Best way to stop forward momentum

[rob]

As you stride (hips carry you forward), what is the best way to stop your forward momentum as your rotation begins? I have heard of the cue to imagine there is a spike on the heel of your front foot and drive it into the ground. Is that a good way of describing what should happen in order to provide a stable front leg to rotate around?

[riverfrontier]

Don't know about most folks, but imagining Barry Bonds at the plate with an aluminum bat has always helped me.

[hiddengem]

Don't know about most folks, but imagining Barry Bonds at the plate with an aluminum bat has always helped me.

Huh?? What does that have to do with stopping momentum?

[hiddengem]

As you stride (hips carry you forward), what is the best way to stop your forward momentum as your rotation begins? I have heard of the cue to imagine there is a spike on the heel of your front foot and drive it into the ground. Is that a good way of describing what should happen in order to provide a stable front leg to rotate around?

I don't really understand what you are asking. I mean, you have to tighten up the muscles in your front leg so it doesn't just bend under the pressure of your weight against it. It stays slightly bent until the moment of contact when it firms up completely.

[Ursa Major]

I believe this is whether the "swinging gate" cue may come into play. If you envision your front leg as the hinge to a gate (being bent but firm and then firming/straightening at contact the way Hiddengem describes) and drive your rear hip forward as the other end of the gate, the forward momentum gets turned into useful rotational forces. This is a vast oversimplification (and others here can [and hopefully will] be better able to explain this than I), but it may help get you into the direction I think you're seeking.

I worry that the "spike foot into the ground" cue/analogy will result in what has been described as "spinning" and the diminution of that potential useful exploitation of that force.

How sophisticated of advice you can meaningfully absorb depends on the age and playing level of the hitters who need to know this. Could you fill us in on that?

[swingbuster]

May I add that if you coiled your hips as you transfer weight the forward force should not be as great as if you did not coil. Yes , all stride ARE linear but a stride that follows a good inward load doesn't tend to run over the lead leg either. It tends to want to uncoil at and as the front leg swinging gate acts

[rob]

It seems my 15 year old son will either ride the momentum too much where his upper body moves too far forward during the swing or he just turns his back leg and does not rotate at all really. I thought that this driving the front heel into the ground (which I took from Jim Dixons Exceptional Player book) would help.

[swingbuster]

Make sure you judge this in terms of up and down pitch location. Making the same swing on all pitch locations is not possible. I have kids that stay back and spin on all pitches....bad stuff.

Take a look at ball flight too. He might be better than you think now.

[jbooth]

As you stride (hips carry you forward), what is the best way to stop your forward momentum as your rotation begins? I have heard of the cue to imagine there is a spike on the heel of your front foot and drive it into the ground. Is that a good way of describing what should happen in order to provide a stable front leg to rotate around?

Don't think of striding forward. You TURN, into the front foot.

You have to twist your hips. You lift the front leg, fall forward, and start twisting the hips as soon as the front foot makes contact with the ground and before it is fully weighted. You have to think, TURN/TWIST/ROTATE, bring the back hip around, turn the front hip out, anything EXCEPT continue to move forward. When the front foot touches down you MUST stop going forward, and rotate. The front knee must not bend or collapse toward the pitcher, it must straighten to brace and stop the forward momentum and push the front hip back.

As Bob Dylan wrote; TURN, TURN, TURN

[rob]

Don't think of striding forward. You TURN, into the front foot.
When the front foot touches down you MUST stop going forward, and rotate. The front knee must not bend or collapse toward the pitcher, it must straighten to brace and stop the forward momentum and push the front hip back.

I understand that you have to stop going forward. And I appreciate your response but I wonder if the digging your heel into the ground or at least thinking of it as such is an ok way to acheive this. Or is that going to cause some other problems?

[jbooth]

I understand that you have to stop going forward. And I appreciate your response but I wonder if the digging your heel into the ground or at least thinking of it as such is an ok way to acheive this. Or is that going to cause some other problems?

It doesn't matter what thought goes through your head (cue you use), if you understand WHAT you should do, and WHY you need to do it, then what you think as you do it, is irrelevant.

As Nike says; Just DO it.

[rob]

OK thanks, that helps then. I am just trying to find the right words to say that are not going to trigger some other significant problem.