Hip Isolation

[Sonny Schmidt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmZu4S6POSY

[jbooth]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmZu4S6POSY

I think that drill is very good and I use a form of it. I put the bat in front of the body, touching where the top of the legs connect to the hip socket, and I make them hit a ball off of a tee.

Like this;

http://firstpickclub.com/video/hipdrill.wmv

It's important to get the tee at the correct height. I didn't have it quite right, and it made me bend my front knee to get the ball. The front leg should straighten. I like my version better, because it prevents the student from straightening the back leg while turning. If the leg straightens, they will raise up, and miss the ball. You have to learn to push correctly, with a bent back leg, or you'll miss the ball.

[Twitch5]

It's important to get the tee at the correct height. I didn't have it quite right, and it made me bend my front knee to get the ball. The front leg should straighten. I like my version better, because it prevents the student from straightening the back leg while turning. If the leg straightens, they will raise up, and miss the ball. You have to learn to push correctly, with a bent back leg, or you'll miss the ball.

How do you determine the correct tee height?

Twitch5

[Coach C]

I have my son do the drill from Sonny's vid when he's on deck. Jim, great drill,
thanks for the vid.

[jbooth]

How do you determine the correct tee height?

Twitch5

I thought I posted a reply to this. Did it get deleted? Anyway, here it is again.

The height needs to be at a spot where the bat meets the ball when the legs are in the correct position and angles as in a real swing.

Put the tee about where the line from his head to the ground is, and set the height to where his bat goes when he rotates doing the drill, and gets his legs into the position shown below;

[Slapper23]

Jim,

I've not seen your version of the drill before, but I can see where it would be helpful, especially to younger hitters. I particularly like the Williams's metronome action you emphasize.

Mike

[Mark H]

How about that Jim. Old man moving better than a young kid.

Jim rolls his back foot up pretty good. Girs squishes the bug. I'm stunned they would use that for a video for public consumption. Do they not see that or do they figure that's a step on the way to something better?

[ShawnB]

Hip isolation's must be put back into the whole.

You are what you practice and/or what your ability will allow. I was working with a hitter and watching him hit off a pitching machine. I taped him and we went over the video using RVP.

He was complaining that he was hitting the outside pitch very weakly. Yet while he was hitting off the machine he was mindlessly hitting every ball right into the netting, hooking every pitch foul. You could see it and with video that lowered his elbow before the hips started. Although it didn't create any mechanical flaw. I asked what his swing thought was, and he said to use his hips. Then he said he would not change his thinking. So basically he was pretty proud of the fact that he could create force over a very small range of motion just using the hips/legs together to create rotation (turn the body)and pull ever pitch foul in the cage.

It did not matter that he lowered the elbow early, because he could not create the sequence required with a high elbow.

And this isn't an isolated case.

Thus, I can understand when Yeager, Lau, or Peavey might say they don't focus on just rotation.

The hips are just part of the sequence, as are the legs, as is the torso.

[Mark H]

I would say the girl's rotation in the Maven youtube video should be a part of no sequence.

[LAball]

The problem with the hip is that it doesnt power the swing, it sets up the foundation for an upper body swing with the lower body setup to recieve the swing.

The drill can teach how the hips can rotate for the younger hitters, but for higher levels I wouldnt want it.

[ShawnB]

If you mean the hips are part of the motion, and the swing (body) is using the front leg as leverage (can't shot a cannon from a canoe) then I would somewhat agree with what your saying (or how your saying it).

It comes down to what the hitter can actually do.

[jbooth]

The problem with the hip is that it doesn't power the swing, it sets up the foundation for an upper body swing with the lower body setup to recieve the swing.

I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're saying.

The legs apply force to the hips (pelvic bone) which causes the torso to rotate. The upper body can't do much unless the legs turn it through the hips.

Please clarify what you meant. Generally speaking, the hips power the swing. If you don't move the hips first you are not going to hit the ball very hard.

[Mark H]

Not knee extension, nor ankle extension but rather muscles from the thigh to the pelvis to the lower torso turn turn the hips? Is that correct? It's not the quad straightening the knee but muscles attached to the thigh and the pelvis and on up? Wouldn't that really be the middle using the legs as a stable platform to turn against? But yeah, I'm pretty sure I didn't follow LA either. I look forward to the clarification though.

[LAball]

Let me see if I can explain with this. To make a car go faster, you put in a bigger engine - haveing the hips push / pull the rotation. I'm saying the hips would not be the bigger engine, but it puts the car on a down slope. The lower body does not add power to the upper body, it decreases friction for the upper body. There is a decrease in friction because of the Range of motion for rotation of the Lumbar spine is used at its strongest point (when you do a bicep curl, you will notice some part of the range you feel weaker, while getting to the top you feel stronger).

The Lumber spine seperates the lower body (pelvic legs) from the upper body (Thorax ribs) in a swing. At neutral the thorax and the pelvis line up perpendicular to the vector of the ball.
During load the Thorax might do a bit of reverse pivot and the pelvis might pivot a little towards the pitcher (due to the step). This causes the degree of seperation between the upper and lower body to be maybe 30 degrees.

If the hips are "cocked" purposely towards the pitcher, the degrees of seperation would be even greater.. maybe 60 degrees. This is important because you can rotate more strongly because the upper and lower body has seperated. You will get more of your swing in before the thorax reaches neutral with the pelvis. Once at neutral your thorax will quickly decellerate and lose upper body mass in the swing.

[Mark H]

Still having trouble following that but there's red flags all over the place. Good night for now.