Hitting: tip & myth of the week

[ssarge]

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The video of Vlad is a great example.

Do you offer swing analysis via video?

Not as a paid service. But if you have a clip you can post or eMail to me, I'll be happy to take a look and offer some comments.

Best regards,

Scott

[ssarge]

There is a lengthy debate
here about the "push" at or after contact, in Megan Langenfeld's swing.

My DD was taught this as well by a hitting coach who worked with Enquist.

What are your thoughts on this?

I kind of touched on this in the middle of this thread with several posts.

I believe extension (and let's call that a rough euphemism for "pushing" in the context of the thread you referenced) before contact will slow bat speed. A lot of ways this can be demonstrated, including tracking how far the bat tip moves in each frame of video, etc.

And a tightening of the swing radius will actually lead to whip and increase bat speed. So, from my perspective, pushing / extension not only slows the bat, there is an OPPORTUNITY cost as well, because other movement patterns actually increase bat speed.

Extension AFTER contact will not affect bat speed, but it is really hard to be so consistently accurate with timing that extension is always after contact, and not sometimes before. The ball is on the bat for 1/1000th of a second - or less. No one is good enough to time that perfectly every time, or even most times.


Of course, bat speed is only one consideration. At the level of skill demonstrated by Langenfeld and others on the thread you referenced, the bat speed generated is significantly more than is required to hit a ball 200-220 feet.

And of course, the challenge is NOT to hit a ball 300 feet, it's to hit it 220 feet MORE OFTEN.

So the question becomes, "does extension / pushing increase the liklihood of making contact by expanding the zone?"

And the INTUITIVE answer is, "yes, of course." And that MAY be true, I'm honestly not sure. Certainly Enquist would say so, and a lot of other people as well. I'm not as sure. Keeping the bat in the zone longer certainly sounds like a GREAT idea, but a slowing bat does add some timing variability and difficulty as well. I think I could argue this point either way.

The reality of it, though, is at the skill level of a player like Langenfeld, it doesn't much matter. She is generating close to 70mph of tip bat speed, and you can probably hit a HR with maybe 50mph of tip speed. And SOME hitters are so skilled that they can actually extend their arms through contact, even WHILE tightening the swing radius by adducting (pinching) the front shoulder just before contact. The best of all worlds.

But as the cliche goes, "don't try this at home." This is NOT something that the average kid can do. And the average kid will get herself in trouble TRYING to do it.

And that is the rub of this kind of thing. And if there IS a limitation of video, this is it. Emulating behaviors of the best in the world is absolutely desirable. But swinging like Bustos may not be possible for a kid who lacks her strength and giftedness. While it IS true that the similarities of swing common to all great hitters are FAR more pronounced than are the differences, Bustos does things others don't - and frankly, can't. Put simply - and maybe a little unfairly - she can be less precise with her mechanics because her strength and quickness are so pronounced that she can park a ball with maybe 50% of optimal contact. Most can't do that, and so they need to be more precise with their mechanics.

The mechanics possible for a 999 percentile athlete like Langenfeld (and I use her as an example because she was featured in the thread you referenced) with significant weight training and maybe 1/2 million swings under her belt are different than what is possible for a 14 YO kid. The 14 YO kid may mature and grow into that, but as she starts her journey, almost certainly will be best served with different points of emphasis.

If the instruction for the TYPICAL young female hitter is to "PUSH through contact," I can almost guarantee you that you / she are not going to be happy with the results. First, that typical kid is developing maybe 50mph of bat speed, or less, as opposed to the 70mph that Lengenfeld is developing. So she doesn't have much to spare if she wants to drive a ball anywhere near the fence. In fact, when you look at video of a lot of kids who DO push, the bat almost seems to go BACKWARDS after contact. It has just dramatically slowed before impact with the ball, and then the force of the ball hitting the bat slams on the brakes for the bat. Insidious. The kid is TRYING to push through contact to hit the ball harder, and in that effort, is actually LOSING bat speed. An emphasis on pushing out of rotation is NOT what the kid needs to be focusing on.

Really elite athletes can do things most of us can't. It's why they are who they are. And it is hard for them to understand why others can't do the same. If you - for example - have a facile brain that can add columns of numbers effortlessly in your head, it's hard to understand why someone else can't. You are gifted in this way, and it is innate.

The same can be true for hitting instructors. Work ONLY with skilled D-1 hiters, and it is easy to forget that some of the mechanics they model are not as simple - may not even be possible - for a young kid. The challenge for an instructor is knowing which behaviors / movements are truly universal. And which are going to be past the limits for young hitters, whose CORE movement, strength, and athletecism are perhaps not at the level of a Langenfeld. Or at least not yet.

When working with young female hitters, I personally don't emphasize pushing / extension. I get better results with different points of emphasis. I don't want kids to be early, then extend. As Ted Williams said, "better a little late than a little early." (there are a lot of reasons for this)

That said, when I work with skilled D-1 level hitters, there are different points of emphasis. They generate enormous rotatational force rather effortlessly. Their challenge is to minimize timing error, and hit the ball more often. Because generally, when they hit it, it is going to go somewhere. Even at that level, though, I don't emphasize pushing / extension much. Because it is basically a "no teach." If a hitter at this level is early, she will naturally extend to insure contact. It is an athletic adjustment that this level hitter makes without even thinking, and the best ones can do it without losing too much bat speed (though they will lose some). So I personally don't make this a point of emphasis.

THis IS the challenge of instruction, though. Every hitter's pathology, giftedness, strength, and athletecism is different. So is her level of experience. Building a plan for each hittter which will help her improve at her current level of play, as well as carry that improvement to the next levels of play and then build on it, is the objective. No one series of cues is effective for every hitter. It's a huge challenge, but it's a huge opportunity too, for instructor and kid.


These are not simple questions, and there is certainly room for divergent opinions. Because this is NOT a simple subject. It is very easy for coaches who work mostly with great athletes to conclude "hitting is simple, KISS." I GET that. The luxury for a D-1 coach is to only recruit the kids for whom hitting is "simple," and results are consistently good. And that is what they do. So would I. But it can skew your view, a little bit.

YOUR challenge is probably different. Most of us - parents AND instructors - face a different challenge. We are working with a kid(s) of more modest giftedness. Probably hard-working, coachable, anxious to learn. But probably NOT "bury the needle" athletic. A good athlete, sure, but maybe not a world-class athlete. For that kid, hitting is not so "simple." We need to figure out how to communicate with her in simple terms she can relate to, but we also have to undersand that many of the behaviors / mechanics we ultimately want her to model are NOT innate or natural for HER. And she has to be taught to move her body - starting with it's core - in a way that really gifted athletes manage with little effort. It's posisble to do this, but calling it simple would be lunacy. It is not.

Best regards,

Scott

[ssarge]

One last comment, before heading off to work.

Something common to the hitting instructors that I really admire is that they are always thinking about how better to communicate with kids. In general, and with what will work with any one kid. And how to build the behavior needed / desired through drills specific to that kid.

I have seen Englishbey LITERALLY try 10-12 different approaches / drills to get one kid to model one behavior he thought was important to her development. Until he finally found one approach that clicked for that kid. With other kids, the same instruction "took" with the first drill he tried. And typically, it is somewhere in the middle.

That kind of thing doesn't happen in a vacuum. He had a dozen things to try, because he thinks about it - a lot. And he's worked with thousands of kids.

I work at the Sorcerer Academy with Phil Mumma, who does the same thing. I try to model the instrutional approach as well. If one approach doesn't work, then try another one. The physical behavior HAS to be a part of the swing, so you can't give up if the kid isn't getting it. Back to the drawing board. Think about it. Try to find another approach. Find a way. Might take weeks to change one thing, but that's OK. That's the process. I introduced a drill last night with a hitter that seemed to make a big dent in a connection problem that had been puzzling me for a few weeks. I thought she had a great session, and showed real progress. Satisfying for both of us. I'd been thinking about the approach a LOT, tried various things, and last night, it clicked.

I think it is really beneficial for an instructor to spend a LOT of time thinking, dreaming, practicing themselves, devising new ways to communicate / build the desired physical behavior. In general, and specific to one kid. At the end of the night, Mumma and I often talk about how to solve a problem with a specific kid. And I'll send video and then talk to Englishbey (and others) about it, too. You just keep chipping away. Eventually, you build a bag of tricks (for lack of a better phrase). But you're always expanding it.

And perhaps the biggest challenge is knowing in WHAT ORDER to apply the tricks. What are the core principles / foundations that both lead to rapid improvement, and provide a basis for life-long improvement. The better the hitter gets, the more subtle the refinement to improve, and of course, the improvement becomes increasingly incremental. That is reality, and actually, it is pretty cool. But subtle refinement only works if the foundation is solid. Otherwise, it is putting lipstick on a pig, most of the time.

Best,

Scott

[MrHittingCoach]

Anyone who hits the ball off the tee 300ft with one hand at age FIFTY, I am listening to and watching with the utmost respect. Thats what Steve Englishbey did when he came to Modesto a little over 4 yrs ago to work with about 10 HS kids, and we were lucky enough to be included, I will never forget those two 12 hour days that he spent at a local HS in Modesto. One of the most respected hitting guys I know from the Modesto area who happens to be a former Team USA Pan/AM games gold medalist got Steve to come and who truly feels that Steve is the best thing since slice bread, and this comes from a guy who was voted "ALL-World" by the ISF. So with that much respect and to see what he does with his swing, I have a feeling Sarge is right, Steve is the real deal, and has probably forgot more about hitting and how the body works, that most will ever know.

I would have to disagree, but if you want someone in our area that teaches his methods that would be Cencal.
They're an excellent organization!

[dittoz]

Scott, this whole non-extension thing is of interest to me because a good many years ago (I think I said this before) both of my kids worked with Epstein and he was/is a great promoter of the "rotational" theory as we know.

At the time, I had taught the MIDDLE to swing in what evolved only semi-intentionally into a circular path rather than a bastardized D-shape. He started with the hands at the shoulder level and pressed slightly back at load. The hips led the hands and the swing plane started out slightly downward as the hands came forward. Following my favorite vision of equating things to an ice skater who spins fastest with the hands close to the body, the swing plane gently came upward and came to the point of contact. Now that I think about it, I was teaching him the adduction-at-contact concept too (although I didn't really realize it) and then after contact the hands continued in a circular pattern right on around the body. It wasn't so much an intentional adduction as it was a means to keeping the hands in yet keeping the bathead perpendicular to the path of the ball. I told him that it made zero difference what the hands did after contact and he really couldn't much control them anyway although I did work from the perspective that what the hitter does ahead of time impacts what the hands and the bat do afterwards - to a point.

He developed pretty good bat speed as a result of always staying inside the ball and in spite of his small stature, he could hit the long ball pretty well. He's a pitcher now-a-days so the hitting thing is of less importance but I'm interested to read your description.

The YOUNGEST is well into softball now and she has a much different swing path but the results are very similar. She started out with a very linear motion that was abruptly cut off as the hands began to move and she transitioned into more of the traditional rotational movement. The linear weight transfer helped her quite a bit as she has always been quite a fly-weight. She too stays inside the ball and adduction occurs (without really being taught) but then she extends her arms following contact. Not because the extension helps I don't think, but rather because that's what she has learned from 800 different coaches over the years. Her results are pretty good as well and we've always heard comments of how far "that little squirt" hits the ball. She's 15 now and not so much a little squirt but the mechanics are the same although she has transitioned into somewhere between a toe-tip and a bug squisher in the lower half with no linear. Not sure I like that bug-squish form but it's what the hitting coach on her travel team teaches and she says she's comfortable with it. I figure there will be another coach or two that will change it up yet again so I'm picking my battles here...

Point to all this being, I have to agree that extension or not does not seem to directly impact the power of the swing. That doesn't mean that the launch and pre-contact form doesn't cause the extension to occur after and the launch form may create more power, but I don't see where anything after impact could directly affect a hit.

[ssarge]

dittoz:

Thanks for sharing the experience, and some good comments and observations.

Epstein was the starting point for many, and he has long been an advocate of leading with the hips, and getting on plane to swing slightly up against the downward trajectory of the ball.

Many have criticized Epstein over the years - myself included - on some mechanical flaws, and interestingly, he has recently recognized this criticism, and changed his approach a little.

Here is a recent comment by Mike:

Both Jake and I believe that one of the strong points of our company is that we are truly dynamic in scope. Many of you have commented on the fact that we do not sit still and continually strive to better our product. We continually look at ways to improve our own personal teaching methodology, incorporating new and updated cues and drills, ensuring that our customers and Epstein Certified Instructors are on the leading edge of the teaching spectrum (and "in the loop"). A number of these good tips and innovations have come from you--which makes it even more worthwhile.

When I first went public with the information on rotational hitting back in 2000, it was very difficult to put hitters into positions where they would stay behind the ball and not continue coming forward onto a bent front leg. In fact, if I could get a student to show me a "decent" swing out of the Torque Drill in a one-hour lesson, it was truly extraordinary.

At that time, artificial turf played a key role in shaping the way players hit. The rock-hard infields rewarded the swing-down, head-down, squish-the-bug linear technique. A passel of changes have occurred since artificial turf went the way of the dinosaur, ushered in by a return to grass infields and struggling hitters. "Stay back" became the cue for success.

The three drills that I designed helped achieve the results needed at that time. However, as the understanding of proper weight-shifting to a blocked front side and "rotating around a stationary axis" became more prevalent, the drills I originally introduced proved to be more stringent than necessary. Again, the bulk of the credit goes to our customers, our network of Epstein Certified Instructors, the growth of video analysis software, and watching major league hitters on television (in slow motion). All of these variables presented a wonderful opportunity for young hitters to be able to emulate--and understand--what they were seeing on television.

The successes that resulted from players being able to stay back helped make the teaching process considerably easier. Today, it takes us perhaps 5 minutes for hitters who come for lessons to produce a good swing. The reason is simple: Nowadays, most hitters know what they want to look like, and some can make the transition on their own. Unfortunately, emulation is a difficult and slow process for most. Good information from qualified instructors accelerates the learning curve by avoiding the snail-paced, trial-and-error emulation process.

Since proper technique is biophysically-driven and does not change, the drills that I initially came out with eleven years ago are not obsolete, but worthy of updating. My drills made the hitter conform to proper technique and were needed at that time. This is not true anymore. Today, we find there is little need for players to have to spend an inordinate amount of time doing my drills because they can get into those positions very easily. If some are challenged, however, the drills are there and ready to "do their thing."

It is for this reason we launched the video tutorials that you find on our website. Our video tutorials update the drills that we effectively used over the years with more timely and advanced ways to help the hitter master the proper movements."

Would love to see recent video of your kids. The comment about your daughter's "linear weight transfer" is interesting. IMO, this is not a characteristic specific to linear OR rotational mechanics. As a general rule, rotational hitters, starting with Joe Jackson through Ruth and Williams, and on to today, GENERALLY stride. Obviously that is a linear movement, but it is NOT a characteristic SOLELY of linear mechanics.

The terms have become somewhat bastardized today, and are basically marketing terms. They probably mean a little something different to almost everyone.

But regardless of how one classifies a swing, a characteristic common to MOST of the good swings in the world is momentum from the back side to the front side (weight shift being a part of this), and then a rotation of the body's core. Accomplished optimally, a REACTION to this rotation - NOT the cause of it) - is a rollover of the back foot onto the toes, with the laces ending up facing the pitcher. If this movement is a little short of the optimal - sole still slightly on the ground - that gives me no particular heartburn. If most of the weight has moved to the front side, and transferred into rotation, that's the BIG check-point.

IF, however, the hitter is rotating on the sole of her back foot in an effort to turn the hips - rather than the back foot turning over or rotating as a REACTION to the rotating hips, then there may well be a problem.

An easy test for this - and something that will readily illustrate the point can be conducted in your living room in about 10 seconds. Have your daughter assume a loaded position (doesn't even need a bat). Stand opposite her, and firmly grasp her shoulders. Ask her to launch her swing. If she is trying to push off the back leg and squish the bug to launch the swing, neiother her hips or shoulders will rotate at all. her rear leg will tuirn at the knee, but it will be incredibly obvious that she is doing nothing to generate force with her hips.

IF, on the other hand, she is creating forward momentum and turning that into rotation driven by the core, and heavily involving the front hip, you probably won't be able to hold her shoulders in place. The force will be amazingly more obvious. You won;t believe the difference between these two swings.

Please let me know how this works when you try it.

THis is imprecise language, but essentially, it is the difference between pushing the hips into rotation and pulling the hips into rotation. Those may be terms your hitter can relate to.,

best regards,

Scott

[ssarge]

I would have to disagree, but if you want someone in our area that teaches his methods that would be Cencal.
They're an excellent organization!

Cool. The 18Gold National Champion Sorcerers and the NorCal Shockers would be other examples.

Regards,

Scott

[dittoz]

Thanks Scott

As a matter of fact, I'm starting to do some exploratory video of her as we begin work on her skills video. Once I have some good footage in hand, I'll send it your way. Long been a fan of yours - the input would be terrific!

That linear beginning that I spoke of came from Rob Diggle - a gentleman you may be familiar with. The YOUNGEST saw him for a few years up this way and it was his feeling that with her smaller size, that the initially "exaggerated" weight transfer would help accelerate the bathead. Seems he was right too!

Interesting commentary from Epstein. I haven't been to his site in several years but at the time he was very firmly planted in his methods, visions and beliefs. For where my kids were at the time (10u softball and 14u baseball) it was perfect for them. I'll have to go back out to his site and poke around again...

We'll send you some hitting footage here once the weather clears a bit and we can get back out!

~curt

[ssarge]

We'll send you some hitting footage here once the weather clears a bit and we can get back out!

Great! Look forward to hearing from you. And thanks for the kind words!

Best regards,

Scott

[ontheblack]

There is a lengthy debate
here about the "push" at or after contact, in Megan Langenfeld's swing.

My DD was taught this as well by a hitting coach who worked with Enquist.

What are your thoughts on this?

I kind of touched on this in the middle of this thread with several posts.

I believe extension (and let's call that a rough euphemism for "pushing" in the context of the thread you referenced) before contact will slow bat speed. A lot of ways this can be demonstrated, including tracking how far the bat tip moves in each frame of video, etc.

And a tightening of the swing radius will actually lead to whip and increase bat speed. So, from my perspective, pushing / extension not only slows the bat, there is an OPPORTUNITY cost as well, because other movement patterns actually increase bat speed.

Extension AFTER contact will not affect bat speed, but it is really hard to be so consistently accurate with timing that extension is always after contact, and not sometimes before. The ball is on the bat for 1/1000th of a second - or less. No one is good enough to time that perfectly every time, or even most times.


Of course, bat speed is only one consideration. At the level of skill demonstrated by Langenfeld and others on the thread you referenced, the bat speed generated is significantly more than is required to hit a ball 200-220 feet.

And of course, the challenge is NOT to hit a ball 300 feet, it's to hit it 220 feet MORE OFTEN.

So the question becomes, "does extension / pushing increase the liklihood of making contact by expanding the zone?"

And the INTUITIVE answer is, "yes, of course." And that MAY be true, I'm honestly not sure. Certainly Enquist would say so, and a lot of other people as well. I'm not as sure. Keeping the bat in the zone longer certainly sounds like a GREAT idea, but a slowing bat does add some timing variability and difficulty as well. I think I could argue this point either way.

The reality of it, though, is at the skill level of a player like Langenfeld, it doesn't much matter. She is generating close to 70mph of tip bat speed, and you can probably hit a HR with maybe 50mph of tip speed. And SOME hitters are so skilled that they can actually extend their arms through contact, even WHILE tightening the swing radius by adducting (pinching) the front shoulder just before contact. The best of all worlds.

But as the cliche goes, "don't try this at home." This is NOT something that the average kid can do. And the average kid will get herself in trouble TRYING to do it.

And that is the rub of this kind of thing. And if there IS a limitation of video, this is it. Emulating behaviors of the best in the world is absolutely desirable. But swinging like Bustos may not be possible for a kid who lacks her strength and giftedness. While it IS true that the similarities of swing common to all great hitters are FAR more pronounced than are the differences, Bustos does things others don't - and frankly, can't. Put simply - and maybe a little unfairly - she can be less precise with her mechanics because her strength and quickness are so pronounced that she can park a ball with maybe 50% of optimal contact. Most can't do that, and so they need to be more precise with their mechanics.

The mechanics possible for a 999 percentile athlete like Langenfeld (and I use her as an example because she was featured in the thread you referenced) with significant weight training and maybe 1/2 million swings under her belt are different than what is possible for a 14 YO kid. The 14 YO kid may mature and grow into that, but as she starts her journey, almost certainly will be best served with different points of emphasis.

If the instruction for the TYPICAL young female hitter is to "PUSH through contact," I can almost guarantee you that you / she are not going to be happy with the results. First, that typical kid is developing maybe 50mph of bat speed, or less, as opposed to the 70mph that Lengenfeld is developing. So she doesn't have much to spare if she wants to drive a ball anywhere near the fence. In fact, when you look at video of a lot of kids who DO push, the bat almost seems to go BACKWARDS after contact. It has just dramatically slowed before impact with the ball, and then the force of the ball hitting the bat slams on the brakes for the bat. Insidious. The kid is TRYING to push through contact to hit the ball harder, and in that effort, is actually LOSING bat speed. An emphasis on pushing out of rotation is NOT what the kid needs to be focusing on.

Really elite athletes can do things most of us can't. It's why they are who they are. And it is hard for them to understand why others can't do the same. If you - for example - have a facile brain that can add columns of numbers effortlessly in your head, it's hard to understand why someone else can't. You are gifted in this way, and it is innate.

The same can be true for hitting instructors. Work ONLY with skilled D-1 hiters, and it is easy to forget that some of the mechanics they model are not as simple - may not even be possible - for a young kid. The challenge for an instructor is knowing which behaviors / movements are truly universal. And which are going to be past the limits for young hitters, whose CORE movement, strength, and athletecism are perhaps not at the level of a Langenfeld. Or at least not yet.

When working with young female hitters, I personally don't emphasize pushing / extension. I get better results with different points of emphasis. I don't want kids to be early, then extend. As Ted Williams said, "better a little late than a little early." (there are a lot of reasons for this)

That said, when I work with skilled D-1 level hitters, there are different points of emphasis. They generate enormous rotatational force rather effortlessly. Their challenge is to minimize timing error, and hit the ball more often. Because generally, when they hit it, it is going to go somewhere. Even at that level, though, I don't emphasize pushing / extension much. Because it is basically a "no teach." If a hitter at this level is early, she will naturally extend to insure contact. It is an athletic adjustment that this level hitter makes without even thinking, and the best ones can do it without losing too much bat speed (though they will lose some). So I personally don't make this a point of emphasis.

THis IS the challenge of instruction, though. Every hitter's pathology, giftedness, strength, and athletecism is different. So is her level of experience. Building a plan for each hittter which will help her improve at her current level of play, as well as carry that improvement to the next levels of play and then build on it, is the objective. No one series of cues is effective for every hitter. It's a huge challenge, but it's a huge opportunity too, for instructor and kid.


These are not simple questions, and there is certainly room for divergent opinions. Because this is NOT a simple subject. It is very easy for coaches who work mostly with great athletes to conclude "hitting is simple, KISS." I GET that. The luxury for a D-1 coach is to only recruit the kids for whom hitting is "simple," and results are consistently good. And that is what they do. So would I. But it can skew your view, a little bit.

YOUR challenge is probably different. Most of us - parents AND instructors - face a different challenge. We are working with a kid(s) of more modest giftedness. Probably hard-working, coachable, anxious to learn. But probably NOT "bury the needle" athletic. A good athlete, sure, but maybe not a world-class athlete. For that kid, hitting is not so "simple." We need to figure out how to communicate with her in simple terms she can relate to, but we also have to undersand that many of the behaviors / mechanics we ultimately want her to model are NOT innate or natural for HER. And she has to be taught to move her body - starting with it's core - in a way that really gifted athletes manage with little effort. It's posisble to do this, but calling it simple would be lunacy. It is not.

Best regards,

Scott

I revisited this topic with one of Enquist's former players.

And SOME hitters are so skilled that they can actually extend their arms through contact, even WHILE tightening the swing radius by adducting (pinching) the front shoulder just before contact. The best of all worlds.

She agreed with your assessment and said that she has seen many coaches incorrectly translate this ideal that Enquist taught (to elite athletes) as "PUSH through contact".