Look Ma, no hands!

[jbooth]

Watch this video and then make comments if you wish.

I should have stated in the video, that I'm NOT saying that in a real swing, the hands do nothing, and just hold onto the bat, nor am I saying that a little "tip and rip", "running start" isn't valuable, and I DO believe that the hands torque or "snap" the bat, but they do it VERY LATE, just before contact, NOT early in the swing.

The video is simply made to show that the bat CAN get around very well without ANY hand forces being applied.

The primary objective is to make the hands/knob accelerate from the shoulder (launch position) to contact, at as high a rate as possible. Extra force from the hands that try to accelerate the batHEAD is a secondary objective, and is applied LATE, IMO.

Watch and tell me what YOU think.

It's a streaming video;

http://wms17.streamhoster.com/firstpick/notht.wmv

[BoardMember]

Jim, you are using your shoulder to create resistance leverage between the fulcrum (pivot point) and the resistance load. (Bat head)

This is a perfect example of the third class lever called the bat.

If for example, you raised the barrel above your rear shoulder and made the same move several times, you'd end up with a brused neck.........

Understand I agree with your theory. But EVERY example presented lately including PN's, seems to advocate my assertion that WITHOUT resistance leverage placed on the bat between the fulcrum and resistance load, the torso would HAVE TO ROTATE 270 degrees to get the bat to "fly into the arc".

The simulation DOES SHOW no OPPOSITE HAND TORQUE on the handle required to swing the bat to contact. And to do so, sacrifices the biomechanics and power of the swing.

I believe that was the point of the video.......

Watch this video and then make comments if you wish.

I should have stated in the video, that I'm NOT saying that in a real swing, the hands do nothing, and just hold onto the bat, nor am I saying that a little "tip and rip", "running start" isn't valuable, and I DO believe that the hands torque or "snap" the bat, but they do it VERY LATE, just before contact, NOT early in the swing.

The video is simply made to show that the bat CAN get around very well without ANY hand forces being applied.

The primary objective is to make the hands/knob accelerate from the shoulder (launch position) to contact, at as high a rate as possible. Extra force from the hands that try to accelerate the batHEAD is a secondary objective, and is applied LATE, IMO.

Watch and tell me what YOU think.

It's a streaming video;

http://wms17.streamhoster.com/firstpick/notht.wmv

[jbooth]

Jim, you are using your shoulder to create resistance leverage between the fulcrum (pivot point) and the resistance load. (Bat head)

This is a perfect example of the third class lever called the bat.

Yes, in a real swing the hands would be away from the shoulder more, and the bat would not be resting against my shoulder. In a real swing the firming up of the grip as the knob is moved, takes the place of what the shoulder does in the demo. The grip will brace the bat instead of the shoulder, but the action is the same. The hands don't do anything to apply force to accelerate the bathead at the ball in the early movement. They hold the hinge point at the begining and then unhinge as the bathead moves due to the acceleration of the knob.

The hands can, and may, apply torque that applies force to the bathead sometime AFTER this position;



Up until this position the objective is simply to use the entire body and the arms, to get the KNOB accelerating at as high a rate as possible. Nothing is being done to the bathead. It's moving due to the movement of the hands/knob. It's being flung/whipped around from the movement of the knob.

When pros talk about having "quick hands" they mean that they get the hands from the armpit area to the contact point quickly. The key is to figure out the best way to do THAT. It is NOT about how to accelerate the bathead early. The bathead due to physics, is trying to catch up to the knob. The faster the knob moves, the faster the bathead moves. THAT is what you should focus on.

Also, if you notice in the part of the video where I get very close to the camera, I just move the handle and the bathead moves, and it moves without even being braced by my shoulder. If you move the knob, the bathead WILL move, and it will ACCELERATE and you don't need hand torque to accelerate it.

[JJA]

Once again, a very nice example of how bat speed is created without using torque. Does anyone honestly believe that if Booth put both hands on the bat and started torquing, he would double his bat speed?

Just one more excellent example of showing why handle torque contributing 50% of the bat speed is complete and utter fiction.

-JJA

[Go Cardinals]

Wait... I don't understand... I'm confused here... that was a joke right?

[Ursa Major]

Excellent points with the videos, Jim. I go the cheap route and, instead of having a handle grafted onto the side of the bat, just hold the bat with my bottom (left) hand's thumb and first two fingers, so there's no issue of the hand contributing torque. Also, I have kids use that drill to see if they're efficiently rotating (or, instead) just spinning in place (in which case there's little bat speed generated.

I also like your off-handed reference to the benefits of gravity. Sometimes that is a key argument to help you get kids to listen as to why allowing the bathead to droop before you rotate is a baaaaad thing.

[RayR]

I made a bat like that. Very effective visual aid, but it does hurt after a while taking blows to the arm...

[jbooth]

Wait... I don't understand... I'm confused here... that was a joke right?

What was a joke?

[jofus13]

Nice video, it got me thinking.

(Take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt, because I'm still thinking this stuff through and trying to come up with my own interpretation of a good swing.....so, this is at best gonna be a poorly presented opinion, and at worst gonna be ridiculously wrong )

To me, it's obvious that the hands don't contribute to the bat going forward at the beginning of the swing.

As the swing starts, the top hand is behind the bottom hand, right? Roughly at contact, the top hand is passing up the bottom hand, after which the wrists roll. If you put the hands on the bat and do a swing with the bat doing "exactly" what it is doing in your video, then the hands are moving at a fairly constant speed from "launch" (top hand coming behind the bottom hand...maybe right after launch, but at the time that the knob starts really moving forward) to the follow through of the swing, when the top hand has passed the bottom hand up.

This makes me think of BM's posts yesterday on the Englishbey post, that the bat is a lever.....the top hand passes the bottom hand up simply because it is farther up the lever, thus moving faster than the bottom hand. That really accentuates how fast the very end of the lever (bat) is moving, to me.

But.....do the hands really move at a constant rate of speed throughout the swing?

Think of a golf swing, when the backswing is finished, and the downswing starts, what happens if the hands immediately begin the same movement (as the club comes down, the top hand is behind, but moving faster as it passes the bottom hand, again roughly at contact with the ball? The swing has a casting motion, which is generally bad, hurts your power, produces high soft fades or horrible slices, etc. (trust me, I've done lots of studies on this type of golf swing ). Instead, the top hand holds back a bit at first, and then "releases", which produces a whip motion, or a snap.....

So, isn't the same thing happening with a baseball bat?

To me, this gets me thinking that the hands are doing something...they are actually resisting the movement at the beginning of the swing, that is, making an effort to hold the lever (bat) back from doing what the swing is making it want to do. This creates resistance in the whole process, and when the hands do release, the head of the bat moves faster than it does in a swing exactly mimicking the video, because physics (man, I hated physics in college ) is causing it to want to catch up with where it is supposed to be.

To put it another way, it would be like using the bat in the video, but with the added handle having a little resistance as you start the swing, and then loosening up at some point in the swing, allowing the bat to accelerate even faster.

I can see where this line of thought would cause someone to theorize that the hands are "torquing" the bat at the beginning of the swing, but I don't personally think that is correct...everything in the swing is moving forward, as evidenced by the videos BM put up on the Englishbey thread, with arrows to show which way the hands were moving. But the hands are indeed doing "something" to my way of thinking, but more of a passive "something" than an active "something".

The top hand isn't moving opposite direction of the bottom hand, it is moving the same direction, and wants to do it faster than the bottom hand, simply because it is farther out on the lever...but, it is holding back initially, in order to "release" the bat head at a higher rate of speed than there was no resistance at the beginning of the swing.

Man, now you can see why I can't teach my kids this stuff

Sorry if that was poorly presented....extra sorry if it is horribly out in left field somewhere

[jbooth]

Nice video, it got me thinking.

(Take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt, because I'm still thinking this stuff through and trying to come up with my own interpretation of a good swing.....so, this is at best gonna be a poorly presented opinion, and at worst gonna be ridiculously wrong )

To me, it's obvious that the hands don't contribute to the bat going forward at the beginning of the swing.

As the swing starts, the top hand is behind the bottom hand, right? Roughly at contact, the top hand is passing up the bottom hand, after which the wrists roll. If you put the hands on the bat and do a swing with the bat doing "exactly" what it is doing in your video, then the hands are moving at a fairly constant speed from "launch" (top hand coming behind the bottom hand...maybe right after launch, but at the time that the knob starts really moving forward) to the follow through of the swing, when the top hand has passed the bottom hand up.

This makes me think of BM's posts yesterday on the Englishbey post, that the bat is a lever.....the top hand passes the bottom hand up simply because it is farther up the lever, thus moving faster than the bottom hand. That really accentuates how fast the very end of the lever (bat) is moving, to me.

But.....do the hands really move at a constant rate of speed throughout the swing?

Think of a golf swing, when the backswing is finished, and the downswing starts, what happens if the hands immediately begin the same movement (as the club comes down, the top hand is behind, but moving faster as it passes the bottom hand, again roughly at contact with the ball? The swing has a casting motion, which is generally bad, hurts your power, produces high soft fades or horrible slices, etc. (trust me, I've done lots of studies on this type of golf swing ). Instead, the top hand holds back a bit at first, and then "releases", which produces a whip motion, or a snap.....

So, isn't the same thing happening with a baseball bat?

To me, this gets me thinking that the hands are doing something...they are actually resisting the movement at the beginning of the swing, that is, making an effort to hold the lever (bat) back from doing what the swing is making it want to do. This creates resistance in the whole process, and when the hands do release, the head of the bat moves faster than it does in a swing exactly mimicking the video, because physics (man, I hated physics in college ) is causing it to want to catch up with where it is supposed to be.

To put it another way, it would be like using the bat in the video, but with the added handle having a little resistance as you start the swing, and then loosening up at some point in the swing, allowing the bat to accelerate even faster.

I can see where this line of thought would cause someone to theorize that the hands are "torquing" the bat at the beginning of the swing, but I don't personally think that is correct...everything in the swing is moving forward, as evidenced by the videos BM put up on the Englishbey thread, with arrows to show which way the hands were moving. But the hands are indeed doing "something" to my way of thinking, but more of a passive "something" than an active "something".

The top hand isn't moving opposite direction of the bottom hand, it is moving the same direction, and wants to do it faster than the bottom hand, simply because it is farther out on the lever...but, it is holding back initially, in order to "release" the bat head at a higher rate of speed than there was no resistance at the beginning of the swing.

Man, now you can see why I can't teach my kids this stuff

Sorry if that was poorly presented....extra sorry if it is horribly out in left field somewhere

I think you understand it correctly, but you've over-complicated it. Basically, the hands unhinge, (go around each other) due to the force in the bathead, pulling on them. However, IMO, there IS some force applied by the pros just before contact that adds to the unhinging action.

Like this;



Early on, he is just dropping the bathead as he moves the knob. As I proved in my demo, the bathead will start to move right after the knob moves. He accelerates the knob toward the ball, and then by his own words, he uses his top hand to throw the bathead into the ball. Now, physicists say that he just thinks, or feels that he is throwing the bathead, but in reality it doesn't happen. I don't know for sure. All I know is that most pros believe that they snap the bathead into the ball, but they NEVER say that they do anything with the bathead early. Early, they concentrate on getting the knob to the ball.

They've been saying "pull the knob and snap the head" for about 100 years, but some people seem to think they've been doing it differently all this time, which, IMO is nonsense. IMO, it's turn the hips, pull the handle, and snap the bathead. Hips, Handle, Head. The secret is getting the body to be the main force that accelerates the handle, and having perfect timing of the sequence, hips, handle, head.

[CoachB25]

jbooth, you have to be careful with this example. First, it is a video and so the Hanson Principle would have to apply. Secondly, you'd put some poster's crediability in serious jeapordy. Heck, you might even cause some websites to change their doctrine OR shut down. But that's another matter.

[tom.guerry]

BM -

Nyman's sim

http://www.setpro.com/stuff/rotational_simulation5.wmv

clearly shows that the bat accelerates to max with FAR less torso rotation, directly proprotional to force perpendicular to the handle created by the two hands on bat configuration where back arm inertia/merrygoround effect applies the force.

In the human MLB pattern, this is not done by levers dependent on shoulder turn, it is done by both hands controlling handle forces supported by forearms/arms early then shoulder assist by tilt BEFORE turn.

Torque is creating and controlling resistance.

The torque starts BEFORE the shoulders and continues to contact.

It's not just "late torque". There is no disconnection.

This permits quick acceleration and late adjustment and keeping hands back.

3rd class lever is not an informative way of describing it.

Simplest mechanical description (omitting elastic aspects of swing) is double pendulum with running start of first pendulum.

When you add elastic soft tissue/muscle properties, you get and ACTIVE hinge between the two pendulums and you get Xfactor stretch/cusp/kinetic chain combo of elastic properties and conservation/transfer of momentum.

In the MLB patern, this is executed with a a very specific sequence of motion, in other words, there IS such a thing as "absolutes" or "good mechanics".

[jbooth]

BM -

Nyman's sim

http://www.setpro.com/stuff/rotational_simulation5.wmv

clearly shows that the bat accelerates to max with FAR less torso rotation, directly proprotional to force perpendicular to the handle created by the two hands on bat configuration where back arm inertia/merrygoround effect applies the force.

In the human MLB pattern, this is not done by levers dependent on shoulder turn, it is done by both hands controlling handle forces supported by forearms/arms early then shoulder assist by tilt BEFORE turn.

Torque is creating and controlling resistance.

The torque starts BEFORE the shoulders and continues to contact.

It's not just "late torque". There is no disconnection.

This permits quick acceleration and late adjustment and keeping hands back.

3rd class lever is not an informative way of describing it.

Simplest mechanical description (omitting elastic aspects of swing) is double pendulum with running start of first pendulum.

When you add elastic soft tissue/muscle properties, you get and ACTIVE hinge between the two pendulums and you get Xfactor stretch/cusp/kinetic chain combo of elastic properties and conservation/transfer of momentum.

In the MLB patern, this is executed with a a very specific sequence of motion, in other words, there IS such a thing as "absolutes" or "good mechanics".

There is no "intentional" torqing backward with the top hand. It may apply a little force to keep the system stable, but there is no hard yanking to pull the bathead down. The force is just part of the action of dropping the back elbow into the side. And there certainly is never any pull of the bathead toward the catcher with the top hand. The bathead moves in reaction to what is happening to the knob. When the knob goes out, the bathead drops, when the knob goes toward the pitcher, the bathead goes toward the catcher. The bathead isn't forced in those directions, it just goes there.

[tom.guerry]

Force IS already being applied to keep the system stable, why not a little additional force/balance of forces increasing vector perpendicular to the handle to turn the bat ?

[jofus13]

To my uneducated hillbilly mind, that would cause the bat head to accelerate very quickly soon after "go", which would result in an outside-in swing and/or force the bat head to have to slow down as it approached contact with the ball, to keep from being way too far ahead of the hands.....

but, I could be wrong, I'm the first to admit

(this is in reference to torquing the hands at the beginning of the swing, just to clarify)