that have to do that. They are 90% of this. I’m just the 10% that gives them the right direction to go.
Joey Myers 09:50
She put a lot of hard work in that summer, and she gained 10 miles an hour and ball exit speed, hitting a softball. We have an indie baseball player, he was pretty much out, he came to me, and in one hour, we increased, obviously baseball, plus 10 miles per hour and ball exit speed.
Joey Myers 09:50
This isn’t just a one flash in the pan time, 90-pound hitter driving the ball 300 feet. D-1 college fast-pitch softball player, she was a Fresno State in a summer, now with softball because the balls bigger, many you know in softball obviously, in baseball you should know bigger softball, heavier, more mass, and to gain 10 miles an hour in one summer in two and a half months is a big deal. That’s what she did, a lot of hard work.
Joey Myers 10:52
Now those things when they gain that much, the reason why, is because the principles we’re going to talk about today, the consistently power principles, and they were almost nonexistent in their swing. If you have a hitter who is nonexistent, you’re going to see these big gains using principles seen in this baseball trainers near me webinar.
Joey Myers 11:07
If you see hitters that have maybe a couple of these or one of these, you’re not going to see that kind of a gain, just because they’re not starting from zero. I want you to understand that this isn’t the norm. It’s not the norm when somebody started from zero but it’s pretty close. It’s between six and 10 miles an hour ball exit speed when they’re starting from zero, it’s what I tend to see.
Joey Myers 11:28
55-year-old slow-pitch softball optometrist online lesson, and he’s working with me and doing pretty well. I don’t have any gains on that side of it, but it’s interesting and 71-year-old senior league baseball player, I worked with him this week, he came up, he read my book, he said, “It makes sense, I love what you wrote. A lot of the other books I’ve read are hard to understand”. He’s an attorney, by the way. Attorneys usually are really into that jargon.
SCIENCE-BASED TRAINING:
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He picked it up, he said “I love it”, it kind of come up. He’s from Ojai, in California, he drove about three and a half hours. For two days, we worked, and we increased his ball exit speed by nine miles an hour in one hour.
Joey Myers 12:09
The first day we really hit a couple of these principles hard the first day, and he gained nine miles an hour, plus, he had a little bit of back pain when we first started, and we got rid of it in his swing.
Joey Myers 12:20
Again, that’s something maybe we’ll talk about if you guys want me to. I’ve worked with major leaguers, whether it’s in person or they bought my courses and we’ve talked online through some of this stuff, professional hitters I’ve worked with in person, college, Juco, high school, junior high school, little league and senior league.
Joey Myers 12:38
This goes across the board, it doesn’t matter what level they’re at, these principles work, whether they are male or female, they work, it doesn’t matter. Human to human is basically what it works for. And you’ll learn these principles in this baseball trainers near me webinar.
Joey Myers 12:49
If you want to get a lot of the testimonials, and that’s just probably, I think it’s 50 to 100 of them on my website, I have more, I just had been lazy to get them up, but if you go to hittingperformancelab.com, if you scroll all the way down into the footer, you’ll see the about page and you can click that, read a little bit about me, and then scroll down and there’s a ton of testimonials there. You can go check out more of those.
Why Legs Fail and Spinal Engine Succeeds in the Power equation
Joey Myers 13:11
Enough of that, let’s start to transition in this baseball trainers near me webinar… why the legs fail, and spinal engine succeeds in the power equation. Learning principles from water polo, maybe those of you out there have had kids that played water polo or have hitters that have played water polo. I have cousins and hitters that also did it, and the idea came to me, I ran an experiment where I wanted to have my pelvis facing forward, I was using a knob tracker, like a Zepp on my on my knob for those of you who blast motion, same thing, swing tracker.
Joey Myers 13:44
I was facing my hips forward, but I was just turning my upper body to be able to hit the ball. The experiment didn’t really turn out really well, but I tried to do it because my mobility in my spine or my shoulders and my pelvis weren’t allowing me to actually do the experiment like I should.
Joey Myers 14:02
We had the backspin tee guys, I’m really good friends with them since I met them. They did an experiment where they were jumping up and hitting a ball off the tee and dropping off of a chair hitting a ball before they hit the ground. They were doing a couple different experiments like that, and what they found was when their feet weren’t on the ground, and they were just using their shoulders in their thoracic spine, the middle of their spine, that their base when they had their feet on the ground ball exit speed…
Joey Myers 14:27
They had single-A ball players, they had indies or rookie ball, they had golfers that are hitting the ball 300 plus yards or 400 yards now and they had an eight-year professional pitcher who hits pretty well too. They were doing the experiment and they found that about 90 miles an hour was their normal control when their feet were on the ground, but when they were jumping up hitting or when they were falling and hitting, and doing their other things trying to take the lower half of the equation that their ball exit speeds were about 70 to 80% of what their control was, which was interesting.
Joey Myers 15:06
They were about 60 to 70 miles an hour versus the 90 with their feet on the ground. It got me thinking, and then somebody said, “well, that’s not a good experiment”, because you know, if you really wanted to do this, you had to hang from a harness, where your feet were hanging in, and then you hit it like that, like, well, who’s going to do that? Unless you’ve got access to a harness, like that, maybe at a farm.
Joey Myers 15:25
I was thinking, what athletes do throw or hit, from that kind of a position? I did a blog post, and it was titled “Is rotating back hip through the ball necessary for power?” Think about this baseball trainers near me webinar thought experiment.
Joey Myers 15:43
I don’t know if anybody has actually done this. I probably have to do this next summer, but think about that the fastest water polo throw, if you googled it, what do you think of that speed of that water polo ball. As you can see, the size of that ball is like a volleyball, Croatian Olympic water polo, male athlete, 60 miles an hour.
Joey Myers 16:15
As you can see floating in water, they’re not going down to the bottom and pushing up, they’re floating in water, so the lower half is minimal to almost zero friction with the lower half, so you’re not able to use a lower half like you are when you are standing on land, 60 miles an hour.
Joey Myers 16:31
Think about the pitcher, who is going down the mound, they got gravity, they got access to everything. Fastest pitcher, let’s just round it up to 100 miles an hour, so 100 miles an hour, on flat ground, falling down a mound is the fastest pitch.
Joey Myers 16:51
I know 102, 103, we can argue but say 100 easy numbers, so that water polo throw is throwing a big ball, that’s going to have an effect. Now, what happens if we put in that Croatian, male Olympic water polo player athlete, we put a baseball in his hand and have them floating in water and have them throw that baseball as hard as you can?
Joey Myers 17:13
What do you think that speed is going to be? It’s going to be a lot faster than 60 miles an hour, I can tell you. Is it going to be, instead of 60, is he going to throw at 70? Is he going to throw 80 miles an hour? Let’s be conservative and just say 70 miles an hour.
Joey Myers 17:27
You’re telling me in water, the fastest water polo thrower throws a baseball 70 miles an hour, while on land, the fastest pitcher throws 100 miles an hour. Easy numbers, 70% we can say, maybe conclude, that without ground reaction forces, that 70% of that velocity is coming from the pelvis, spine, and shoulder combination.
Joey Myers 17:56
Without ground reaction forces, we are very minimal when we’re in the pool. I say the spinal engines is responsible for about 70 to 80% of the power equation, and the lower half the legs and ground reaction forces are responsible for the other 20 to 30%. That’s what I say. Keep that in mind as we talk through this baseball trainers near me webinar and the spinal engine system.
Betts, Arenado, & Trout. Showing ‘dem numbers!
Joey Myers 18:20
Do you recognize some of these hitters? Some of them have changed unis, or one of them at least, Mookie Betts, he’s on the Dodgers now. Nolan Arenado is in the middle, Mike Trout.
Joey Myers 18:29
Notice the pinstripe on the side of their leg and how it connects into the belt. Notice the positioning of where that is. Pelvis is already starting to open; all these hitters are at toe touch or pretty close to toe touch. Notice the numbers on their back. Now the righties, because the camera in the major leagues isn’t straight on center-field because you get to see the pitcher and the hitter, it’s slightly off center towards left.
Joey Myers 18:56
Your righties, you’re going to see probably more numbers than you would see lefties doing the same degree of rotation. This started off as showing numbers, it’s what we called it, and we will talk in a little bit how we’ve refined it to creating neck pressure but notice these in this baseball trainers near me webinar.
Joey Myers 19:12
Swing experiments results with the big three. The first of the big three is showing numbers. When I used a Zepp back in the day, now Zepp is turned in blast motions taken over and swing tracker. When I did about two- three experiments showing numbers, we found that out of 100 swings not showing numbers and 100 swing showing numbers, that bat speed was increased on average by four to six miles an hour, that’s bat speed.
Joey Myers 19:40
Bat speed is the close cousin to the ball exit speed. They are not the same, but they’re like first cousins. Without bat speed, ball exit speed probably is not going to be there. We got to be able to swing the bat somewhat hard to get the ball coming off the bat as fast. There are three others…
To be continued in Part-2 to this baseball trainers near me webinar…
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/baseball-trainers-near-me-2-e1609830540324.png281500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-04-04 09:00:262023-08-18 21:39:491 On 1 & Group Hitting Lessons For Baseball And Softball Fresno-Clovis, CA | Best Private Online Batting Instruction & Analysis 2022 | Training For Youth And Adult [VIDEO]
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The following is the continued transcript to the perfect baseball swing webinar part-2… (about 18-minutes reading time)
‘Showing Numbers’ and ‘Neck Pressure’
00:07
Do you recognize some of these hitters? Some of them have changed unis or one of them at least. Mookie Betts, he’s on the Dodgers now, Nolan Arenado is in the middle, Mike Trout.
00:16
Notice the pinstripe on the side of their leg and how it connects into the belt. Notice the positioning of where that is, pelvis is already starting to open. All these hitters are at toe touch or close to toe touch. Notice the numbers on their back.
00:33
Now the righties, because the camera in the major leagues isn’t straight on center-field because you have to see the pitcher and the hitter, it’s slightly off centered towards left.
00:43
Your righties, you’re going to see probably more numbers than you would see lefties doing the same degree of rotation. This started off as showing numbers, it’s what we called it. We’ll talk in a little bit how we’ve refined it to creating neck pressure. but notice these.
00:57
Perfect baseball swing webinar experiment results of the big three. The first of the Big Three is showing numbers. When I used a Zepp back in the day, now Zepp is turned in, BlastMotion taken over and SwingTracker.
01:05
When I did about two, three experiments showing numbers, we found that out of 100 swings, not showing numbers and 100 swing showing numbers that that speed was increased on average by four to six miles an hour. That’s bat speed.
01:27
Bat speed is the close cousin to ball exit speed, they are not the same, but they’re like first cousins. Without bat speed, ball exit speed probably is not going to be there, we got to be able to swing the bat somewhat hard to get the ball coming off the bat as fast.
01:46
Here are three others, you can probably notice these ones again, jerseys might have changed. JD Martinez, on the left, you have Aaron Judge in the middle, and you have Altuve on the right.
01:57
I know I’m as big against the whole cheating thing, as probably many of you are with Houston, the Astros back in 2019. But Altuve, being 5’6, 5’7, he does a lot of these mechanical things correctly. Regardless of whether you knew the pitchers coming or not, he still got to be able to hit it, as far as he does, which I think that year up, you hit 30 plus… 35, even with the playoffs in the World Series, I think he got close to 40 home runs that year.
02:32
Even though you know it’s coming, the guy is 5’6, he’s not Judge who is 6’8. You can’t just write the guy off for “Oh, he’s gifted”. There’s a lot of things that he’s doing in his swing that are very effective when it comes to this perfect baseball swing webinar – spinal engine mechanics. That was showing numbers.
‘Hiding Hands’ from the Pitcher
02:51
The second part, it was the third part, we’re going to get to the second part of the big three and the second one of the big three, but the other one is we call hiding the hands from the pitcher.
03:01
A lot of times what you will see is at the start of the swing, you’ll see the hitter’s hands, and then by toe touch as you can see, all three of these hitters are pretty much a toe touch or right at toe touch. You’re not seeing their hands, they’re hiding them.
03:15
You can see Judge, they’re kind of behind his head over here, Altuve is the same, JD Martinez behind his head, but from where they start with their hands, where their hands are at. Before the pitcher starts or gets in the wind up to when they’re at landing, there’s this move the hands to go back, and it’s not towards the catcher, it’s actually back at an angle behind the hitters heel or over the hitters back heel, that’s where the hands need to go.
03:43
We see this idea of hiding the hands, now in the swing experiments with that, we found between a one to three mile an hour average increase in bat speed with hiding the hands versus not hiding the hands.
The second one we’ll talk about here in a second, it’s called downhill shoulder angle, but I wanted to go into the three basic principles of locomotion. There were three books that ruin my life when it comes to hitting in a good way.
04:13
The first one I mentioned was Thomas Myers book Anatomy Trains. The second one was called Dynamic Body by Dr. Erik Dalton, D-A-L-T-O-N. It was a collaboration of different authors that were all along the same lines of springy fascia, Spinal Engine and locomotion, that kind of stuff.
04:30
In that book, Dynamic Body, I found Dr. Serge Gracovetsky’s book The Spinal Engine. This is out of the spinal engine, the little thing on the right, which he’s talking about a pitcher and talking about side bending, which is downhill shoulder angle, and he talks about axial rotation, which basically means shoulders moving opposite of the pelvis.
04:30
When we walk as humans. our left leg comes forward when our right arm comes forward and the opposite happens. Left arm comes forward our right leg comes forward. That is axial rotation, your shoulders turn opposite your pelvis, and it’s like this gear shift that just does this when we walk, our shoulders and our pelvis and they move opposite each other, almost like winding it up, unwinding, winding, unwinding.
05:15
The axial rotation, shoulder, pelvis separation, the side bend, or downhill shoulders, and then the third move of the spine is flexion extension. If you go into an arch, you’re extending your spine, you’re hyper extending your spine, if you just stand in neutral, your lower back has a slight curve to it, or at least it should, if it does not, then we’ve had surgery to correct something we put pins in or something, or maybe we’ve got a lower back that’s compromised, but we should have a slight curve in the lower back.
05:46
Dr. Serge Gracovetsky calls it “lordosis”. Just standing there in neutral, with that curve in your lower back, you already have extension in your back, it’s not hyper-extension, it’s just extension.
06:00
Flexion would be if you were doing a crunch, and you were to go the opposite direction and you flex your spine. You think about whales, they go this way with their tail, right? That’s flexion extension of the spine, sharks go side bend, you see this right here, they do a little bit of both, but that’s the good example of side bending.
06:17
We use all three of those when we walk. We already have lordosis or that little bend in the lower back. We drop our shoulder into a side bend, and that helps us to initiate the axial rotation where right arm comes forward as the left leg comes forward.
06:31
The story that really got me with this was Dr. Serge had a patient, you see this gentleman on the left, he was born without any arms or legs. He walked on what’s called the ischium the bottom of the pelvis, and you can see him here in this perfect baseball swing webinar.
06:50
What he did was he hooked up electrodes, not to shock him but to measure his muscle activation and his ligament activation. He said if you watch and you can go on YouTube, and you can put in Dr. Serge Gracovetsky, try and spell it the best you can.
07:07
It’s kind of a goofy name, spinal engine, and he’s got a video on there that’s like an hour long, and you can watch I think it’s around the four-minute mark or three-and-a-half-minute mark, his show has a video of this gentleman locomoting.
07:21
What’s crazy, if you remember, this is from birth, this wasn’t the guy who had arms and legs until he was 18, got in a car accident or got a bad disease or virus or something where he had to be amputated, he was born this way. It was from the start.
07:36
If you covered the lower half of his pelvis to know he didn’t have legs and you watched him move, you would swear he had legs. That begs the premise locomotion is from the beginning.
07:51
As we start going from baby crawling or rocking, crawling to standing to walking, we learn how to locomote this way, this is the best way how to locomote. This gentleman really opened my eyes to wow there must be something here and where it got me to reverse engineer the swing.
Perfect Baseball Swing Webinar: Springy Fascia Secret
08:13
Discover the springy fascia secret. Springy fascia for those of you that don’t know out there, we got bones, we got muscles, but did you know, we have connective tissue? Part of that connective tissue is called fascia.
08:25
What is connective tissue? Tendons, ligaments, fascia, to cotton candy or spider web-like material that your bones and muscles float in. It gives muscles their shape if you’ve gone to the grocery store and bought a bag of tangerines in that, that fishnet type of bag, think of the tangerines as your bones, muscles, and your organs, and the bag being the fascia, so it gives muscles their shape.
08:52
Myofascia or fascia, if you’ve done myofascia release on a foam roll, you probably felt the pain especially if you do your IT band of that fascia when it gets really tight and clogged up. Cotton candy and spider web-like material, it’s made up of mostly collagen and elastin fibers, mostly collagen, but there’s elastin in there, collagen is very springy.
09:12
You’ve seen the Kardashians, how springy it is because they inject it in their face and their butt and everything else. It keeps everything nice and plump and tight. Bones and muscles float in this web, they’re composed of compression and tension forces.
09:27
You see a couple of these things you probably recognize as a kid or if you bought these for your kid, that Chinese finger trap and the geometric toys, although I don’t know about the Chinese finger traps nowadays, unless you go to some arcade and you can win tickets and get some of those things. Never thought you’d be learning about Chinese finger traps in a perfect baseball swing webinar!
09:42
The idea is compression forces a brick stacked up on top of a brick pushing down, each push against each other tension forces would be like a boom crane and you have the cable. You got the big wrecking ball at the bottom of the cable. You got the structure, the boom crane.
09:58
There’s a tension force being exerted on it by the structure of the boom crane and the wrecking ball itself. We have both of these forces, fascia that are acting within our body at all times and resembles more of this toy on the left, this kid’s toy, when you push one side of that toy down, it kind of shifts and changes it, one side opens up as you push on the other side. We got those two forces that fascia is into.
10:27
In Thomas Myers’ Anatomy Trains, we have three different systems. According to him, we have the neural which is brain spinal cord stuff, the fluid, which is your veins and your heart, and then we have the third one, and hopefully, if you got kids there, there’s no naked pictures here, but it can be a little bit unnerving.
10:47
We have a fiber system, which looks like this, they did a lot of cadaver work. This is what the fascial system looks like. It’s not just something that is magic and floats, they have done a ton of research on this, and this is your fiber system or your fascial net, it’s what Thomas Myers refers to this as.
Finger Flick & Wringing Towel Effect
11:05
What I want you to do is do a finger flick test. Thomas Myers came up or this is where I read this from. To show you the power of the springy fascia spinal engine system, what I want you to do, if you’re seated, I want you to take your right hand or your left hand, whatever your dominant, whatever hand is dominant, I want you to put it on your leg on the thigh of whatever side leg, I want you to take your index finger, and I want you to just pick it up by itself and try and slam it as hard as you can on your leg, do it three times, pick it up, slam it, pick it up and slam it.
11:38
That’s an example of muscle using muscle to do it. Now we’re going to use only the ligament, I want you to take your opposite hand, pull the right finger, or mine is right finger, pull your index finger back as far as you can, and let it snap against your leg, you might be able to hear it on the camera, on the computer three times.
12:01
That is an example of a 100% ligament driving that, you can probably already tell that you’re going to bet a bigger snap than you are when you’re using your finger muscles.
12:11
The last one is I want you to use a combination of both, use a combination of the elastic or collagen, the ligament tissue, you’re going to pull the finger back and as you release the finger, I want you to slam it. I found that that hurts a lot more than the other two.
12:31
What we talked about in the swing is we’re using a little bit of both, we’re using more of the ligament tissue, which makes it safe on the body, and then we’re using some of the muscle, the muscle isn’t required, but it does help.
12:45
When we talk about strength conditioning programs and that kind of stuff, that helps, but we want to make sure we get our hitters moving correctly first. A must you’re learning in this perfect baseball swing webinar.
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The other metaphor I like to use is the wringing towel effect. Imagine we got a wringing towel, like you see me in the picture, I got my bat here and to wring a towel, you got to turn one hand one way and the other hand the other way.
13:05
When we combine the springy fascia and the spinal engine, instead of two hands, like we only have two, if I had a third hand like Squidward on Sponge-Bob, I have a third hand down here facing the same direction as the one on top.
13:18
The one on top is my head and my neck, my C spine cervical. The one in the middle is my shoulder and my thoracic spine, the middle part of your spine, the 12 vertebrae, the bottom one is your pelvis and your lower lumbar, the head and your lower back, turn the same direction, they’re turning the same direction.
13:38
It’s the one in the middle, the shoulders and the thoracic spine are turning the opposite. Imagine a wringing towel, except with two hands, we’re using three like Squidward. As you can see here in this video, this is what we’re doing with the spine and we’re doing it in a safe manner.
13:54
Again, returning to our hitters here. We talked about all these guys, neck pressure, AKA showing the numbers. When it comes to the pressure, what we’re talking about is taking the head and we anchor the head in a tracking position, because when I used to teach this is just showing numbers that hitters were showing too much of their numbers, and now they weren’t able to see the ball.
14:16
We make sure that their head is the anchor and anchors in a tracking position, the shoulder, the front shoulder comes underneath the chin, possibly even past the chin as far as it can go, as far as the neck will allow the shoulder to go.
14:31
Wherever the shoulder stops, you got to stop, because then we start to pull the head off the ball. When we say neck pressure, that’s what we’re referring to. Head anchors show front shoulder comes underneath until it stops at landing.
14:47
At stride landing as you see what these hitters here, this is what they’re all doing. You can see what their head and I encourage you to go out on YouTube and go start looking for this. You’re going to see it, you’re going to see the head anchor, you’re going to see the shoulder coming underneath, that’s the first one of the big three in this perfect baseball swing webinar.
‘Downhill Shoulders’
15:03
The second one, we talked about the side bend or down shoulders. The experiment we did on this added on average when we had down shoulders versus flat shoulders added, on average four miles an hour of bat speed, and again, bat speed ball exit speed, they’re similar, not the same, but without bat speed, you’re not going to have ball exit speed.
15:23
You can see four these hitters right here, Miguel Cabrera, on the left, you can see JD Martinez in the middle, on the top Mike Trout in the middle, in the bottom and you got a new guy this last year, you probably all have seen him, he had a good year this year, Fernando Tatis Jr.
15:39
You have this slight downward shoulder angle, and I say slight. In golf, you’re going to see an extreme just because where the ball is. In baseball or softball, we can’t be quite that down because we got to be able to hit balls up in the zone.
15:52
When I say slight, I’m talking about 6 to 10 degrees down, it’s not a lot. I tell my hitters, this is 90 degrees, and then, 45 degrees, 22 and a half degrees, 12.25 degrees, it’s really small, but you can see the back shoulder is above the front shoulder slightly. You can see with Trout on the bottom, I know that picture is a little farther off.
16:15
You can see with Miggy, he’s about eight degrees, nine degrees. JD is probably around that six to eight degrees. Tatis is about six to eight degrees, and Trout is around that same.
16:27
Hiding hands, we talked about this already, so we won’t go too far into it. Hiding the hands here you can see also, we talked about being safe with the lower back.
Last but not least in this Perfect Baseball Swing Webinar: ‘Hollow Position’
16:39
What we do is we don’t like what we call Donald Duck butt or those of you that know Dr. Kelly Starrett from mobilityWOD used to be and now I can’t remember what he changed it to, but taking the pelvis acting like the pelvis is a bowl of water, and we don’t want to spill water on our front of our toes.
16:55
We don’t want to tilt our pelvis to water spilling forward, we want to tilt our pelvis or our water spilling on our heels. What you can see here, not so much with Betts, you can see Arenado you can see this belt loops are almost flat.
17:09
When you see the belt loops in more of an angle and that also depends on the hip hinge that the hitters taken as well but with Arenado you can see almost more of a flat, he’s taken the curve out of his lower back because he is spilling water on his heels.
17:23
Trout, you can see the same, he’s flattened it. Judge he might be a little bit curved. Altuve, you can see the same thing, and if I had a picture of Josh Donaldson, you would see flat when he gets at the height of his leg kick, his pelvis is flat.
17:41
If we go into a hyper extended position, what that does is that pushes the vertebrae of the lower back together. That’s not bad in itself, we see gymnast when they are swinging back and forth, they’re going from global flexion to global extension, flexion would be flexing the lower back, extension would be when they come through the bar and they’re extending into like a global arch position, that’s okay.
18:03
The problem is since we hit, we have to turn and rotate, we have to, so if you’re overarching, your lower back or your hitter’s back and then you turn, you arch turn, arch turn.
18:16
It’s not going to show up in your younger hitters, but as they get into high school, junior high, high school on up, they’re going to start experiencing back pain. What we do when we flex, when we spill water on our heels, and the term we use with our hitters is we take the belt buckle in the belly button, and we try and bring those two points together.
18:35
We hold those two points together through the turn, even into the finish because some hitters will release it into their follow through and they’ll get into that arch again, we’re still turning as we’re arching, we don’t want to do that.
18:47
If you can do the pinch, we call it the hollow pinch. If you look on YouTube and just look up hollow position, or hollow exercise, you’ll get some cool gymnastic exercises to strengthen that, but we want our hitters to maintain the short distance between the belly button and the belt buckle as we’re turning.
19:05
Now, when you do that, the opposite happens to the vertebrae when you’re arching, you give space or traction between the vertebrae, and now when you turn, you don’t have that friction you’re not bone on bone turning.
19:16
Over time, obviously it’s a lot safer, and it doesn’t take away from performance at all. The swing experiments we did on that, I think it added one mile an hour on average, it didn’t add a lot, but it makes the spine safe and when the spine is safe the brain is always about survival. It doesn’t care if you can hit a 4- or 500-foot home run or in softball, a 300-foot home run, it doesn’t care about your performance.
19:36
It cares about surviving, it cares about keeping your body safe, and if there’s an issue with your lower back or your knee, your ankle, your shoulder, it’s going to say, “You know what, Neil? I can’t let you go 100% on your swing performance, I have to cut you down about 80%”, depending on the severity of the issue, and Neil was talking about his lower back was hurting him in the golf.
To be continued in Part- to this perfect baseball swing webinar…
SCIENCE-BASED TRAINING:
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…left field, right? Righties are always going to be showing their numbers more than lefties but it’s only because of the angle. If you see a lefty really showing his numbers like Robinson Cano… legit like him and Trout are probably pretty equal and how much of the numbers that they show. They say it takes the eyes off the ball, and then they call it false separation.
Joey Myers 00:29
They say you’re moving away from contact. And I’m like, well, they obviously don’t know how the human movement like looking basic locomotion, right? Because it’s all about spirals. It’s all about rotation, pre-loading the torso before you get to landing that’s what it’s all about. That’s how you take the slack out.
Joey Myers 00:46
And the other thing is, after they started to soften to it some of these guys that were teaching the guys, some of the stuff we’ve been talking about the philosophy, the barrel moving the body. After a while then it was like okay, well I see guys doing that I see guys showing their numbers but they can’t get to an inside pit like 97 in like that.
Joey Myers 01:06
So I went online I looked up Craig Hyatt’s page, I looked up videos of all those guys we mentioned in this video so far maybe and all these guys and I was looking for 95 plus inside and was trying to see because one of my hitters actually this was about three years ago. Hitter’s been with me since he was seven, he’s now driving, he’s got his license, he’s 16 now he’s pretty clean Catapult Loading System wise, like the stuff we’re talking about today.
Joey Myers 01:31
And he was having a hard time and I was teaching that deep barrel dump, that barrel in the zone super early, no matter if the balls in middle or away didn’t matter, barrel dump. We were throwing live and I’m throwing to him and he’s like, coach, I don’t feel like I can get to that inside pitch. He goes, am I showing my showing my numbers too much. I was like, ah, I don’t think so. But let me do some research.
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I went to Craig Hyatt’s page. I was looking at 95 plus inside. I was looking at those specific hitters that do this, where there’s a lot of them doesn’t take long to find them. On pitches that were fastball that hard inside, were they, the question was, were they still showing their numbers or showing their numbers less than if they would on an outside pitch? And the answer that came up was clear as day, was that they showed their numbers the same regardless of the pitch. It’s not something like a stride…
Jaime Cevallos 02:20
Showing numbers happens before you know where the pitch is.
Joey Myers 02:23
Yeah, yeah! You can’t like, adjust on the fly, right? You’re just loading your body and getting ready. That answered my question. I was like, okay, these guys that are saying, “Well, you can’t do it, inside, 97 in.” It was like, Okay, well, what, what’s the difference then. And what I’m going to reveal, this is a talk for another video, probably would have to go into this one.
Joey Myers 02:48
The difference was when the barrel entered the zone. If the ball was in, middle, inner third. What they did was they tucked the barrel closer to their shoulder…up, up, up, up, up, up… and then what we call the belly button catcher’s glove, they release the barrel… Imagine a catcher in line with the hitter’s belly button. If they release their barrel in line with the hitter’s belly button catcher’s belly, but like they’re knocking the catcher’s glove off that’s in line with the hitter’s belly button. Right?
Joey Myers 03:19
Barry Bond swings… A lot of times, he would hit pitches that seem to be like right here, and he frickin hit him into the, into the bay. Right? And he couldn’t do that. If he’s dumping his barrel early. It’s not going to happen.
Joey Myers 03:35
So that was what I found out again, that’s a talk for probably for another video. But that was what I found out. It wasn’t about showing numbers. There was no, all the objections they were raising, well, it pulls the hitters eyes off the ball. No, not if you use the head as an anchor. You know, you can’t hit 97 in like that. Well, no, we see them hitting 97 like that, but it’s something else. You’re not, what is in the way of view accepting this is we’re talking about something totally different has nothing to do with showing numbers.
Joey Myers 04:05
You can’t disagree that they don’t show their numbers. I mean, it’s right there clear is day, and their video, they’re big on video analysis and that’s what’s silly that’s what’s clownish about the whole thing.
Jaime Cevallos 04:17
What about a hand path? You could do all what you’re asking a hitter to do but then you could have the bar arm, the arm the front arm barred or you could come in like this. What would you say about that?
What about Hand Path? What would you say about that?
Joey Myers 04:46
So you got, again, the swing is a journey. It’s not a destination, right? So especially with younger hitters, so I have my hitters right now I don’t work with many that are below unless they’re online, below age 11 or 12. Because we do small private groups and it’s harder for the young ones to work into groups with older guys. Most of my guys are high school going into college and I have a few Junior highers going into high school and stuff like that.
Joey Myers 05:11
So the younger ones that tend to have a harder time with it, especially the ones you’re talking about that are very linear with their hands, they’re going here. And I have one right now who’s actually a junior in high school. He’s made huge strides. He was barely able to, he was knocking on the door to 70 miles an hour ball exit speed when he first started with him. This was probably about a year and a half ago, and he’s now at 83. I think he’s topping out off the backspin tee which is pretty impressive because backspin tee takes off about three miles an hour from a Tanner tee.
Joey Myers 05:44
Backspin tee, that’s equivalent to Tanner tees 86. In a game, he’s hitting 86 plus a plus five in a game. He’s hitting 91 in a game pretty good for a junior, right? But the problem we’re having with him and I’m thinking we’ve been doing some movement stuff with the RotexMotion and different things like that. And that’s where his improvements have come. And that’s, by the way, 83 with wood, not bad.
Joey Myers 06:08
And the big problem we’re having with him is that when he turns, we get him into a position where he’s barred out. But like you said, what happens if they bend and they come through this way, and that’s kind of what he’s doing. What we do and this takes a little bit of time, at least from my understanding, we’re doing what’s called a wrist snap, a deep tee wrist snap.
Wrist Snap: Supinating Snap or Pronating Snap?
Joey Myers 06:31
See if I can even try this on film, you can see what that is. Basically, what a wrist snap, choke up so i don’t hit my computer, so wrist snap would be… See we get into that barred position; you can still hear me Jaime I’m not too far away. You get into that position and then as I’m coming around, so what I’m going to do is, this is the other thing that you see on video, you’ll see the major leaguers, the elite hitters, you’ll see their knob stop at a certain point.
Joey Myers 07:01
And then this snap comes around. Yeah, I’m exaggerating it here. But in high speed, it actually looks like what the guys are doing. The knob has to stop at a certain point. And then we snap it around. Like when you throw a ball, you get that snap with the hand. What do they call it up? Pronating. Not supinating. Like a lot of these guys teach, they talk about supinating this way, right? This is actually pronating this way.
Joey Myers 07:26
Again, I’m exaggerating just because we’re going in slow motion here, but the knob will stop, and then the barrel comes around and pivots. Okay, so a lot of those kids you’re talking about are bend, and then the knob keeps going. And then what they do is they end up pronating, if when we learn how to do this, and that’s what this particular kid is doing, but they do it way out in front.
Joey Myers 07:50
They’ve already hit the ball, palm up, palm down, and then their balls going away and then they’re pronating. Instead of palm up, palm down at contact and then pronating right away like that. Pronation already starts before they even hit the ball. It’s not over though it’s not that we’re not rolling. It doesn’t look like it’s rolling over yet. They’re still here. But then you get that snap at the end like Hank Aaron would do, right?
Joey Myers 08:14
How I teach it is, at first it was imagining you have a red laser here and then coming out of the knob and a green laser coming out of the end here. What you’re doing is you’re replacing red with green, red with green. And if you watch Griffey, Griffey’s a big one, you watch him do it and everything just snaps right through.
Joey Myers 08:36
We evolved the laser part, the laser, they can figure that out. But to get them to physically do it, I found it was a little tough. So then what I tell them is I want them to snap the barrel past their hands. If their hands and their barrel were in a race, I want their barrel to win. And that seems to help, and I’ll change that up, I might say snap, so for some hitters, and this comes to what you’re alluding to the problem is, they’re over rotating their upper half.
Joey Myers 09:06
At contact, they’re in this type of position. Because they’re not taking slack out of the system or they’re not snapping, they’re not making the body move. Or their lower half is over rotated. We have to under rotate, their upper or lower half. So the deep tee snap, what we do is how we set that up, is we have them set up a tee, whether it’s backspin or Tanner, or whatever, we have them set the tee up slightly deeper than they would normally, middle middle of the plate, where the ball is lined up at landing with their front hip.
Joey Myers 09:37
Okay, so normally, if they’re going to hit that, they’re going to try and hit that to the opposite field, because it’s a little deeper on them. But what we challenge them to do in three phases. The first phase, we call it a 1.0 swing. We practice that red laser to green laser. We just have them sit on a chair or a bucket and we just have them practice that motion and practice that motion in a way where the knob stops at their rib-cage, and then they snap it around and switch it. That’s the first phase.
Joey Myers 10:05
Second phase 2.0, where they get to landing position, they get to their landing position create their tension in their neck, in their head, in their Catapult Loaded Position. And then from there, they got their tee setup deep. And then you’d have them snap it and they have to actually pull it, they have to pull it into the, for righties, left side of the cage, lefties right side of the cage, they can’t hit it oppo.
Joey Myers 10:26
They have to be forced to really snap it around. So those players that do this with their hands, they have a hard time with it because at first, they hit soft stuff to the opposite way until they get good, and part of it is getting good at it is a strength thing. We use a lot of heavy bat stuff because they have to learn how to maneuver that snap and be able to control it.
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And it’s like a pinball machine, the flapper right? If you want to hit a ball, a pinball, to the right side of the table, you got to hit it in a certain position and you got it the directions got to go that way. If you want to pull it You know, same type of thing. The snap is we can, I can practice my snaps to right. I can practice them to center and I can practice them the left. It’s getting familiar with the move, and the hitters that are opposite, they bat left, throw right or bat right, throw left, they’re going have a harder time because now they’re controlling that with their top hand. They’re going to have a hard time in the beginning, but usually takes those hitters about a week more to get it then then the right right or the left left.
Jaime Cevallos 11:29
Okay. I just want to be respectful of your time as well.
Joey Myers 11:35
Yeah, I got a little bit of time if you’re if you’re good, I’m good.
Jaime Cevallos 11:40
I actually don’t have…
Joey Myers 11:43
I’ll be respectful of your time today.
Jaime Cevallos 11:48
But I do want to ask really quick what is the worst thing that’s being taught out there right now, to be on the negative side of things.
Why ‘Barrel Moves the Body’ Approach is Wearing Holes in Low Backs
Joey Myers 12:01
I know there’s so much but you know, to prioritize that, I would say the worst thing is that barrel moves the body because…
Jaime Cevallos 12:08
And that you’re referring to, I believe, teacher man’s teaching where basically he says that this is a really interesting approach and I agree with you, it’s absolutely crazy to think that basically you’re the center of the swing is, is when you snap the barrel back like that. Okay, so that to you is…
Joey Myers 12:38
Here’s, here’s the thing, right? I’m okay with that. Middle away and middle down. I’m okay with that. That barrel entering the zone early is fine, because you’re making contact later in the zone. So again, like my player that got tested, and found out that he was maximizing barrel bat speed behind him, but by the time he got the impact, which was maybe an inside pitch, maybe middle in, maybe middle up. His barrel was slowing down but that time.
Joey Myers 13:04
You can’t teach all hitters to do that all the time because it depends. I like his approach. I love teacher man’s approach. I’m not I’m not trying to put him down. I love his approach middle away, middle down. And if I have a hitter who is a physically swinging down hitter, which I don’t have too many, most of them are barrel dropping type hitters, so we have to go the other way.
Joey Myers 13:27
I like his approach, middle away, middle down, or if the hitter is physically swinging down, like he’s got too short of an approach. I’m good with it. The problem that I have with it is that they’re teaching it to all hitter’s blueprint, blueprinting to all hitters. Regardless of pitch depth: inside, middle or away, it’s the same barrel path all the time doesn’t for one that’s not going to work middle and middle up. Doesn’t work very well. Not very consistently, let me say, consistently.
Joey Myers 13:56
The other thing is I see all these hitters arch their backs. I see them arching their backs in a way that is putting these hitters in harm’s way big time, like, of course, an 11 year old, 12 year old, they’re not going to feel it yet, but by the time they’re our age, they’re going to have a hole in their back, they’re going to have back spasms, herniated discs, all kinds of stuff. If they continue to do that swing after swing after swing after swing.
Joey Myers 14:17
I like the approach but being safe with it, meaning we call it the hollow position, taking your belly button and your belt buckle and pinching those two points together. That puts up more of a flex in the lower back. And if you can hold that flex and do what teacher man’s telling you middle down middle away, it’s a great approach. I love it. But I see too many back arching and turning and at that point, it just makes me want to puke.
Jaime Cevallos 14:47
I think it’s important that we talk about everyone, everyone’s theories of the swing and get it out there basically, I think right now a lot of it is just so hard to understand what exactly the people think, what do people think about the swing. I appreciate you coming on, I think we need to do this more guys who have popular theories about the swing. Come out and explain it. I think this is good. I would love to ask you more questions, but we filled up the time already. Let me give you a chance to tell people where they can find you.
“Where can People Find you?”
Joey Myers 15:46
Sure. Thanks, Jamie. I appreciate the time and we’ll do a part 2, 3, 4 whatever. But people can find me HittingPerformanceLab.com, you can go. There’s a lot information 300+ blog posts been doing that since like 2014 I think is when I came out with the blog, there’s a lot there use the search bar the top for whenever you have a query. I have it all in the navigation bar separated by popular blog posts and then I have it by blog posts that have to do it build more power, hit more line drives, get on time more often and then I have other blog posts in there too.
Joey Myers 16:20
That can help to filter the information so you can find out what you need. And then the other part and you can find me on the socials, either Joey Myers just type in “Joey Myers” or “hitting performance lab” and you can find me there on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn be Joey Myers and Instagram.
Joey Myers 16:38
I’m going to be doing some different stuff here in the next probably couple weeks I’m going to change around what I’m doing to make it a little bit more user friendly. So that’s where you can find me and then TheStartingLineupStore.com is where I have the… It started off as the nine best hitting aids on the planet but you know there’s a little bit more than nine so I couldn’t stick to that but it is the hitting aides that I use and others use and things like that. So HittingPerformanceLab.com in TheStartingLineupStore.com.
Jaime Cevallos 17:06
Awesome. Thank you so much, Joey. And till next time take care, buddy.
Joey Myers 17:10
Got it bud thank you.
Jaime Cevallos 17:12
All right.
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/joey-jaime-interview3-youtube-e1594666926226.png281500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2020-07-13 19:00:472020-11-23 06:23:08Do You Recognize The #1 Early Warning Sign Of Physically Harmful Hitting Instruction?
), 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,
by Peter C. Brown on the power of variance, the Bean Bag study and the 2 bucket challenge, building multiple reference points, Perry played game with hitters in the cage, based on his 10-degree Launch Angle target in the cage 1-5 point scale, only get 10 balls (minimize 1’s and 2’s) – once they think about getting a 5, hitting the 3’s and 4’s are easier…intention: focus on ball flight
method for hitting for about a month and a half now. I am the hitting ball harder than ever and it feels great. A coach yesterday, (while I was was hitting front toss at the beginning of practice) said that he thought I was rotating my shoulders too much and should keep a better posture in my swing. I got the hunch from your book. So I explained to him the 
method and he didn’t like it. He said it will cause me to pull off the ball and that no big leaguers do it. Then I named josh Donaldson, Aaron judge, and Andre mccutchen and said they all do it. He didn’t give me a really definitive answer after that. This coach uses the method of making a “positive move” towards the ball and “walking away from your hands” which I remember in your book you said is not what you teach. I am 13 and I was wondering how should I tell coaches about the 
and why you don’t you like the “waking away from hands” method. I have had 3 coaches now comment on me showing the numbers and hiding the hands and they all said I won’t be able to hit faster pitching with it, but I have been smashing the faster pitchers (70-75 mph) and have done fine with it. Thx“
: How To Train 100-Pound Hitters To Consistently Drive The Ball 300-Feet
, by Thomas Myers
, by Dr. Serge Gracovetsky
, by Dr. Erik Dalton
to measure BES
by Thomas Myers. Watch the following FunctionalPatterns YouTube video of Thomas Myers talking about the concept of Tensegrity, or Tension Integrity:
by Bill Jenkinson
is where 70-80% of consistent power is found. The best example I like to share can be found in 
’ said, that locomotion, the arms and legs aren’t necessary for locomotion, they’re an enhancement, they help enhance movement of the spinal engine.
’ way back, I think it was in the early 2000’s or mid to late 2000’s. He talked about this idea of a ‘Cushion’. You’ll see a hitter especially, if they’re looking fastball, and they see a curve ball or changeup. You’ll see them actually bend, sink, or cushion into their knees. They use their knees by bending them to buy them a little bit of time to get on time a lot better. It’s pushing the ‘pause’ button.
, and harness the power of the spinal engine. If you want a majority of power, 70-80% of consistent power.
, they use it in pitching a lot. But in hitting, we use the VeloPro.
by Thomas Myers, same last name. I’m sure on the family tree, we are related in some way, but I don’t know him like I would know my brother or my uncle or anything like that.
