I see whiplash effect in the baseball swing. When you crack a whip, there has to be a deceleration to make the energy transfer to the tip of the whip. The arm has to slow down to crack a whip.
We need to understand how energy is transferred to the head of the bat in a swing to address the obsession with rotation being taught today in the baseball swing. One way to illustrate the proper transfer of energy might be to take a bucket of water and throw the water from the bucket at someone. If I were to rotate my arms with the rest of my body and not stop their rotational motion (or slow down the arms), the water would not reach my target and would fly mostly in a circular path towards my target and around my body, even behind. me. The water in the bucket would not have received the energy in such a way as to directly and completely hit my intended target. The transfer of energy from the pitcher to the water in the bucket never occurred with the rotational pattern of the pitch.
To get the water out of the bucket and hit the desired target with full force, I have to hold my arms (decelerate my arms) in the direction of my target. A boosting effect occurs, and then it is transferred from my body and then to the bucket, the bucket is supported, and the water is expelled towards my target.
What you see with what I teach, and what you see what biomechanics teach in golf and other sports but don’t hear much about in baseball, you have to understand this idea of cracking the whip. Our goal is not to rotate. Our goal is to deliver energy to the head of the bat to deliver it to the ball. The goal does not rotate.
When you hit a baseball, your legs should create forward momentum by transferring energy to the front leg, with the energy coming up from the larger base segments, just like when you throw water out of the bucket. When you make that transfer from the back leg to the front leg in your baseball swing, your body must prepare to allow the energy to transfer to your hands and the bat.
The hands and the bat are the equivalent of the water in the bucket. The body straps and hands and the bat are ejected. We are not trying to hit the baseball by turning our body through the contact of the baseball. We shouldn’t be spinning through the contact of the baseball. It doesn’t look good, but nonetheless, a lot of coaches are talking about hips, hips, hips and turning the back foot and they’re giving that kind of baseball instruction.
Understanding the whip effect will help you understand the natural motion, the natural swing, the way it happens in all other sports that require a throwing action. Think about it and name another sport where your goal is to spin your back foot. Many baseball coaches are teaching their students to turn the back foot to get rotation through the player’s hips. Name any other sports where you see this type of instruction or this type of throwing pattern.
In tennis, golf, shot put, throwing or hitting any ball, we are transferring our energy in a straight line towards our goal. You don’t see turning on the back foot in any of these sports or any other. This rotational hysteria is taking over baseball, but it doesn’t exist in any other sport. With batting in the last decade or so, coaches are teaching and we’re seeing an epidemic of spinners.
Rotation occurs on the swing. No doubt about that. However, it happens as part of a straight line movement of the back leg. It is a lateral conduction of energy in a straight line towards your target. If I throw a baseball and swing my back leg, what effect would that have on the force my leg creates and the direction of the ball? Turning the rear leg on a throw would compromise the momentum of the rear leg and move the direction of the throw away from its intended target.
Instead, if you push hard in a straight line toward your intended target when throwing a baseball, your hips will naturally rotate after the push from your legs in a straight line direction toward your target. Your hips will rotate much faster when you throw without trying to rotate.
The water coming out of the bucket is a great concept. We are slowing down and transferring energy and working in a straight line. The rotation will occur naturally. The hips will rotate and pull the upper torso. Rotation will occur without attempting to rotate.
We should work in a straight line when attacking a baseball to hit it. The front leg will block the transfer, then open the hips from the front. As our body parts begin to rotate naturally and sequentially after the straight line change, and we learn to slow down our body parts just prior to contact, the enormous force of energy will flow into our hands and then into the body. bat and then towards the ball.
That’s why you hear professional hitters talk a lot about hands. They may not biomechanically understand why they talk about hands, but they talk about hands because hands are all they feel moving through the contact of the baseball.
For great hitters, in the moment of truth at the contact of the baseball, all the energy has been channeled into the hands.