Scott, I agree with you about keeping your hands close to your body, but I disagree with you on extension. A smaller arc during the entire swing might help you rotate faster from start to finish, but remember we're also trying to hit a ball. And, like you said, once the ball is gone who cares what the bat does. The hands staying close to the body helps us rotate faster like an ice skater. Their hands are close when they spin fast and they start to slow down as their hands move away from their body. Since we are trying to hit a ball and the ball isn't affected by anything the bat does after contact, who cares if our hands start to go away from our body after contact. In other words, I agree that what counts is the force the hitter generates up to contact with the ball. But, what the bat does after contact is an absolute result of what it was doing before contact.
I'm obviously not making my point well.
A smaller arc during the entire swing is NOT what I am describing. An arc which gets smaller close to contact IS what I am describing. This centripetal force (as opposed to centrifugal) will absolutely whip the bat - it is a law of physics.
As illustrated with your own analogy. The figure skater who moves arms away from his body (extends) will slow. Stay with arms tight to the body, and stay fast. Make them tighter yet, and get even faster. ANY extension should ideally be post-contact, and as far as I'm concerned, is consequently irrelevant.
And without any question, a hitter who is CONCENTRATING on extension will soon begin to regularly extend before contact. Everyone does it sometimes - it is the bailout against being fooled off-speed. But if you AIM for it, it will quickly begin to happen before contact. It is part of the natural desire to push that almost every hitter of less than extreme giftedness has to fight off in order to become an elite hitter. Elite hitters can get off the merry-go-round and extend, even a little bit before contact, when they are slightly fooled. The vast majority of youth hitters can not, and the pattern becomes very pronounced. Very soon, they are at full extension BEFORE contact against typical speed pitches, and lunging against off-speed pitches.
What the bat does after contact does not affect the ball directly, but what the bat does after contact is most certainly a byproduct of what it did before contact.
In the sense that you can't exhale unless you have inhaled, sure.
In the sense that the exhaling HAPPENS because you inhaled, no. The exhale happens because muscles work to make it happen. And they work in a different way that they worked to inhale. And for that matter, I can exhale in a number of different ways. All at once quickly. A continuous slow process. Burst/stop/burst/stop.
Why don't we just stop the bat as soon after contact as possible and run to first?
Sounds OK to me. Virtually every hitting instructor I know in the rotational / MLB emulation vein utilizes some version of a Stop-Swing drill. Mainly because it illustrates a point - it is impossible with a linear swing, but pretty easily attainable with a rotational swing. And it DOES whip the bat.
One its impossible to stop a swinging bat that fast, two you're only saving a fraction of a second at the expense of three most hitters want to hit the ball as hard as they can. ie. to stop right after contact you would have to start stopping before contact which means you're not making contact at max bat speed. Furthermore, if you even slow down right after contact, you started to before contact. (E=MC squared, just kidding)
Good extension through the ball insures contact at your max bat speed. Leaving no doubt that you hit the ball as hard as you are capable.
Good extension through the ball inevitably becomes SOME extension before the ball. The ball is on the bat for less than 1,000 of a seocnd, and no one's timing is consistently THAT good. Again, your figure skater analogy demonstrates the fallacy of this - extention means you are slowing. So unless the hitter times it absolutely perfectly - and she won't, very often - extension is going to SLOW bat speed at contact.
And indeed, as Nyman (Setpro) and others have demonstrated, a horizontal tightening of the swing arc (WHILE maintaining palm up / palm down position, and staying on the same horizontal plane) will create centripetal force and increase tip bat speed. The physics simulations show it can add as much as 40% theoretically, but a more practical norm would probably be 10-15%. Very significant though, especially compared to a hitter who is extending the arms away from the body before contact and consequently slowing tip bat speed from it's peak.
I realize that is not what you are advocating, but it is inevitable if extension is a GOAL of the hitter's. As opposed to just being the consequence of the swing, or a position attained because the hitter was a little early on the pitch.
All that being said, why not error to the side of 'hitting it as hard as you can'?
Couldn't agree more. I am simply stating that the laws of physics are a better barometer of whether that is happening than is conventional wisdom. Your own figure skater analogy proves that extending slows the bat. If you are successful in training hitters to extend after contact, but never before, then you have accomplished something I haven't been able to accomplish.
This is not a black-and-white, thing, and I don't mean to make it that way. There are a lot of variables. At some point, a "flail" (single segment whip) becomes a multi-segmented whip. An imperfect analogy to the swing, since unlike a whip, the bat is rigid, and to a certain extend, the arm is too. Maybe 3 joints (shoulder / elbow / wrist) rather than an infinite number of flex points as with a whip. But this is a variable, and it IS possible to extend a LITTLE before contact and not slow the swing. But hitters who AIM for extension absolutely do extend more before contact than hitters who don't. And without question, the OPPOSITE movement (tightening the swing arc just before contact) is the movement that will result in the greatest increase in bat speed. And doing it correctly whips the bat through the zone still on the same horizontal plane, as well. It is NOT a rolling action. So the longer hitting zone we all covet is also maintained.
As far as whip that you mentioned, I believe this acceleration comes from using the hands and wrists correctly. Keeping the barrel above the hands, hands inside the ball close to the body, taking the proper angle (short) to the ball and not casting the barrel too soon. The longer a hitter keeps the barrel close to their back shoulder the stronger a position their hands are in with their wrists cocked. Then, when they release the barrel, they get some extra acceleration('extra' because we all know it mostly comes from the core) into contact. Hitters that do this usually get good extension because they are so explosive to the ball, they can't help but be through it as well.
Establishing a hinge with the bottom hand wrist, and then maintaining that hinge angle horizontally through contact is hugely important, and seldom empahsized (regretably). It sounds as if that is what you are advocating, and I think that is great. Hard to describe in writing, and takes maybe 15 seconds to demonstrate in person. But once the hands go back, a turning up of the rear hand so that the thumb points to somewhere between 11:00 and 1:00 will set the hinge. This will cause the bat head to tip back towards the field as well, and it will nominally point somehere over F6's head. MAINTAINING this hinge angle until the hitter gets around the corner and the hands are flat means that the force and weight of the bat will unhinge the wrist horizontally into the ball just before contact. It is key. When the wrist unhinges earlier, the bat and arms get out away from the body - cast - very early in the swing. A horrible outcome. Extension after contact is one thing - extending the hands away from the body before contact is disasterous.
BTW, setting up the hinge angle early - and maintaining it - actually promotes the horizontal (same plane) tightening of the swing arc that I am describing.
Also, staying Pup/Pdn longer keeps your barrel in the zone longer. Not only does rolling raise the barrel its the start of you pulling the barrel out of the zone.
As I have said three times on this thread, a hitter should never roll before contact. That is an entirely different concept than maintaining a palm up / palm down position through contact, but tightening the arc (but tightening it completely in the horizontal plane). Not sure why I'm unable to make this distinction, and don't know what other language to try. But it is a HUGE distinction.
Nice discussing hitting with you, Greg. Best wishes,
Scott
