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**MrUniverse09** · 03-26-2006, 11:25 PM

I like your blog

**Adam Williams** · 03-27-2006, 04:54 AM

Jeff Albert

If you live in, around, or can drive to Atlanta come see Jeff. Jeff has a big heart and a drive to make hitters better. Jeff came work with our team and the players have been begging us to have him come back. And he will as soon as we get some time. It is well worth the investment for you or your child to spend some time with Jeff.

**Slapper23** · 03-27-2006, 07:35 AM

Jeff,

That's just great, another hitting site to spend my time on. Hey, congratulations and lots of success. If I'm ever down in Atlanta, I'll look you up.

Mike

**hiddengem** · 03-27-2006, 01:08 PM

Jeff..Nice looking swing..you came a long way and Steve has had nice things to say about you. One question because it applies to my swing. In these 2 clips it appears that you elbow starts down early. Am I seeing this wrong or would this be(in your mind) considered slotting?

**jalbert** · 03-27-2006, 03:18 PM

HG-

I believe I can see what you're describing

I don't know that I'm totally up to date on what the definition of "slotting" might be. In this context, I'll put it in the boat with bat lag (SETPRO terminology) with the intention to describe the back elbow dropping without being initiated by rotation

I would like to pull up a recent Manny clip for reference here, but it is on my other computer. His hands are relatively high and there is some "dropping" (hands and elbow lower - put in better position to be connected to rotation and find the swing plane) before he really gets into rotation

Anyways, in the game swing I would not say that is slotting. It is a tough angle, but to me, when the elbow is starting to drop you can see my front heel planting and back knee turning down and in. Almost immediately after (if not same time) my "guts" are trying to turn into the ball. I actually that swing a lot. Was conference player of the week that week. What I was really trying to do there, and it helped me a lot that season, is take my elbow back like I was elbowing someone behind me. That was my first visualization of scapular loading. Not too technical at all, but it got me doing it. And as Nyman described to me many times, load and unload or load until it is time to unload. Is that how you are thinking of it also at this point?

As far as the BP swing. I do think there is a little more wasted motion in there. This was right before the season started and was still more of a swinging mode as opposed to "hitting". This was really during a period of trying to transform my "training" swing into a "game" swing. In other words, trying to learn to hit with a swing that is intended to hit the crap out of the ball. Not trying to compromise my swing in order to just make contact.

The BP thing also gets to the issue of "filling time". Interestingly to me, when I watch some MLB guys take BP they have pretty similar to game swing. Not a lot of wasted movement, even though they might not be swinging as hard. They can swing with less intensity but still not waste movement.

I've found with myself and also many younger players who are trying to change swings, that if they have time to drag, etc. they will. Best example is the young player I posted in my blog as example of reaction training. When forced to swing quicker (waste less movement) he did.

Which then leads to the issue of setting goals in order to achieve your swing changes, etc, etc, etc goes on seemingly forever

Good luck this season. Great to hear some more perspective/experiences from the real world

**hiddengem** · 03-27-2006, 03:31 PM

Originally posted by jalbert

Anyways, in the game swing I would not say that is slotting. It is a tough angle, but to me, when the elbow is starting to drop you can see my front heel planting and back knee turning down and in. Almost immediately after (if not same time) my "guts" are trying to turn into the ball. I actually that swing a lot. Was conference player of the week that week. What I was really trying to do there, and it helped me a lot that season, is take my elbow back like I was elbowing someone behind me. That was my first visualization of scapular loading. Not too technical at all, but it got me doing it. And as Nyman described to me many times, load and unload or load until it is time to unload. Is that how you are thinking of it also at this point?

Would you say today that you still use the "Elbowing somebody behind you" analogy to describe scapular loading?

**jalbert** · 03-27-2006, 03:43 PM

depends

any analogy to get someone to do what they need to do it a good one

of course, over the internet, words (or interpretations) can be tricky

if you take that too literally it can be bad news

it worked for me at the time though

there are definately MLB guys whose back elbow doesn't get very far behind them. Manny, my favorite, being a good example

I had always been taught to literally take the hands straight back toward the catcher or to load them up in the reverse "c" type of thing. Nowhere even close to any type of loading in the scapula area. Which is probably why that description worked for me - otherwise it can be kind of an extreme analogy IMO.

pulling the elbow back or the idea of elbowing someone behind me helped me get my hands up in my armpit area and keep my bat angle. set up everything to go all together

on the other hand, after a LOT of stuggling for most of my senior year, I got to a point where I didn't think about my hands/elbow or arms AT ALL and I never hit the ball better, harder or more consistently than I did for those 2 weeks. was just trying to 'turn like hell'

**hiddengem** · 03-27-2006, 03:52 PM

Originally posted by jalbert

I had always been taught to literally take the hands straight back toward the catcher or to load them up in the reverse "c" type of thing. Nowhere even close to any type of loading in the scapula area. Which is probably why that description worked for me - otherwise it can be kind of an extreme analogy IMO.

Well I have been taught the same thing, which is why I think this description will work for me. Steve and I talked about it a little bit, but it was tough to get "all" of his stuff in a matter of hrs, as you can imagine.

pulling the elbow back or the idea of elbowing someone behind me helped me get my hands up in my armpit area and keep my bat angle. set up everything to go all together

As I sit here and do just that, I really feel like I'm tightened up and ready to fire all together, and like you say just "turn like hell".

**jalbert** · 03-27-2006, 04:02 PM

helped with timing too. pull elbow back as you move forward

perhaps that could be the new "x factor" or "stretching the rubber band" as opposed to counter-rotation?

I should stop thinking out loud. Don't want to stir up any trouble

but from a "player's perspective" it was easier for me to think of it that way than to get tied up in an overly-detailed analysis. Like the minor league guys I worked with over the past 2 winters would ask technical questions and listen to explanations, but then always "ok so how do I do it" or "tell me one thing to think about that will make me do it" They'd search for that one word, phrase or image that would capture the idea of what they wanted to do

**hiddengem** · 03-27-2006, 04:06 PM

Originally posted by jalbert

but from a "player's perspective" it was easier for me to think of it that way than to get tied up in an overly-detailed analysis. Like the minor league guys I worked with over the past 2 winters would ask technical questions and listen to explanations, but then always "ok so how do I do it" or "tell me one thing to think about that will make me do it" They'd search for that one word, phrase or image that would capture the idea of what they wanted to do

EXACTLY...alot of this talk on here is too much for anybody but a dad trying to figure it out. If I thought about half the stuff that is talked about around here in a literal sense in the box, I probably wouldn't ever hit the ball.

Like the guys you worked with. I need a "cue" or one thing I can think about doing that gets me to do the right thing.

If feeling like I'm elbowing somebody behind me gets me to scap load, than great, I can do that.

**tominct** · 03-27-2006, 05:10 PM

Subscription?

How does one subscribe to your blog?

Tom

**jalbert** · 03-27-2006, 07:55 PM

good question

I added a section to the sidebar that should allow you to submit your email in order to subscribe

thanks

**jalbert** · 04-04-2006, 07:44 PM

HG-

I'm going through editing a lot of video I have and this one jumped out, reminding me of this "cue"

http://swingtraining.net/clips/Glaus-05-front.mpg

I think this is a pretty good representation of pulling back the elbow or "elbow a person behind you"

pretty simple thought.

good luck

JA

**jalbert** · 05-14-2006, 05:31 PM

I thought some of you would be interested in a few recent updates I've made on my blog

There is new stuff in there like:

NY Mets BP

Andruw Jones - Joe Mauer - Eric Chavez clips

Info. on efficiency and timing of segment movement

Lifting and muscle fibers

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