There are a few “gurus” out there promoting a rearward barrel acceleration, which I agree with but ONLY on pitches middle away/down in the zone. Teaching young hitters the concept over the past few years, with no disregard for pitch depth, some of my most clean mechanical hitters were having challenges getting to the inside pitch.
Rearward barrel acceleration is good, but MUST not be a blanket teach for all pitch depths. The best hitters, like Mike Trout, alter the timing of the barrel’s release off the back shoulder. Here’s a similar post I went in more depth on this concept with many examples.
Mike Trout swing case study: hitting the “catcher’s glove”. Photo courtesy: MLB.com
Enter the softball drills content of this video. Here’s what I tried to do in the above Mike Trout swing case study:
Select Mike Trout home-run swings that were based off similar pitch type, location, and pitch speed,
Same game would assume same catcher and catcher’s position relative to the hitter,
Same camera view, and preferably the same camera zoom setting,
Comparing inner third of plate pitch location barrel path versus outer third, and
Same pitcher would help control timing variable.
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86-mph FB? outer third part of the plate, mid-thigh high
Homer to LCF
Pitch #2:
Vincent was the pitcher
90-mph FB, inner third of the plate, mid-thigh high
Homer to LF
A softball drills note on Mike Trout’s “alligator arm” swing on Pitch #2:
Okay if late on the inner half of the plate (purpose is to barrel up ball and that’s what Mike Trout is doing on pitch #2),
NOT okay if doing off a tee, if on-time during soft-toss, or during dry swings (basically when timing is irrelevant or minimal), and
CLICK HERE for a recent post on how to fix alligator arms, and how to practice what Mike Trout is doing with hitting the different “catcher’s gloves”.
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Improve-Turn-Behind-Vs-Push-Barrel-MLB-Level-Bat-Path-Modern-Swing-For-Baseball-Softball-Hitting.png423800Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-08-15 09:15:052022-08-16 05:22:21Improve Turn Behind Vs Push Barrel MLB Hands Above Level Bat Path Modern Swing For Baseball & Softball Hitting | Drills To Fix & Get Rid Of Bat Drag
Discover why squishing the bug batting is bad for basic baseball and softball swing fundamentals. Learn STOP squashing hitting drills and a beginners meaning of the term.
WHY ‘Squishing The Bug’ Is So Dumb
This video is a definitive guide when it comes to WHY ‘squishing the bug’ is an inferior hitting mechanic. Right now, if you find yourself asking if people STILL teach this, then sadly, the answer is yes. I ran into one just the other day on the socials. Nothing but pseudo science and circular reasoning.
Here’s fair WARNING for the small few out there still teaching hitters to ‘squish the bug’. If after watching this video, you’re still not convinced, then you’re old. Consider what Henry Ford once said:
And while we’re at it, look at what Ayn Rand said:
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Note the gentleman in the stands with the hat and Mariners shirt on (red arrow) as Mike Trout’s head moves forward to landing. Photo courtesy: YouTube user: PastTimeAthletics.com
The most common objection I hear from my hitters is their coaches are dumping on them for using forward momentum. Because – they say – there’s too much head movement! These coaches keep saying the perfect swing shouldn’t have head movement.
In a way, they’re right! But there’s a bit of confusion as to when head movement is okay…and not okay. You see, the perfect swing, has head movement. ALL dynamic movement does. Did you know our head bobs up and down when we walk and run? Try watching television upside down and you’ll see it clear as day.
Click Here for a SABR.org study titled: “Baseball Swing Stride and Head Movement Relationships”, from SAMUEL J. HAAG, an assistant professor of Kinesiology and Health Sciences at Concordia University, St. Paul. The study concluded:
“The present findings suggest stride height and stride length are not associated with displacement of the head during the baseball swing in experienced collegiate baseball players.”
But it’s the timing of head movement that matters. In this post, we’re going over:
Balance without thinking,
Debunking a common objection & a study, AND
Perfect swing examples…
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Proprioception. I know it’s a big ugly word. But it has A LOT to do with the perfect swing. At least when we talk about head movement. Experiencing proprioception is easier than saying the word itself!
Try this…
Stand up, lift one leg, and close your eyes… You feel your standing ankle and foot wobbling to balance your body? This balance happens without you having to think about it. It’s an unconscious process, like breathing. Here’s how balance without thinking breaks down when looking at the perfect swing…
Scenario #1 The Sit Back Hitter – during stride, keep 60% of weight on BACK leg, being soft with the landing foot like you’re stepping on unbroken eggshells.
Scenario #2 The Forward Momentum Hitter – during stride, commit 60% of body weight to FRONT leg at landing, thereby breaking the “eggshells” in scenario #1.
Let’s apply proprioception to where the two scenarios left off above… In Scenario #1, to bring the body back to balance, the brain shifts the weight forward during the Final Turn. In other words, the heads moves later.
In scenario #2, to restore balance, the brain shifts the weight back during the Final Turn. Because of the transfer of linear into angular momentum, the head will become the center axis of rotation along with the spine.
We sacrifice head movement early, for little to no head movement later.
Do an experiment with the two scenarios above. Record your swing using the Coaches Eye or Ubersense app. Try and swing as hard as you can under complete control. And note the change in head position between the two scenarios. In a perfect swing, you’re going to have head movement. But the question is, when do you want it? BEFORE or DURING the Final Turn?
Debunking a Common Objection & a Study
CLICK HERE for a great FanGraphs study that Dan Farnsworth did on June 17, 2013 titled “Breaking Down the Swing: Best Hitters of 2012”. Scroll down a ways and start reading under the section: “Keep Your Head Still”.
Farnsworth compiled a list of the top 50 hitters from the 2012 season according to Fangraphs’ Batting component of WAR. He looked at side views of each of these hitters from highlights of the 2012 season in which each player hit a homerun. You can read the details of how he compiled his measurements in his post.
As Farnsworth says, the main complaint coaches have with Forward Momentum, or early head movement, is that moving the head forward “speeds up the ball”. This may be true…
But during the stride, the hitter hasn’t made a definitive decision to swing yet. So again, if you know head movement is inevitable during dynamic movement, then when do you want it to happen? BEFORE or DURING the Final Turn?
Does a quarterback “rolling out” to throw to a fast moving receiver have head movement? Yes, until his plant leg hits the ground before throwing. Does a soccer player have head movement quickly dribbling the ball down the field to get closer to the goal, weaving in and out of defenders? Yes, until their plant foot hits the ground to kick. I can go on and one with Olympic Throwers and Shot Putters!
Really think about the answer to that question.
Perfect Swing Examples…
When you watch the following videos, pick out someone or something in the stands behind the hitter to use as a frame of reference in watching for head movement. The following examples were the TOP-5 OPS (On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage) hitters in 2014:
1. Victor Martinez (toe tap)
2. Jose Abreu (toe tap)
3. Andrew McCutchen (slide step)
4. Giancarlo Stanton (toe tap)
5. Mike Trout (medium leg kick)
6. Paul Goldschmidt (little to no stride – technically a toe tap)
7. Albert Pujols (little to no stride)
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/perfect-swing-mike-trout-head-movement.png462657Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-07-11 09:45:242022-07-12 04:59:28How To Keep Head Position And Eye On Ball With Stride Length For Baseball & Softball Swing | MLB Players Load Stride Hitting Vs No Stride Batting Drills
Discover the perfect baseball and softball swing plane trainer, bat path truth, and barrel turn hitting drills for contact, power, and quick hands. Does a one size barrel path fit all pitches? What is the performance consequence of a deep barrel turn on an inside pitch? Or what is the effect of swinging up to an elevated pitch?
Best Hitters Baseball Barrel Path – Do We Have It All Wrong?
Khris Davis is 5'10" with a ton of power. How does he generate it?Sean Casey shows how his back elbow and bat path help him get it done.
Posted by Diamond Demos on Tuesday, September 18, 2018
…And I’m sorry. But I will say this, most are being misled on the best hitters baseball bat path. The principle you’ll discover shortly also applies to fast-pitch and slow-pitch softball.
In this best hitters baseball barrel path post, we’ll look at:
…according to Diamond Demo video above: “Breaking down Khris Davis”.
We published last week’s Khris Davis swing analysis post because of the Diamond Demo “Breaking down Khris Davis” video. The overwhelming response I received from readers sharing this video with me truly validates the Catapult Loading System seen in the best hitters. Don’t think so? Take a look at the following split screen snapshots from the above video (recognize ANY of the hitters??)…
Observe stride landing positions of JD Martinez, Aaron Judge, & Jose Altuve – ‘showing numbers’, ‘downhill shoulders’, & ‘hiding hands’. Photo courtesy: Diamond Demo video “Breaking down Khris Davis”
And,
Check out stride landing positions of Mookie Betts, Nolan Arenado, & Mike Trout – ‘showing numbers’, ‘downhill shoulders’, & ‘hiding hands’. Photo courtesy: Diamond Demo video “Breaking down Khris Davis”
We won’t spend a lot of time rehashing last week’s post, BUT I do want to bring up an important point that was talked about in the above Diamond Demo segment. And it has to do with best hitters baseball barrel path…
Starting at about the 2-min, 15-second video mark, and continuing to the end, they talk about this idea of Khris Davis getting his barrel in the zone early, and keeping barrel in the zone late. And this is where I’ve lied to you for the last 5-years! I used to teach my hitters this same one-size-fits-all SUPER deep barrel path. But what I found was this IS NOT true of the best hitters baseball bat paths…
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WHY Hitters Baseball Current One-Size-Fits-All SUPER Deep Barrel Path Approaches are Losing
Let me tell you a story of how I stumbled onto this principle…
In January of 2018, I was working with one of my hitters, who has been working with me since he was 7 years old. He’s 15 years old now, in the 8th grade, and consistently hits with a low to mid 80’s Ball Exit Speed off the Backspin Tee, using a wood bat.
His mechanics are pretty clean compared to my other hitters. At the time, I was teaching my hitters the same one-size-fits-all SUPER deep barrel acceleration path, as many of you are now. One day, we were working on hunting pitch zones, inner third pitches specifically, and he responded,
“Coach, I don’t feel like I can get to that inside pitch effectively. Am I showing my numbers too much?”
This got me thinking, so I jumped on Twitter to look at the best hitters baseball bat paths. Specifically, I was looking for hitters, like the ones on the split screen images above, crushing 94-mph+ on the inner third of the plate, and guess what I saw??
The ones who demonstrated the Catapult Loading System principles well (namely ‘showing numbers’), still did so at stride landing on inside heat! Did you catch that?! ‘Showing numbers’ was irrelevant to crushing the inside pitch.CLICK HERE for a post I did debunking that. So what were they doing different on the inner third?
It had to do with what we call hitting a different “catcher’s glove”. I won’t go into the details of that here because I already did at the following post titled:“Accelerate Barrel Rearward Like Mike Trout”. The best hitters baseball barrel path isn’t about a one-size-fits-all approach to all pitches and timing.
Here’s the DANGER for hitters using a one-size-fits-all SUPER deep barrel acceleration approach…
Signs that pitcher’s are smartening up to countering this seemingly effective low in the zone barrel approach? Pitchers are now using this, which Perry Husband calls Effective Velocity (EV), to exploit hitters with longer barrel paths.
In short, 2018 homers are down, in addition to having a few months in the season where overall offensive strikeouts outweigh hits in the Big Leagues. This is troubling. To give a clue, check out Perry’s video explaining why Chris Davis (Orioles) is having issues with this one-size-fits-all barrel path…
If hitting coaches don’t smarten up to this soon, then they’ll be rendered obsolete, irrelevant to the hitting community, and ultimately out of a job. That’s not an exaggeration, and is where the puck is going, believe me. Now, let’s look at the behavior of different “catcher’s glove” approaches on inner, middle, and outer third of the plate pitches…
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On time to deliver the backside through the direction of the ball. He lands a little open all the time, I think he opened more here based on anticipated pitcher release point. Rotate on a line. pic.twitter.com/tiAiYF2Org
Now, how do we train this? I’m going to give you two complimentary drills we use to sync the optimal “catcher’s glove” with the proper direction of force (See – aren’t you glad you read my post to the bitter end!?):
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Baseball Batting Techniques: Simple Way To Use Forward Momentum That Works For Elite Hitters
Dustin Pedroia, the King of FoMo. Photo courtesy: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports
In this baseball batting techniques post, we’ll talk about how elite MLB sluggers employ Forward Momentum (FoMo for short).
I’m going to answer the following questions from my readers:
Does a hitter transfer all their weight to the front leg at some point in the swing?
Does FoMo stride need to be big or small?
Does the back foot “follow” the front with FoMo?
Can a wide no-stride hitter utilize Forward Momentum?
Are FoMo hitters more vulnerable to off speed and breaking stuff?
Keep in mind, forward momentum is the objective, and in this baseball batting techniques post, I’ll show different elite hitter examples of forward momentum. The important thing isn’t what you use to get Forward Momentum, it’s the Forward Momentum itself.
Let’s get to it…
Does a hitter transfer all their weight to the front leg at some point in the swing?
Yes. With elite sluggers, it’s rare you don’t find them shifting their weight from back to forward. We typically see one of a few baseball batting techniques associated with FoMo: 1) a “Float”, or a slight weight shift back, then 2) a “Free Fall” forward.
And FYI during the Float, yes it’s okay for the back knee to drift over the foot, and NOT have to unnaturally be ‘shoved’ inside it.
You’ll see the following hitters, who try and start with the back knee inside the back foot (Jose Bautista), will accidently float the knee back out before falling forward.
The dead give away of elite hitters shifting their weight is to look at the weight distribution at impact. You’ll see a weight-free back leg at the start of the turning pelvis…
Andrew “Cutch” McCutchen
Troy “Tulo” Tulowitzki
Jose “Joey Bats” Bautista
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Whatever the hitter is comfortable with. In other words, don’t be so specific in teaching certain Forward Momentum baseball hitting techniques. Remember, the objective is that they’re employing Forward Momentum. We don’t really care how they get there.
Feel free to recommend your hitters tinker with and test the following FOUR stride types:
Josh “The Bringer of Rain” Donaldson (BIG Leg Kick)
Dustin “Laser Show” Pedroia (MEDIUM Leg Kick)
Robinson “Mercedes” Cano (SMALL Leg Kick/Slide Step)
Victor Martinez (Toe Tap)
Does the back foot “follow” the front with FoMo?
It doesn’t have to, but I like it too. If a hitter gets too wide with the stride, and the back foot isn’t allowed to follow, then the hitter will have a challenge getting a tight back knee angle, which is responsible for a better ball launch angle. CLICK HERE for the back knee angle Zepp experiment.
Roberto “The Great One” Clemente (watch at the 0:33 mark and beyond)
Mike “Millville Meteor” Trout
Bryce “Bam Bam” Harper
CLICK HERE for one of my favorite baseball batting techniques, the Back Foot Variance Drill.
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Can a wide no-stride hitter utilize Forward Momentum?
Here are my questions for a coach who would ask this about baseball batting techniques:
“Why are you hooked on being so wide with the feet at the start, and/or not allowing a stride?…”
“Is it about minimizing head movement?”
“Is it cutting down on moving parts?”
“Is it a timing thing?”
Coaches on Facebook have told me, the stride is too hard to teach, or for a young hitter to get. Apparently this poison was shared during a speech at the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) conference.
I’m not convinced, especially when 3-year-old Chinese females are learning some of the most complex human movements in Gymnastics.
Furthermore,
Look to other explosive athletes that almost NEVER start wide with their feet:
Pitchers,
Olympic Divers,
Olympic Throwers,
Soccer Players,
Quarterbacks, Linebackers, and Deep Backs…
Sometimes, it’s not about choosing particular baseball batting techniques. It’s a mindset. I always stress to my hitters, get athletic from the start, and be athletic when you land, so you can transfer the max amount of energy from your body, into the barrel, then to the ball.
About head movement, it’s going to happen. CLICK HERE for a compelling baseball batting techniques analysis by Dan Farnsworth at FanGraphs.com, that demystifies that elite hitters are keeping their head still (Read under “Keep Your Head Still” section).
If it’s about timing, then it’s the timing that must be adjusted. There are only two timing elements:
When the hitter starts their swing, and
How long they ‘Float’.
A hitter can change one or the other, or both. It’s up to them.
Those are the adjustments, it’s not a “stride issue”. CLICK HERE for my favorite baseball batting techniques for timing.
Even big guys use Forward Momentum. It just looks more subtle…coming in the form of a ‘sliding’ of the pelvis (Cruz and Pujols are great examples of this below)…
Miguel “Miggy” Cabrera
Nelson “Boomstick” Cruz
Albert “The Machine” Pujols
Are FoMo hitters more vulnerable to off speed and breaking stuff?
This is common issue #2 that coaches have with Forward Momentum, a hitter cannot adjust to breaking or off-speed stuff.
I invite you to look at the following sluggers who use FoMo, and their stats don’t reveal they had trouble adjusting to off speed and breaking stuff:
All these hitters had exceptional power, high averages, low strikeouts, and high walks compared to today’s hitters.
Last but certainly not least…
David “Big Papi” Ortiz
And how about Big Papi? Why wouldn’t we mention him, right?! He just hit his 500th career homer! He starts and finishes in the same spot, but there’s a whole lot of FoMo going on in-between:
In Conclusion
When it comes to baseball batting techniques, Forward Momentum is the objective. How we get our hitters there doesn’t really matter. Just give them examples of how to accomplish more FoMo, and allow them to tinker and test until they find something they’re comfortable with doing.
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/baseball-batting-techniques-dustin-pedroia-forward-momentum-e1442543731835.jpg333500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-07-05 09:15:142022-07-05 18:14:19Fun Youth How To Teach No Stride Length, Toe Tap, And Leg Kick Hitting Tips For Beginner Baseball & Softball Swing | Where Does Front Foot Land, And When, Hit Drills For 6 To 10 Year Olds
Answering Baseball Stride Drills Reader Question: “How Important Is Forward Momentum I Know We Must Go Forward But Does It Matter If Stride Is Big Or Small?”
Learn the answers to the following questions: when to use front foot hitting technique, where does the stride foot land, batting step length, and should you use no stride for baseball and softball swing?
“…Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks. She went for a walk in the forest. Pretty soon, she came upon a house. She knocked and, when no one answered, she walked right in. At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of porridge. Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge from the first bowl.
“This porridge is too hot!’ she exclaimed. So, she tasted the porridge from the second bowl. ‘This porridge is too cold,’ she said. So, she tasted the last bowl of porridge. ‘Ahhh, this porridge is just right,’ she said happily and she ate it all up…”
More in a bit on how Goldilocks and the Three Bears relates to baseball stride drills, but first…
In the following post, we’re addressing the following concerns regarding baseball stride drills(also works for softball):
Stride direction and amount,
Stride type (experimenting with the ‘Float’),
Head movement from stride, and
Controlling center mass in stride.
Before getting into the how to baseball stride drills guide, I want to preface that the PURPOSE of a stride shouldn’t be power. CLICK HERE for a Zepp swing experiment that may confirm this. If it’s power you seek, then I’d advise looking at the “Build More Power” category. What purpose does a stride serve? A stride is for timing and initiating directional force. CLICK HERE for this post on that.
Let’s get started…
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Watch this video from Chris Welch at ZenoLink. Using data and science, he’s found reasonable markers in guiding baseball stride drills…
Here are highlights from baseball stride drills video above:
Stride length should be about 3.75-times hip width (hip-center-to-hip-center)*,
At landing, stride direction is to be closed about 10-degrees(straight forward toward pitcher is zero-degrees), and
Stride landing foot position to be about 65-degrees open (pointing perpendicular to home plate is zero-degrees, and straight at pitcher is 90-degrees).
(*Denotes 3.75-times hip-center-to-hip-center is length of stride measured from back foot to stride landing. NOT the measurement of the stride itself.)
Chris says in the video that if a hitter is under or over striding, then they’re hampering body’s ability to create torque. Stride landing MUST align ball of the foot with ball of the foot.
CLICK HERE for a post I did on how to fix “stepping in the bucket” using Reactive Neuromuscular Training (RNT). With the image to the right, it’s another one of my baseball stride drills using colored bands to fix stepping in bucket or crashing the plate. If the hitter is crashing too much with their stride, I get them to feel stepping out, and the reverse is true if they’re stepping out. I use variance to get them in the middle (blue band).
…Goldilocks Golden Rule.
Stride Type (‘Experimenting with the Float’)
For most intensive purposes, there are 3 stride types:
Leg kick – medium (Mike Trout) or large (Josh Donaldson),
Slide step – most Big League hitters use this. Aaron Judge, Robinson Cano, Joey Votto, and Andrew McCutchen just to name a few.
Toe-tap – I recommend this for my younger hitters. Troy Tulowitzki, Giancarlo Stanton, and Victor Martinez employ this.
Of course, there are variations to these, but these are the three broad categories of stride types. I call the stride the ‘float’ and ‘fall’. The ‘float’ is a momentary shifting of weight back towards the catcher before falling forward. Matt Nokes calls this the ‘Ride’ and ‘Stride’. Some hitting coaches don’t like this idea, but the reality is this is human movement. The Chinese have been practicing exactly this move in Tai Chi for thousands of years…in stepping to my right, I have to make a brief weight shift to the left first. CLICK HERE for a post analyzing this dynamic move.
I included a lot of video examples (CLICK HERE) of MLB hitters using these different stride types to help guide your baseball stride drills. In that post I concluded with this:
“When it comes to [baseball stride drills], Forward Momentum is the objective. How we get our hitters there doesn’t really matter. Just give them examples of how to accomplish more FoMo, and allow them to tinker and test until they find something they’re comfortable with doing.”
…Goldilocks Golden Rule.
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There’s been few online Hitting Guru #57’s saying we want minimal to zero head movement when hitting. They claim, the more the head moves, the less your eyes see the ball. And they point to Barry Bonds as their champion. On paper, this conclusion looks great, and with Bonds as their poster child seems argument seems pretty reasonable.
However, what science says and what the top 50 hitters in the Major Leagues are doing reveals something completely different. The opposite actually. Listen, I agree minimal to zero head movement when hitter’s stride foot lands. And if baseball stride drills are done correctly, this should be a natural result. But I don’t agree with minimal to zero head movement GETTING TO stride landing – BEFORE the turn starts.
The biggest bomb NUKING minimal to zero head movement argument, is this 2013 article by Dan Farnsworth at FanGraphs.com titled, “Breaking Down the Swing: Best Hitters of 2012“. Farnsworth compiled a list of the top 50 hitters from the 2012 season according to Fangraph’s batting component of WAR(this is a big deal metric).
He looked at side views of each of these hitters from highlights of the 2012 season, in which each player hit a home-run. Farnsworth says the main complaint coaches have with early head movement, is that moving the head forward “speeds up the ball”. This may be true, however during the stride the hitter hasn’t made a definitive decision to swing yet. In the Head Movement piece of the article, Farnsworth concludes:
“Next to no relationship here. I think this one can be considered dead, simply based on the fact that all of them moved forward to some degree.”
Did you catch that?! Farnsworth revealed in his research of top-50 hitters in 2012, that ALL moved their head forward to some degree. You see, head movement is inevitable in ALL dynamic movement. Early is okay, late is not. Don’t sit there and point to hitting outliers like Barry Bonds, and tell me the top-50 hitters of 2012 all had it wrong. It was true then as it is now.
Besides, did you know fresh out of the box, humans come with “video stabilizer” eye software? Ask an ophthalmologist. In addition, your knees, ankles (Achilles tendon), and hip joints act as shock absorbers too. If we start our hitters in an athletic position, and most importantly, they land in one, then the hitter will be fully optimized for minimizing the ball “speeding up”.
Not too much, not too little, just right…Goldilocks Golden Rule.
And last but not least…
Controlling Center of Mass in the Stride
Center of Mass (COM) in the human body is located at the belly button. This was established in the womb. The umbilical cord is the center of an unborn child’s universe. I say this to demonstrate the importance of COM in controlling human movement.
Now, we don’t want baseball stride drills to promote too large or too small of a stride. Remember? Goldilocks Golden Rule. Chris Welch from Zenolink said the stride should be about 3.75 times hip-center-to-hip-center, and aligned are back ball of the foot to front ball of the foot at stride landing. How do we teach this though? In this post I received the following question from one of my readers…
“One specific issue I see in a lot of my players is timing and getting over the front knee too far at contact. What are some good tee drills for staying back and any idea how I can get them to feel it when done correctly.”
WHY we separate PROCESS from PERFORMANCE with hitters learning something new,
How it takes time to change ineffective movement momentum into effective, and…
Training 4-5 days per week, for AT LEAST 5-mins each day.
And remember the …Goldilocks Golden Rule.
Grab This FREE 'Timing Master Class' Video
Struggling to get your hitters ON-TIME in games? Discover HOW TO build effective laser-focused timing, so your hitters can be ON-TIME more often. These principles are validated by REAL science.
Click the button below to access the FREE video that has been downloaded over 6K times!
https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/step-in-bucket-setup.png435450Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-05-18 09:15:362022-05-19 05:06:11When To Use Front Foot Hitting Technique, Where Does Stride Foot Land, Batting Step Length, & Should You No Stride For Baseball And Softball Swing?
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.“
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.
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.
Click the button below to access the FREE video that's been downloaded over 30K times!!
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!!
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:
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.
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…
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.
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]
Baseball Swing Trainer: ‘Swinging Down’ In ‘Launch Angle’ Era?
Should parents, coaches, and instructors be teaching the ‘launch angle’ swing to youth baseball and softball players in 2022? You’ll learn simple drill cues to fix bat path issues, bat drag, and what is an optimal launch angle?
Typical baseball swing trainer BEWARE!
I agree with ‘swing down’. Let that sink in for a bit. Some are pissed I just said that. But those who’ve followed me for some time are nodding their head in confirmation because when you know, you know.
Christian Yelich and Barry Bonds swing comparison. Photo courtesy: Jomboy Media YouTube channel
Because guess what? It depends. ‘Swing down’ shouldn’t be used as a baseball swing trainer blanket teach. The above Christian Yelich video says baseball swing trainer Barry Bonds taught him a drill that changed his career…
I have two things for you…
Jomboy Media VIDEO: “Christian Yelich says Barry Bonds taught him a drill that changed his career” (watching it will reveal its relevance to this post), and
Below is Chapter-2 of the new book I’m working on. It’s a longer post, but I think you’ll like it. Goes well with the Yelich-Bonds video above, like grass fed red meat and a fine red wine.
Thank you Grandpa Mike for sharing the baseball swing trainer video. You know who you are. Enjoy!
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WHAT AN OLD SCHOOL SWING FEELS LIKE & THE PROS AND CONS?
In Chapter-2, we’ll look at what an old school swing feels like and the pros and cons. We’ll be discussing:
How can someone tell Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, or Alex Rodriguez what they say about hitting is wrong?
Pros to old school feel mechanics,
Cons to old school feel mechanics, and
So, how do we interweave brainless data and confusing real v. feel hitting cues?
How Can Someone tell Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, or Alex Rodriguez what they Say about Hitting is Wrong?
Now, some of you out there have seen the video of Alex Rodriguez demonstrating how he swung down. Maybe you saw the preseason interview of Mike Trout discussing how he gets on top of the ball.
Or how about Albert Pujols on the MLB Network revealed he swings knob down to the ball?
‘Swing down’. ‘Getting on top of the ball’. ‘Knob to the ball’. ‘Keep barrel above hands’ is another one. Nowadays, these are some of THE most despised baseball swing trainer hitting coaching cues on the market. I was one of them. “Was”. About 2-3 years ago. Now I have a different perspective and approach. These cues DO work. But it depends on the case. And if reading or hearing those words made your blood boil…you can change too, believe me. Here’s how…
First, let’s clear up and define “swinging down”. Well yeah, the hands do go down to the ball. And depending on how high or low the ball is, the hands will go down more or less. This is true. But coaches HATE these cues for a different reason. Here’s the thing… if you watch players like A-Rod, Mike Trout, and Albert Pujols physically demonstrate what swinging down means to them, you see them using a chopping motion. Yes. The barrel and hands travel down to the ball. But not ‘hands drop’. That’s different, and is a swing flaw we MUST fix. In the high level swing, we see the barrel go down before coming up.
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When swinging down is translated by the baseball swing trainer into a NEGATIVE attack angle. Meaning the barrel is going down towards the impact point. Is not coming up. And this is what hitting greats like Alex Rodriguez, Mike Trout, and Albert Pujols are demonstrating in interviews. And where the confusion starts. If you watch their actual swing on film, slow motion swing, what you’re going to see is a POSITIVE attack angle. Meaning, barrel elevating up to incoming ball descending down. Yes, even in Fastpitch Softball (more about this in Chapter-7). Barrel coming up to impact, positive. Barrel going down to impact, negative. We clear?
So if what these great hitters are saying and demonstrating isn’t what they’re actually doing, then what’s REALLY going on?
Well, here’s the thing … it’s the mysterious case of real versus feel. What’s really happening on video doesn’t square with what the high level hitter feels they’re doing. Two completely opposite things. Take Mike Trout. Let’s look at his real (9-year career average batted ball numbers before start of 2020 season):
Ground-ball rate: 36.8% (League average is 43%)
Fly-ball rate: 40.8% (League average is 37%)
Line drive rate: 22.4% (League average is 20%), and
Homerun to fly-ball ratio: 21.4% (League average is 9.5%).
Significantly below average ground-ball rate. Check. Slightly above average fly-ball rate. Check. Slightly above average line drive rate. Check. And well above average home-run to fly-ball ration. Checkmate! This proves his performance – the real – doesn’t jive with his feel of ‘getting on top of the ball’. I want you to go to YouTube, search “Mike Trout slow motion swing”, and watch…
His barrels goes down, then comes up to the ball. Up. Positive barrel attack angle. Not down. Not on top. Not a negative attack angle.
Before the baseball swing trainer gets upset I’m telling Mike Trout, “You know ‘nothin’!” Here’s the beautiful crazy of this whole thing. Coaches, understand this … the body is always one or two steps behind the brain. Thinking happens fast. There’s zero friction with thoughts. Nothing. It just goes, goes, goes, goes, goes. No heavy bones, muscle, organs, and fascia required to move before a thought can fire off!
The secret to unlocking the real v. feel mystery can be revealed through a psychology term called paradoxical intention…
Pros to Old School Feel Mechanics
We have to understand what Mike Trout is REALLY saying. Bring context to the numbers. Remember Chapter-1? Trout will say, “I’ll take 10 swings off the tee or during batting practice to feel like I’m getting on top of the ball”. You see, his natural tendency is to uppercut. An extreme uppercut because he uses a significant shoulder tilt to effectively feast on balls down in the zone. And this works well with pitchers targeting down in the zone, and away.
Although, this is different than the slight uppercut Ted Williams talked about in his book The Science Of Hitting. Williams talked about barrel meeting the plane of the pitch. Trout’s natural tendency runs counter to this. And what he tells himself, remember the body is one or two steps behind the brain, is to do the exact opposite of what his natural tendency is. He tells himself to get on top of the ball. And what’s the result? The barrel ends up somewhere in the middle of extreme uppercut and negative attack angle downswing. That’s what he’s trying to get for his real… to get to the middle.
The true old school baseball swing trainer hitting tragedy…
Some say hitters like Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Pujols, and Trout are – or were – fantastic at doing, but not very good at translating what they did into teaching. Take Barry Bonds. Who was the Florida Marlins hitting coach in 2016. Then they let him go. Former Marlins President David Samson said this,
“Bonds was worst hitting coach of my career.”
So why wasn’t Barry Bonds able to translate the way he hit to his prized pupils like Giancarlo Stanton? Bonds is the career Major League home run leader after all. Some say he can do, but he doesn’t know how he does what he did. I disagree these hitters aren’t good at teaching. Again it’s a translation issue.
Dr. Victor Frankl, Psychologist and survivor of four Nazi death camps, in his book Man’s Search For Meaning, calls this “paradoxical intention”. Hitters like Trout and Bonds use extreme physical cues to establish a consistent slight upward swing plane. This strategy is a “trick” played on the body, which is a step or two behind. Paradoxical intention. Take any hitter with an extreme uppercut, tell them to chop down (negative Attack Angle “feel” cue), and their barrel path ends up in a slight uppercut. Just like Ted Williams said – like magic! Feel cues are fantastic for making simple swing adjustments.
If you’re coaching youth hitters, let’s get into that world for a moment…
A lot, and I mean A LOT of youth players ages 7 to 12 years old uppercut. Extreme uppercuts. Casting. Loooong swings. They don’t need to be taught this! This is typical, before they’ve built enough strength in their bodies. In their core. In the dynamic nature of the spinal engine. They tend to cast the barrel out. Meaning, the barrel casts away from the body, leaving the back shoulder too early. This causes a long swing. Thanks to gravitational forces, centripetal and centrifugal forces*. As they swing, they end up underneath the ball. On inside pitches, they end up getting jammed a lot. And swing under a lot of pitches up in the zone. A LOT.
(*Centripetal Force is a center “seeking” force. Like twirling a rock on a string. The rock exerts force back to the two fingers holding the string. Centrifugal Force is a center “fleeing” force. Letting go of the twirling rock on a swing, causes the rock to shoot off in a tangent direction away from the original circle.)
There are other factors causing an extreme uppercut, like hands drop or constant deep barrel dumping. But with youth hitters, the rules of Physics are bigger offenders. Here’s the good news … swing an overloaded bat. Overloaded bats help young hitters build strength to do that. Regardless of mechanics. More on that protocol later in the book.
Those are the pros of an old school feel mechanics. Now, let’s look at the cons…
Cons to Old School Feel Mechanics
These are what the baseball swing trainer “metrics people” will typically bring up. You’re so out of touch. No numbers to support your gut feelings? What does that mean? How can I trust your “gut”? Because you played or coached 20 years in the Big Leagues? That’s not good enough!! What’s measurable is manageable. If you can’t use numbers to support your gut, then I’m not listening. This is a common conversation you’ve probably seen, heard, or participated in.
The old school coaching cues we just discussed in the pros to old school swing section can also be included in that gut conversation. It’s bad if the old school cues are used as a default. In a one size fits all way. For example, Johnny’s coach sees Pujols demonstrate a chopping down swing on MLB Network’s Diamond Demos. That coach goes to Johnny’s 10 year old team practice on Monday evening, and tells every one of his hitters to swing like Pujols does. Chop, chop, chop. And he tells them with the conviction, vigor, and energy of a Sunday Pastor, that they can hit like Pujols. How can you argue with Senor Alberto? From his lips to coach’s ears out of coaches mouth to kids’ ears. If Albert Pujols said it and it worked for him, then we MUST take the message literally! He is Prince Albert for jimminies sake!
Here’s the problem with that. Remember when I mentioned the translation issue? By feeding the ‘swing down’ or ‘chop down’ mantras as a default hitting strategy to every 10 year old on your team, I’m sorry to say it, but you will lose. Let me illustrate with a thought experiment…
Apply the “one-third rule” to your team. In this example, assume a third of your hitters pop the ball up a majority of the time. Another third of hitters hit line drives a majority of the time. And the remaining third are majority ground-ball hitters. So, what if you tell the whole team to swing down or get on top of the ball? A blanket statement to all. Default old school baseball swing trainer hitting cue. What do you think is going to happen?
Based on what was discussed with Dr. Victor Frankl’s paradoxical intention – remember extreme uppercut, tell them to ‘get on top’, and they end up in the middle? Slight uppercut. Inline with incoming pitch. Here’s what will happen to our team if we tell all to chop down … a third of the team that used to pop the ball up a majority of the time, will hit more line drives. Those middle third hitting line drives a majority of the time, are going to hit more ground-balls. And the ground-ball a majority of the time group, are going to hit even more worm burner ground-balls. So how did the thought experiment turn out with a blanket statement old school hitting cue?
The only group on the team that benefits are the beginning fly ball hitters. The ones hitting fly-balls a majority of the time. Those are the only ones you’ll see a significant difference, for the better. Look ground-balls are great. Especially hard ones when the defense can’t play catch. But what happens when they can play catch? When would your team come across a team that can play catch? That’s right! In all-stars. In playoff and championship games. Not good if you just converted line drive hitters into ground-ball hitters. And ground-ballers into hitting more worm burners. Read our infamous Ground-ball Rant post.
Now, let’s cook up a different scenario. A more simple yet elegant solution. Instead of giving a blanket statement, a blanket swing down, chop down to the whole team. But instead, I let the line drive hitters do their thing. Just keep doing what you’re doing. I took the fly ball hitter and told them to swing down, chop down. And I instructed the ground-ballers to hit the ball in the air. Like pop the ball up instruction. How do you think that baseball swing trainer thought experiment would go?
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If I did that…now my pop-fliers AND ground-ballers are both hitting more line drives. Remember Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning paradoxical intention? Overall, my whole team is hitting more line drives. Now my line drivers aren’t lonely. They have more competition to deal with. Competition makes everyone better. Hungrier. Especially when they’re experiencing success. Does that make sense?
The cons of an old school swing are when we apply a blanket statement shared by one of the best hitters on the planet. Don’t do that. Bad coach. You DO NOT pass go, and you DO NOT collect $200.
One swing fits all cues are a bad. And you wouldn’t know this without data to measure and optimize. Gut feelings and hunches are like throwing darts in the dark. It’s like shooting an arrow and calling whatever you hit – after the fact. It’s guessing. If you aren’t collecting numbers using a PocketRadar, Rhapsodo, HitTrax, BlastMotion, or SwingTracker, then you’re flying blind. You aren’t going to know. And those hunches will just be hunches.
Same goes for blindly following what a Hall of Famer or future Hall of Famer says or said about hitting. Become a scientist. Test, test, test. Blindly following a leader without question, will make you nothing more than a sheep. Question, question, question. Even question me and EVERYTHING in this book.
So far in Chapter-2, we talked about:
How can someone tell Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, or Alex Rodriguez what they say about hitting is wrong?
Pros to old school feel mechanics, and
Cons to old school feel mechanics…
We talked about how what’s real and what’s feel are two totally different things. The scenery can be very confusing. The waters choppy. How does a coach cut through the clutter and calm the waters? The simple truth to make hitting easier – it’s not easy, but we can make it easier – is called paradoxical intention. Doing the exact opposite of what just happened to get the middle. Extreme swing up? Tell them to swing down – hit a chopper. Extreme swing down? Tell them to swing up – hit a pop-fly. There’s more to it of course, and we’ll get into it more later. Let’s move on to…
How do we Interweave Brainless Data and Confusing Hitting Cues?
This DOES NOT cause that, and that DOES NOT cause this. Question: Coincidentally, if I wear a green shirt and it rains, then is it reasonable to think I can make it rain by wearing a green shirt? This is the exact dilemma many instructors find themselves in with what they teach.
Some teach ONLY using data. Some teach ONLY using old school hitting cues. Some claim to base their teachings on millions of hours watching ONLY the best hitters. Some validate Science with their hitting theories (proudly saying their system can’t be found in Science!!). And others validate their hitting philosophy with Science, which is what we do. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Can we use a mix? And if so, how do we know if we’re on the right track?
Are you throwing dynamite in the air and expecting rain?
I want to share a true story from the book Dust Bowl: An Illustrated Historyby Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan. The story will illuminate how to filter the hitting information available today. Interestingly…
Right before the Great Depression hit the Oklahoma panhandle, rain was plentiful. This caused Doctors and Lawyers to quit their practices and join the ranks of farmers to buy land and plant crops that were being subsidized by the US government. In other words, the gold-in-them-hills was harvesting and selling wheat and other bumper crops of the era.
Millions of acres of 6-foot high beautiful Buffalo blue grass were plowed under to make room for crops. Fast forward to the beginning of the Great Depression, the rain dried up, and so did the crops. Unbeknownst to the “new” farmers who moved to the area, typically rain was sparse in the location, and by coincidence, they had just experienced a rare wet 5-10 year period.
Now there’s NO rain. And you know the 6-foot high beautiful Buffalo blue grass they cut down? Well, it used to hold the soil down despite seasonal 60 to 70 mile-per-hour wind gusts. So NO rain coming. NO crops growing. Super high winds are eroding dry barren soil and tossing it up in the air. Grazing cattle have nothing to eat but tumbleweeds brought over by Russians (people often sprinkled salt to eat them as well). The livestock soon get sick and die. The drought is fatal for the majority who stay, others move west. This is where we get John Steinbeck’s book “Dust Bowl”.
Stick with me, because here comes the lesson…
The farmers who stayed behind were so desperate for rain, they hired self proclaimed rain experts to “create” rain, literally out of thin air. The belief at the time was that an explosion in the air could bring clouds, and with clouds, rain would fall from the sky. In plenty. So what did these self proclaimed rain experts do? What any self proclaimed rain expert would do!! They sold the idea that if they lit a stick of dynamite, timed the throw just right, they could get a perfectly timed explosion that would bring rain-a-plenty.
…And as luck would find it, the “racket” seemed to work a couple times. This only fed the foolishness we all see now – hindsight is 20/20. Yes, this wasn’t a proud time in American history. You have to understand, people back then were DESPERATE. Their hope blinded them to the MANY times throwing dynamite in the air didn’t work. People lost limbs, fingers, etc. from timing the throw wrong. Head scratcher I know.
When it comes to baseball swing trainer, we have to be careful of the causation-correlation relationship. Is studying video and teaching only what the “best” hitters are doing enough? I would argue it is not. How do you know what you’re looking at, if you don’t know what you’re looking for? We see Pujols demonstrating a negative attack angle swing on MLB Network. But then we see him NOT do that in real-time. We bring that same Pujols gold nugget to Johnny’s team, blanket teach it, and the end result looks nothing like what we see Pujols do during competition. This DOES NOT cause that, and that DOES NOT cause this.
I’m going to reveal a secret about why coaches are terrible at the causation-correlation relationship. Like shooting a random arrow and calling whatever is hit. Here’s a quote summing it up from Scott Adams, in his book Loserthink: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America:
“There are three important things to know about human beings in order to understand why we do the things we do. [1] Humans use pattern recognition to understand their world. [2] Humans are very bad at pattern recognition. [3] And they don’t know it.”
So how do we escape this seemingly inescapable prison of baseball swing trainer misdiagnosis? After reading thus far, you know it. Be less subjective and more objective. KeyDifferences.com says this about subjective versus objective:
“Subjective means something which does not show the clear picture or it is just a person’s outlook or expression of opinion. A subjective statement relies on assumptions, beliefs, opinions and influenced by emotions and personal feelings. An objective statement is based on facts and observations.”
Use the Scientific Method. Develop a hitting Question…make a predictive Hypothesis…do the Research…collect the Data…form a Conclusion. Swing experimentation. We apply human movement principles validated by REAL Science to hitting a ball. Scientific principles pulled from:
Physics,
Engineering,
Biomechanics, and
Body work.
How do we figure out if this DOES cause that? Or if that DOES cause this? Not by wearing a green shirt! To know what you’re looking at, you have to know what you’re looking for. DO NOT validate Science through your hitting philosophy. DO validate your hitting philosophy through Science. Set a higher standard for your hitters. It’s okay – watch your millions of hours of video…employ those expensive measuring gadgets…and flaunt those old school hitting cues.
But above ALL of that … understand what the rules to human movements are FIRST. Once you know that, all other domino’s fall where they’re supposed to. In conclusion of Chapter-2, we looked at what an old school swing feels like and the pros and cons. We discussed:
How can someone tell Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, or Alex Rodriguez what they say about hitting is wrong?
Pros to old school feel mechanics,
Cons to old school feel mechanics, and
So, how do we interweave brainless data and confusing real v. feel hitting cues?
In Chapter-3, we’ll answer the question of what leads to hitting more predictable line drives and less strikeouts. Where we’ll dive into:
What does “predictable” mean and why does probability matter? And,
Difference between ‘Launch Angle’ and ‘Attack Angle’…
Onward…
———-
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/swing-down-launch-angle-era-e1590641467153.png236500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2022-03-28 09:01:582022-03-29 18:14:09Teach ‘Launch Angle’ Youth Baseball & Softball Swing In 2022? How To Fix Bat Path, Drag, Training Drills, & What Is Optimal?
Backspin Bat Tee Co-Founder Interview: If One Of The Best, Mike Trout, Is Giving Up An Average 20-mph Of Ball Exit Speed, How Much Do Mere Mortals Give Up Doing The Same Thing?
Here are the Backspin bat tee co-founder interview with Taylor Gardner topics that we discussed:
What do bat tee adjustments mean to you when it comes to talking to your hitters?
True or False: Hitters MUST straighten their front leg to be effective…
What if hitters used a more precision approach like golfers when operating between 90-degrees?
Instead of writing off the arm bar as it doesn’t work, why not ask how can it work?
Is there ever a time when ‘swing down’ or ‘barrel above the hands’ bat tee cues can work?
If one of the best, Mike Trout, is giving up 20-mph of ball exit speed, how much do mere mortals give up doing the same thing?
Where can people find more about you Backspin bat tee guys?
The following is the bat tee transcription of the video above. This is a sneak peak at the expert interviews we’ll be including in Volume-2 of the Swing Smarter book series. Enjoy!
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Oh, there’s the baby. You got that mixed up? I don’t think that’s supposed to go in your mouth.
Taylor Gardner 00:21
Probably should.
Joey Myers 00:24
Look at you.
Taylor Gardner 00:26
Yeah.
Joey Myers 00:27
Causing your parents so much so many sleepless nights.
Taylor Gardner 00:30
Yeah, momma needed a shower time and dad had an interview here.
Joey Myers 00:38
Double interview.
Taylor Gardner 00:40
Yeah. Oh my
Joey Myers 00:45
Look at that, first time I think we’ve done a zoom interview.
Taylor Gardner 00:49
Oh it has been working out, better adjust my camera?
Joey Myers 00:55
No, I think you’re good. What do you need to adjust?
Taylor Gardner 00:57
All I was going to bring it down a little bit. I think I always fall down.
Joey Myers 01:01
Yeah, I think you’re good. Okay. Are you ready? Let me do the official bat tee start. Hello and welcome to Swing Smarter Monthly Newsletter. This is your host Joey Myers from HittingPerformanceLab.com and probably for the half a dozenth interview. I have Taylor Gardner here from Backspin Bat Tee. Welcome to the show. Taylor looks like you brought a little friend.
Taylor Gardner 01:26
That’s right. Yes. Yeah. She has been influenced by any good or bad and…
Joey Myers 01:37
there. There we go. You froze for a little bit. Say it again? Say No. So, she’s been influenced by what?
Taylor Gardner 01:46
I said. No, we got we got a fresh template here. She hasn’t had any good or bad instruction to start working with this.
Joey Myers 01:54
Yeah, yeah. Tie the right arm behind your back and… is your brother? Is he lefty? Or is he righty?
Taylor Gardner 02:03
He’s a switch hitter. You can do both.
Joey Myers 02:05
He does both. But what about throwing? Is he a righty?
Taylor Gardner 02:07
He’s righty.
Joey Myers 02:09
Okay, cool. Well, hey, I wanted to get you on the on the other side of the screen here and wanted to talk about making bat tee adjustments. So that we could go into the hitting side we could go into the strategy side we can go into any different things. So, what do adjustments mean to you when it comes to talking to your hitters?
What do bat tee adjustments mean to you when it comes to talking to your hitters?
Taylor Gardner 02:30
The adjustment is, must be understood and adjustment is something if a hitter is already attempting to be on time, it’s really hard to make adjustments if you’re not in the time window to start with. If you’re going up there to hit and you’re just purely reacting your adjustments are also reacting maybe even twice as long or twice as late as they should be.
Taylor Gardner 02:56
Within the understanding that people were syncing up release point we have the timing window of the pitch coming in. Maybe we’re sitting on fastball and all sudden we a pitcher throws a changeup, and whether you recognize the spin or the speed or the trajectory angle, whether an off-speed pitch, what do you do?
Taylor Gardner 03:15
Well, if your plan was there to help you your approach is there to help you not hurt you, so within your plan or approach if you’re on time for fastball, and oh no it’s an off-speed pitch. What do you do? Well, easy answer is, you don’t stop your swing. I know we get told a lot of wait, let that curveball get a lot deeper. Now we’re talking about changing depths and it’s really hard to change depths of timing on the fly. So as instead of being reactive to making your adjustment proactive and making your adjustment one thing that my baby down actually brought a bat here to show you…
Joey Myers 03:55
Use the baby as a bat…how cute she is.
Taylor Gardner 04:02
One thing that we see a lot with hitters. He was left-handed here. I do apologize. Is they’re sideways, they’re pretty lined up with a pitcher in some fashion bat tee stance, and then we start to ride and stride as they start to witness that. Okay, this ball isn’t a perfect fastball down the middle. What do I do? Well, we see them not only continue to take their head and posture to the ball, but you see a lot of hitters start turn in and sit with the ball.
Taylor Gardner 04:33
As opposed to going uh oh, I’m a little early, let me pull out and then have to release my arms and hands to hopefully start to see hitters actually sit with that ball. Then because, you sit, any movement takes time. And if the plane is correct, you’re on time for the pitchers fastest pitch and then if you’re making an adjustment is to bite. This is where a lot of young hitters especially they don’t do a good job of buying time.
Taylor Gardner 05:00
They end up staying on their backside and opening up too soon and all they have left is like it with their own risk. And yeah, you can hit a ball and do that, and you probably get on base and feel good about yourself. But the faster you know that speed starts to go up and level and the more drastic change of off speed, you get a 90 mile an hour fastball and 80-mph changeup. That’s a little different than facing a 75 mile an hour fastball and 70 mile change-up.
Taylor Gardner 05:27
As a pitcher supposed to extend those timelines, adjustments and variables, the hitters have to as well. The ability to be ready for the fastest pitch and also be able to buy time while staying in a good posture position on the ball is something that we see really good hitters do and you know, quite frankly, amateur hitters don’t do as well. Oh, sure at some level. Yeah, won’t be a good fastball hitter. Every great hitter is known to be a great fastball hitter.
Taylor Gardner 05:55
If you’re looking off speed looking for that, that slow curveball every fast ball is going to beat you. On the timeline you got to be prepared for the pitches, pitchers fastest pitch as the fastest timeline. Therefore, your plan is there to help. Yeah, he’s going to be perfect every time, well of course not, it’s baseball. It’s tough. But at least the plan was in place to help you be on time for fastball and buy time for off speed.
Taylor Gardner 06:23
For example, this last weekend, my nephew, faced his first knuckleballer. 13 years old didn’t know this pitcher had a knuckleball it wasn’t his main pitch, so you know first at bat I don’t know hit a fastball for double, second a bat gets a strike or two on him a ball or two and then all the sudden, whack! He hits a single, steals second base eventually gets to third base and the coach at third goes, “good job Maverick you know you really sat well in your legs on that change up”, he goes “wasn’t a changeup coach, it was knuckleball”. He goes, “Oh, when did you realize it was a knuckleball?” “After I hit it!”
Taylor Gardner 06:59
It reminded me that he took a good plan to the plate, ready for fastball he happened to adjust instinctively to this crazy knuckleball, but it was more about controlling this contact depth. I’m not quitting on my swing. Did he sit more in his legs, sure. Did he have a locked out-front leg? No. But he found a way to keep his spinal engine and posture on the ball. By the time he pulled the trigger. Sure, the ball got a little deeper, he barreled it up, he got a good hit out of it. At the end of the day, it didn’t fool him, this random pitch that he really has never seen, didn’t make him react and freeze.
Taylor Gardner 07:36
It didn’t make him react it to slow down and touch it, his reaction was to stay on the ball and give it a chance. And it sounds easy to do until you start seeing a pitch come flying at your body. For us older coaches that aren’t playing anymore, I think sometimes we forget that. There’s a little fear involved. And so, a good plan leads to good adjustments. And sometimes knowing how to get over that fear or filter out your situation really helps that plan starts to stick together better.
Taylor Gardner 07:57
And therefore, those bat tee adjustments really become valuable. As far as other types of adjustments. And that was one type of sitting in your legs, other types of adjustments. We’ve seen Mike Trout sit in his legs; we’ve also seen him bend over a little more at his waist a little side tilt. That’s another way of buying time. Adjustments to me, in our world is a place to buy time, every movement takes time. But unless you’re ready to line your posture up for the ball on time to begin with, adjustments are just going to slow you down. You’ve got to make sure those adjustments are there to help you not hurt you.
Joey Myers 08:48
Well, you said a couple bat tee things that would blow a couple people’s minds they were listening to this… number one is sitting on your backside and swinging from that position number one, and number two, that you don’t have to straighten out your front leg that you can keep that bent. And I love that and that’s something that I’ve learned from you and your brother and Matty, Matty Nokes that the legs really set direction like the lower half basically sets directional force, it does contribute to some of the power.
Joey Myers 09:16
And we’ve learned discussions on that over the last couple of years saying you know, probably between 20 and 30%, it probably contributes to the power of the overall power thing. But the idea that you can use your knees bending your knees at front knee to adjust to pitch height like those are bat tee adjustments that we can make that if you’re from a train of thought that says you have to straighten it you have to brace that leg out, right, I mean that’s really not… We’re trying to like you said buy time.
True or False: Hitters MUST straighten their front leg to be effective
Taylor Gardner 09:46
Right. Speaking while the bracing the front leg, the front leg can obviously we can see it YouTube it, Google it. Now of course you can hit with a straight front leg and even sitting in your legs may still turn out to be a brace straightening front leg, you still bend your knee and still walk and brace into that front knee.
Taylor Gardner 10:06
But I think a lot of times as coaches and instructors that usually come to… an issue that I’ve seen come around is their teaching to push the leg straight, as opposed to letting the hip pull the leg straight. Pitchers do a really good job of this, they don’t just land in their front leg and then push straight up. Is their vertical ground force? Of course, there is.
Taylor Gardner 10:29
Now in hitting though, there may be little more of that vertical into horizontal ground force, it sounds funny to say, but you’re not just going to push up away from the ball every time. Sure, could you get away with it, of course, and there’s nothing wrong if you are on time and you get the barrel to it, great job. But like you like to say Joey, if it happens too much to ignore, I’ll just start paying attention.
Joey Myers 10:52
Yeah, and on that note, that was the one big bat tee thing that I pulled from you, we’ve been friends for probably over 6, 7, 8 years now, was that idea of staying sideways and keeping that back foot from completely turning over. Like a lot of coaches will say pivot that back foot, pivot that back foot, and meaning, that back heel will turn towards home plate. And it’ll continue to keep rotating. And so, I think we’ve developed almost a generation or two of hitters that are over rotating the lower half.
Joey Myers 11:23
And you say, using Matt Nokes’s lingo is stay sideways, stay sideways, I think is a great one. And to your point, or to our point that it happens too much to ignore, and you can’t just write it off. Some of our buddies in the past have said well, that hitter can do that because he XYZ that hitter can do that because it’s… no it happens if you take the top 100 hitters, 50 hitters, you’ll see half of them stay sideways and maybe the other half, get to this neutral with it. So that happens a little bit too often to be ignored.
Taylor Gardner 11:57
For anyone that’s listening, if you’ve ever played golf and if you haven’t fine taken a baseball bat take it slow, practice golf swing, go YouTube, Rory McElroy, Tiger Woods, anyone you want. Golfers have figured out how to stay sideways with their back foot. Now, their balls on the ground and it’s generally between them. Like ball being on a bat tee for hitters. They’re more allowed to buy but positions of contact with golf. However, you’re going to see baseball players do it too. But since the contact point in baseball can be further out front. Sure, you’re going to see that that back foot rotates a little more before contact. I get that told a lot. “Well, look at this hitter.”
Taylor Gardner 12:33
Yes, but look what happened the first 80% of his swing before contact, he was still sideways, he was still… now was he turning his shoulders, was he loading his core, the spiral engine. Sure, but the back foot was still sideways to hit, the back foot ends up becoming a bit of a rudder. I won’t even take that too literal. But you wouldn’t start with your back foot facing the catcher, you wouldn’t face with your back foot facing the pitcher. There’s a reason, it’s a natural position for the body.
Taylor Gardner 13:05
The ball is thrown in front of us and quite honestly, ball comes in and it is in front and to the side of us. If you’ve ever swung an axe, it makes sense to shift your weight and leverage up. That’s why we want to have a little more shift, not only for taking your head to the ball and be able to judge depth before moving very good and feeling your depth and putting a nice sense to it.
Taylor Gardner 13:34
But at the same time spinning against my back foot. Step on my dog… [laughs] spinning too soon. Now the ball is essentially to the side and behind us. Not that you can’t hit from here we opened up too soon. My swing’s wanting to go this way, I crossed my face this way, we want to cross our face into contact with the ball. Again, golfers understand this and their balls in front of them. They want to cross the face you don’t want to spin out and then cross their face too late that ends up turning into a slice and anyone who has played golf, probably vouch for that, my goodness I’m spinning off the ball. balls on never fixed.
Joey Myers 14:19
Well, and what I love the golf analogy is because in golf, you have a ridiculously small margin for error, you have we’re talking in hundreds of yards, not hundreds of feet and your little ball that’s got to get hit by this clubface and then the square center center contact with the clubface in the ball the straighter the ball is going to go. You can take that clubface and slightly like a couple of millimeters you can slightly pull it in like you’re going to hook it or slightly away like you’re going to slice it and those little, teeny millimeters by the end of that 200-yard journey is going to be way pull or slice.
Joey Myers 14:55
What I always tell my hitters, I say when we’re teaching this concept of staying sideways and keeping that back foot from over rotating is, we have to play almost like a golfer, where a golfer’s looking at one shot to the pin, I call it one degree of fair territory. And outside of that 359 degrees of foul territory, because in golf, the objective is the least number of strokes to get it in the hole. In baseball, of course, we have 90 degrees to play with, but we want to act like we’re doing like golf, we want to act like there is a smaller margin, and we have to operate within that smaller bat tee margin, right?
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What if hitters used a more precision bat tee approach like golfers when operating between 90-degrees?
Taylor Gardner 15:29
Along those lines, that it’s incredible you say that because the whole outside pitches, let it get deep, inside pitchers you’re magically allowed to pull for some reason, we’re talking about different depths there. Where in golf, obviously, the ball’s not moving, but to their benefit, they’re more precise, they have time to get their stance set up, time to adjust their face angle. So yes, maybe we don’t have that luxury in baseball, but we do have the luxury of knowing our contact depth.
Taylor Gardner 15:58
Do I like hitting the ball more? You know, some hitters like hitting the ball more off their front hip, some even further out front, some like hitting it a little deeper, more or middle of the other ball, whatever it is that you are super comfortable. That’s your decision. That’s what you’re going to battle with the best. And, again, based on your timeline. I have a lot of young hitters, and we constantly have to work on reminding them. Where is your preferred contact?
Taylor Gardner 16:29
And not to make them look like robots, but you’ll see them when uh, I don’t know, maybe like right there or up here. It’s like, Oh, you got to know, if you don’t know, you’re guessing, like your close, good job of being on time. We want to be on time with our contact point. This is a lot more precise. And as you know, aim small miss small, it’s may not always show up in baseball, maybe you had a day where you didn’t hit well. But you know what my plan was good. My adjustments were sound. And maybe I was just a little early or tad late, whatever that may be over under the ball.
Taylor Gardner 17:06
But you can sleep well at night knowing, man I had it at 99% today. And you don’t realize how much you haven’t figured out. You start thinking about more precision, besides movements. And then suddenly you go out three years ago, I was going to battle with a 50%. efficiency. That shocks a lot of hitters and I really do think a lot of good college players get to pro ball and maybe it doesn’t pan out for whatever reason.
Taylor Gardner 17:32
I think a lot of them whether they can say it or not verbiage that happens to a lot of if they get exposed, we get told at every level of baseball, you better swing faster Jerry, you better figure out how to get that faster pitching, you better, have quicker hands, whatever. Of course, we must make those adjustments because we’re being exposed. What if we got ahead of that being exposed?
Taylor Gardner 17:56
I don’t know if you saw the video that I posted on the baseball Illuminati page. I was actually crow hopping of doing run and guns, a nine-year-old ballplayer shuffle stepping out 25 feet in front of them throwing the ball 60-mph our reaction time stupid fast. So never seen anything that fast in their lives. As far as timing wise. And you know what he did? It took him a bit. He filtered it out. He figured out when to go when to shift, how to track the ball.
Taylor Gardner 18:26
And yeah, that ball was getting to him quicker than any pitch he’s ever going to see in baseball. And he started barreling balls up. Our brain’s a supercomputer y’all know that problem is if that supercomputer is putting in the wrong formula, it’s still going to, there’s still going to be a glitch. You still have to help it out.
Joey Myers 18:44
Shoot, I’d even go another step with the wrong formula and just saying that it’s becoming impossible, or you hear that from coaches? Well, that’s impossible, that’s not going to happen, or that’s not reality, or it’s not going to happen. And instead of saying that something’s not possible, why not ask why? or How can it be possible, right? We’ve talked about the front arm shape and trying to get that thing extended out. Whereas everybody in their mother seems to teach this bent front arm, right.
Joey Myers 19:13
The question that I always get when I put that post out there, people will go well, you know, I’ve tried to test it out and beer league softball and works there, but it doesn’t work in the big leagues and whatnot. And if you go way back, Joe DiMaggio and Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, all those guys locked out. So instead of saying, oh, that doesn’t work, today’s pitchers throw too hard and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Why not ask how can we make that work? Yes. How does that work? Right?
Instead of writing off the arm bar as it doesn’t work, why not ask how can it work?
Taylor Gardner 19:42
What if we made 90 miles an hour feel slower? Nothing’s any easier to hit. But what if? What if it wasn’t impossible. And clearly, it’s not, people do it every day. It’s not impossible. I’d like to say maybe the way we’re rationalizing it and maybe even practicing. Maybe we’re not doing our own job as a baseball coach, making, maybe it’s 75 miles. Now, if you’re struggling, maybe that’s what it is, whatever it is get ahead of that curve, not that you’re going to just start jacking home runs. But don’t be late. There’s no excuse for being late. There’s no excuse for not filtering out and understanding your environment.
Taylor Gardner 20:19
Maybe you don’t get to face a live picture every day or practice, that’s fair. I’m sure you have your work cut out for ya. But there’s no reason to get your doors blown off, when you have all of the potential to be as early as you want. Once you’re late, once the ball gets behind your timeline, and it gets behind your back. Pitcher starts in front of us. We as hitters, let ourselves be late. Maybe because we’re trying to do some crazy swing, like, oh, let it get deep and snap it or something, I don’t know.
Taylor Gardner 20:50
But whatever it may be, again, kind of back to the approach and those adjustments. Got to clean that up. And maybe you got to study more time. Maybe you got to study more spinal engine springy fascia and figure out where to get your running position. To your arm bar point… I think a lot of… uh oh, we have a wandering baby…
Joey Myers 21:13
Wait till she starts walking…
Taylor Gardner 21:15
I know I can’t wait! I understand folding your levers and engaging muscles, getting correct shapes. That makes sense. But when you see arm bar, and it starts to walk out, or to do slow motion. Yeah, looks funky in slow motion to arm bar. When you engage the body and it starts out, it starts to feel a little more natural golfers do the same thing. Luckily for us that in golf, you get to start with it extended and just connected to your body from there.
Taylor Gardner 21:55
But this bat is heavy, I completely understand why people want to hold it close to their body, it is rational. And it’s still close to the body. It’s not like we’re arm barring out here. If you’re still arm barring across our core, this bat is behind you, want lag and you want leverage, leverage, and just loose and lever sometimes, your hands are so close to your body. And even so close this way to the middle of your body. By the time you do a swing, yeah, you’re getting the barrel off your foot. And it may be a strong position depending upon position.
Taylor Gardner 22:34
But if I never got the benefit of the lag, and a clearing, and time to speed up the bat, it takes time to speed up the bat. This is not an instantaneous thing. I know this swing only takes like point two seconds; I get it. That’s slow through the world of everything happening, there is plenty of time and so that hand, grips on the bat. For most people they’re bottom hand is the weaker hand. Not doing anything left-handed if I have to. But you want your dominant arm to do his job.
Taylor Gardner 23:09
Not that you have to do it all with a dominant arm. But you certainly don’t want your weaker arm to be your dominant arm. Now, how do you get them in position? Well, as you get a swing, if it happens to lock out, you’re getting the benefit of lag and leverage. How is that wrong? If I understand timing, if I understand off your positions and swing plane. And armbar is nothing in the scheme of arguments. I’m linked into the lever. If I do it correctly, then of course, I have more leverage and more bat speed.
Taylor Gardner 23:42
But bat speed takes time. And so, when I see a lot of kids, they start here and the lever pull even more on their hands get across the face really soon, elbows way behind their hand and not even close to be slotted. And next thing you know, you’re chopping down or they slice it, and more important, their swing radius and swing arc may only go so far. Versus if I clear, I can get a further reach. And it’d be right within my wheelhouse of comfortability.
Joey Myers 24:13
If we go back to your contact points, right, knowing what your contact points are. When we work with our hitters on what we call our horizontal approach, or our line-to-line approach. Being able to hit the ball the other way, pull it, and go up the middle things like that. We talked about that there are two main things to be aware of… one is what you’ve already said is your contact point. But number two is when that barrel enters the hitting zone.
Joey Myers 24:38
And it’s going to be different for we call middle in and middle away. It’s going to be different. So middle away and middle down. That snapping early getting the barrel in the zone early makes sense. It’s a great middle down of the strike zone middle away approach. But when it comes to middle in the middle up, it doesn’t make sense, and I use those bad cues that I thought were bad about four years ago. Swing down, barrel above the ball, we do use those but only for middle in, middle up.
Is there ever a time when ‘swing down’ or ‘barrel above the hands’ cues can work?
Taylor Gardner 25:05
But right. Speaking along those lines… Yes, have you ever had a kid trying out a new baseball bat and Oh man, he’s struggling with the weight or it was too long for him. But that’s some of the stuff you’ve been told, just remember that when this bat is laying horizontal, is heavier, as far as where the balance is. There’s a reason we stack the barrel. And there’s a reason we hold this bat up, you can hold it with one finger.
Taylor Gardner 25:34
That’s how life, if you will, work how to control the bat, Matt Nokes talks about this, why, the barrel above the hands, it’s taken me a while, the feel can be down, in fact there is a down move in the swing, hold your posture. It’s called your head. The balls is below you. Yes, we want to swing on plane. Of course. But how you get to that barrel entering the zone. And before it starts that actual upswing? That is paramount.
Taylor Gardner 26:07
That also was still wrong with the down early method. Yeah, you’ve got there. But did you give up timing, to get to position at contact. Did you give up adjustments, because your only move is to get there. If you were able to just keep your hands and be ready for that high and inside pitch, as Perry husband would say we get to focus on EV tunnels.
Taylor Gardner 26:34
If I’m ready for that, then great. And then I can always adjust if I need to. Wait adjustment patterns, that kind of dynamic plan. Not everyone would agree with me on this, but just from a third party perspective, if the high and inside pitch is the ball that we have to get the barrel out there quickest to, it makes sense to me to be on time with that and adjust down and away with that, because you have more time or space, ball is further away from me to do so, obviously, you get in the baseball stuffs like, well, if you’re looking middle middle, and then that gets tougher if you’re looking away if you’re looking wherever.
Taylor Gardner 27:19
I don’t want to get into the approach part of it. But it just makes sense to me that you can practice, play around practicing with looking high and in, get that pitch locked in, and then we’ll work it down to middle middle, get that adjustment pattern locked in. Maybe for some people, it’s not so much that they have to change their approach, maybe they just need to be comfortable getting to all these pitches vertically, you might not have to worry about what my timing is good, I’m swinging at the right pitches, just getting jammed a lot on high.
Taylor Gardner 27:51
Well, maybe it’s just because you’re dumping your barrel too soon. It’s okay, you got to find where that issue is, and not fight it. But again, let your plan help you get there. The barrel above the hands is a great plan. It helps me already be ready for that movement pattern… sure, maybe you get to that pitch well maybe you’re facing speeds you can handle and you’re struggling with low and away. So maybe you do have to think about releasing that barrel sooner. Okay, nothing wrong with that.
Taylor Gardner 28:23
I would give everyone hesitation to just go out and put out a YouTube video saying this is the one and only way, of course it’s not. But we must understand all of it so that when you hear someone say something, to filter through what they’re saying, you’ll see why he’s doing it, that makes sense. When you come out and some of these instructors say just one swing plane for every pitch. And if I just wait longer than I can see it longer. We know that’s not exactly be true. Eyes don’t see the ball much longer just because we’re not swinging.
If one of the best, Mike Trout, is giving up 20-mph of ball exit speed, how much do mere mortals give up doing the same thing?
Joey Myers 28:56
Well and what’s also interesting is what the actual hitting operating system is when you can watch somebody, when you have been around the block and you’ve seen a lot of these different teachings, you can see what their main operating system is. And I know you and I were similar in this and we want to maintain high ball exit speeds.
Joey Myers 29:16
When you get a hitting guy that’s talking about a certain thing like hey, we need to get that at high and inside pitch with the bend in the front arm we need to get there, well we know that Perry Husband said Mike Trout, one of the best in the world will go down is one of the best top five probably, ever top five top 10 and down and away average ball exit speed is 101 miles an hour, not his top out but his average. And that’s where he’s locked out with that elbow at contact.
Joey Myers 29:45
And then at up and in, he’s reduced to a high school baseball player at 80 to 83 miles an hour. So he’s losing almost around 20 miles an hour ball exit speed that’s 80 feet. That’s 80 feet of batted ball distance that he’s giving up by looking away and adjusting in. Well, some people go well, that’s fine. But here’s the deal. And this is what I tell my players I say, Mike Trout is a once in a lifetime player. He’s just one of those people that we will look back on when he’s done with his career. And we will say he’s one of the best. One of the best ever is giving up 20 miles an hour ball exit speed.
Joey Myers 29:50
20 miles an hour.
Joey Myers 30:24
You know what the amateurs are probably giving up. 30-35 miles an hour ball exit speed? He’s one of the best he can get away with it. You’re going to be given up a lot more.
Taylor Gardner 30:34
Yeah. I can’t remember if it was you or someone else had brought to my attention. It was before COVID happened. I think it was the baseball season before. And they asked, who hit their highest exit speed most often? Try and word that correctly. And I was like, Oh, I don’t know. And there’s Jose Altuve. And Aaron Judge. I was like, oh, okay, wow, two different types of hitter’s sizes body length. They said, Oh, you know how often they hit their hardest exit speeds?
Taylor Gardner 31:06
And at first, I’m like, Oh, these big leaguers? Oh, man, I bet 20% of their hits or they’re popping out near their top exit speeds. It was less than 2%. Wow, less than 2% of all of their hits, on miss hits in the realm of hitting is as hard as you can. What does that mean, though? Does that mean maybe they’re slowing their swing down and touching the ball? No, I don’t think so. And in my opinion, obviously get fooled on some pitches. Okay, fine.
Taylor Gardner 31:33
But I think most of their base hits that they reported, I think their miss hits are that powerful. And once you start to realize that homeruns are the best result, okay, but maybe your best result is a hard line shot, single or double, whatever. However hard you get whatever type of hit is your hardest hit, which for most people is a low launch angle, I dunno, maybe 0-5, maybe 10 degrees. And then that makes sense. Balls coming down about 5, 7, 8 degrees.
Taylor Gardner 32:03
And you can imagine that plane, you’re going to give up exit speed when you raise or lower your launch angle. And I see a lot of people don’t understand that. Oh, no. My hardest hits home runs. Not exactly. I want to say the highest ball ever recorded was a ground ball. Double play. It’s okay. It’s okay that if your exit speed fluctuates, based on how well you struck that ball for a single, double, triple based on how high or low you hit it, that’s fine. And you want to start tightening those windows up.
Taylor Gardner 32:33
But Backspin tee, you know Taylor, Joey, you can’t control your launch angles, not saying you can control your launch angles. It’s just like I’m not saying you can even hit why I’m saying though, is you can work on the precision of contact and work on your precision posture and swing plane. And when it lines up, you smoke a ball at the pitcher’s head, you did your job. And when the next at-bat, it probably feels the same and you hit a homerun, guess what you did your job. You hit the ball far. But more importantly, your plan gave you the ability to fall as hard as potentially could that swing.
Taylor Gardner 33:08
And that’s Oh man, how many young kids have you seen? You throw them one change-up… They’re crushing balls… you throw them one change up. And then the next 10 swings are crap. They just can’t find it… it just ruins their world. It’s like, oh, man, you got to filter that out. Trust the plan and get to the next pitch. It’s okay.
Joey Myers 33:29
Yeah, exactly. That’s crazy. Yeah, that’s a good one to end on. And that’s another call for another day. I want to be respectful of your time because you’ve got a little one that’s down there. And she’s been great. By the way.
Taylor Gardner 33:40
She’s sleeping now.
Joey Myers 33:41
She’s asleep. Yeah, she’s asleep. I’m talking too loudly. I’m talking to you loudly. But hey, I want to let you get back to the baby and get back to the family. hopefully get some sleep. Maybe she’ll take take a nap with her. But hey, where can people find you? socials, website, any kind of deals that you got going on right now? Go ahead. And…
Where can people find more about you guys?
Taylor Gardner 34:04
Yes, so find us on Google backspin bat tee to find backspintee.com, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, we have a 20% off code at the moment. If you use the code BATBROS. For those of you that follow the baseball bat pros, I’m very good friends with them. They are great people Bill Taylor and them and they’re amazing people. But you’re also going to find our bat tee in Dick’s Sporting Goods here soon. So be on the lookout.
Taylor Gardner 34:28
Hopefully, Academy is a follow that as well for those that maybe that’s closer to here. And we’re trying hard to get Mark word shields and some other big retail stores. But the Dick’s Sporting Goods we’re shipping that out here in a couple days. Extremely excited to make that next jump to the big retail because we’ve done so well on the individual bat tee sale and it’s time to make that move.
Joey Myers 34:50
Yeah, congratulations, buddy. I’ve been with you for a lot of this bat tee journey. I think we jumped on probably we start building our relationship maybe your second year I think you guys are. So, so I’m just excited for you guys. And I know you guys have been just like all of us been through our ups and downs and stuff and it sounds like you guys are starting to starting to rise again. So yeah,
Taylor Gardner 35:12
Yeah, it all started with Joey Myers experiment video, my bat tee versus the other tee, and we didn’t know each other so you have to watch that video.
Joey Myers 35:20
Again. See how they turned out? Yeah, it was in a very bias thing, I was probably, we had run into each other a couple times. We talked on the phone maybe once or twice and I was like, you know what, let’s try this out. Let’s do a bat tee experiment on it. I think it turned out well for you guys.
Taylor Gardner 35:34
Yeah, I think well back to the precision of contact, just changing that visual. You had a more funnel effect with the Backspin Bat Tee, and with the traditional tee, it was a little more scattered and it just makes you wonder, not promoting my bat tee over another tee… Tee just are you working on your precision and in your vision obviously has a lot to do with that so, pick up a Backspin Bat Tee, give it a shot, if you don’t like don’t like it, then I’ll give you your money back. Yeah, definitely.
Joey Myers 36:01
Right. Then percent off and you get 20% BATBROS. B-A-T-B-R-O-S, and that’s all caps, correct? Cool. All right, brother. Well, thanks. Keep up the good bat tee work. Congrats on everything and congrats on the little girl. My first time seeing her.
Taylor Gardner 36:13
Thank you bud.
Joey Myers 36:14
Alright brother. Take care of yourself.
Taylor Gardner 36:16
Have a good one.
Joey Myers 36:17
Have a good Easter.
Taylor Gardner 36:18
Thank you.
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https://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/bat-tee-e1617902685923.png281500Joey Myershttps://hittingperformancelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hitting-performance-labs_c90c0362088ef1d3d528f3078f4f8ac1-300x75.pngJoey Myers2021-04-08 17:31:572021-04-08 18:14:29Bat Tee Co-Founder: How To Make Adjustments [VIDEO]
,
seen in the best hitters. Don’t think so? Take a look at the following split screen snapshots from the above video (recognize ANY of the hitters??)…
principles well (namely ‘showing numbers’), still did so at stride landing on inside heat! Did you catch that?! ‘Showing numbers’ was irrelevant to crushing the inside pitch. 
book,
by Thomas Myers. Watch the following FunctionalPatterns YouTube video of Thomas Myers talking about the concept of Tensegrity, or Tension Integrity:
by Bill Jenkinson
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.
. Williams talked about barrel meeting the plane of the pitch. Trout’s natural tendency runs counter to this. And what he tells himself, remember the body is one or two steps behind the brain, is to do the exact opposite of what his natural tendency is. He tells himself to get on top of the ball. And what’s the result? The barrel ends up somewhere in the middle of extreme uppercut and negative attack angle downswing. That’s what he’s trying to get for his real… to get to the middle.
, calls this 
paradoxical intention? Overall, my whole team is hitting more line drives. Now my line drivers aren’t lonely. They have more competition to deal with. Competition makes everyone better. Hungrier. Especially when they’re experiencing success. Does that make sense?
, 
, HitTrax, 
, or 
, then you’re flying blind. You aren’t going to know. And those hunches will just be hunches.
by K
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