March 31, 2005
"Rummaging" through the SETPRO archives....
.... "stuff" to test out the www.hitting-mechanics.org "BLOG".
Came across this that some may find of interest, especially those who are debating how long it takes to swing a bat.....
2000, 03:23 PM #1 Paul Nyman Posts: 443 Something interesting is a "cookin"--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's funny and also absolutely wonderous how the mind works.
Sometimes it's like putting a puzzle together that when the last piece is in place, unlocks a door/gate to a whole new perspective.
Sometimes those pieces are in a pot (like a pot of stew on the stove), just simmering until everything is ready to "eat" (reached the magic moment).
Below is a picture from an article I found in California on my last trip.
My first morning there I purchased "The San Francisco Chronicle, Monday february 28th, 2000". That's where this picture came from.
Also an interesting article to go along with it.
Hind sight tells me it is an important piece to the "swing puzzle" that I(what seperates the swing of a major leaguer from that of a little leaguer/lower level player). Another very important part was presented to me by Alan on his trip here to the training center.
Turns out these two pieces did not "click" (although the pot was stewing) until Alan called me this morning.
Tim Olsons son's clips are another piece, or should I say "ingredient in the stew"
Here's a link to the entire picture/posting:
Something interesting is a "cookin"
Enjoy!
Posted by PaulNyman at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)
"Roots...."
As in going back to our origins. And in going through some of the old SETPRO postings I've come across what I consider some interesting posts which are in a sense "roots" of the tree that this branch (www.hitting-mechanics.org) of baseball information and opinion has grown from.
Enjoy!!
03-27-2001, 12:14 PM #4 Major Dan--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Had a very interesting exchange with Mike Epstein on his site.
In a thread about 'keeping hands inside the ball', a writer asked what that meant. I responded with an explanation that boiled down to keeping the hands in and shoulders turning until (or almost until) contact.Mike Esptein agreed but added some more 'advanced' points.
He said the arms should extend completely by pulling the knob of the bat to the ball with the bat barrel fully trailing. That any angular displacement of the bat barrel (my words) would result in less bat speed. At full arm extension, the wrists snap the barrel out to the ball resulting in tremendous bat speed.I was shocked and suggested he was advocating a two-piece swing, with completely linear upper body mechanics, disconnected from the kinetic chain. I threw some Jack Mankin angular momentum at him along the way.
Within an hour, both his post and mine were gone!!!
(unfortunately I don't have a copy of what was written).However, responses on the main branch remained with comments about Mike's post: kac's reply -
"I was watching Mike Piazza giving hitting tips on TV one day and he said one of the main things he thinks about is getting his hands inside the ball. he said to do this, you have to drive your back elbow into your rib cage area and rotate with it staying to your side."
I replied, agreed with kac and questioned why Mike's and my posts had been deleted.
Mike Epstein's reply
"Hi Major Dan –
>I had my post deleted because I posted information which I thought might be "confusing." My apologies to you and others.
>My next article in Collegiate Baseball News addresses this, what I call the “third” core mechanical movement in the swing. So, I’ll be brief here.
>The kinetic link works in conjunction with the hands staying inside the ball, which means the hands and bat remain close to the body during upper body rotation. For this to occur, the rear elbow MUST tuck in on the approach. The hand path stays circular until the hips begin to decelerate and the torso has received its maximum momentum transfer. >Extension occurs as the swing nears the appropriate contact zone, which is dependent on pitch location.
>The hands and bat travel in a circular movement as they follow the rotating upper body, with the barrel dropping below the hands on the approach to contact. The bat head will always be below the hands at contact—unless the player swings at a pitch above his letters—at which point the barrel of the bat could be higher than his hands as he attempts to get on the plane of the pitch.
>The “key” is to not let either arm “pre-extend” in the approach. "
Seems to me, Mike spent some time at Batspeed and here, doing some quick research. He now has a third core mechanical principle.
On one hand, its nice to see he is learning. On the other hand, this is unabashed revisionism and plagarism of the highest order.
I can't wait to read his article. It will probably spare Jack Mankin the trouble of having to publish his own ideas.
Posted by PaulNyman at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)
Cues vs Reality: The Stiff front Leg, Squashing The Bug, and "The L" ..."
More about cues versus reality specifically with regard to issue such as the problems associated with using cues such as a stiff front leg, squashing the bug and other such coaching and instructional "perceptions".
One "cue" that I hear quite often is the need for a hitter to brace up or stiffen up the front leg to create/help rotation of the hips. The reasoning behind this cue being rotation of the hips it is a function of stiffening up a racing up of the front side (front leg). And or that converting the stride into rotation requires bracing up/stiffening of the front leg. That the bracing up of the leg is what causes hip rotation.
The same thing can be said for squishing the bug and or “The L”. For those who are not familiar with the concept of: “The L”, it is a description of the shape of the back leg as the hips hour rotating and/or have been rotated (goes hand-in-hand with squishing the bug i.e. rotation of the back foot such that it appears that the ball the foot is squishing a bug and the heel is coming up). The “alleged” final result of the action of squishing the bug with the back foot is hip rotation which also creates the shape of “the L” in the back leg.
Again we are back to symptoms versus cues, form versus function.
The symptom here being squishing the bug and "L" is what causes hip rotation when in reality (the cause) hip rotation is primarily produced by muscular actions in the pelvic-buttocks area. That the muscles that are responsible for abducting and adducting around the hip joints creates forces around the hip joints. The effect of these forces is what you see as squishing the bug and creating “the L”. In other words these movements of the foot and leg are in support of the actions of the muscles in the pelvic area give the appearance/impression of bracing up on the front side and squishing the bug and creating "the L" on the backside.
One has to question the value of these “cues”. They are cues that are based on visual “perception”. The question is how effectively do these cues contribute the actual muscular movements and muscle activation's that are observed in high-level players.
And like most cues, their existence is because I better than nothing as opposed to their teaching instructional effectiveness. Their main reason for existence is because they satisfy the coaches need for visual representation of that portion of the swing process.
Posted by PaulNyman at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)
SETPRO's Instructor Swing Training Program Update...
For those of you waiting for SETPRO's Instructor Swing Training Program CD's I have bad news and good news.
The bad news is they will ship Monday.
The good news is everything has been consolidated onto one CD.
Some Explanation.
As those of you know who purchase the SETPRO Instructor Swing Training Program, it was originally intended to be sold "across-the-board" to the public. And as I've explained previously because of a joint venture agreement with another organization that is in the baseball and softball instruction business, it was agreed that only a limited number of CD's would be made available. And primarily to those SETPRO had made commitments to regarding the purchase of the CD's.
Originally ("mass market sales") the SETPRO Instructor's Swing Training Program was divided up into three sections (three CDs). Each CD being a stand-alone covering a specific aspect of swing development. The rationale/logic being that there were certain parts of the program might not be of interest to to everyone (not everyone necessarily wants as much information as what I think is required to become a swinginstructor).
As example CD #1 discusses and shows how the body and its functioning effects the swing (muscles, connective tissues, physics, biomechanics etc.)
CD #2 is the actual swing training program itself i.e. the nuts and bolts of the instruction.
And CD #3 covers the seven deadly sins of the swing process and how to fix them.
Hopefully you can see how each one of these might have a different audience, and from a marketing-sales standpoint (also user friendliness perspective) it made sense to divide it up into three sections/categories.
Because we are only now producing a "limited edition", and also because a single CD can hold all of the information, it was decided to combine all three CDs into one CD.
The advantage of this is for those who have looked at the sample, you now have a table of contents that covers the materials of three CDs on a single CD. Not only does this create less problems for us in terms of logistics, but it creates a much better search and find what you're looking for capability.
The bad news was it took an extra couple of weeks to get this done.
Again thank you for your support in patience.
Paul Nyman
Posted by PaulNyman at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)
It is now "BLOG TIME......"
..... or should I say "experiment"
If you are reading this you may already know that be forums are no longer available. At some point in time I may reactivate them again but for now, they will remain inactive.
I would hope some of you miss the forums, I know I will.
But it's also been my observation that other than my postings, not that much activity happens if don't make it happen. It is usually my posting that create postings.
And it takes a lot of my time to monitor and maintain.
Also this is now a busy time of year on the baseball/softball fields for many people. So this will allow the moderators (who I thank very much for their efforts) to pursue other activities.
I will also continue to post player clips and to provide my thoughts and opinions regarding the players mechanics.
I will also create an e-mail link for for those who wish to submit questions and or player clips.
I thank all of you who supported and participated in the forums.
This is something (BLOG) I've been want to try for a while and as I said much of the form content was me getting my opinions so this won't be that much different but easier to maintain and manage.
This page will undergo a "resetting" of the "BLOG" in the next day or so to get everything on track.
As usual, please stay tuned.
Paul Nyman
Posted by PaulNyman at 10:51 AM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2005
Welcome to the "new" www.hitting-mechanics.org web site.....
Hello and welcome to www.hitting-mechanics.org. My name is Paul Nyman and I would like to welcome you to the "new" www.hitting-mechanics.org. I am the founder of www.hitting--mechanics.org. I'm also the founder of Sports Engineering and Training Products, more commonly known as SETPRO.
What is www.hitting-mechanics.org?
In short www.hitting-mechanics.org is a place where very serious players, parents, and coaches can come to better understand how the body swings and throws and more importantly develop your and/or your players abilities to swing and throw so that they may become better players.
What www.hitting-mechanics.org IS NOT a place for those who are not prepared to question, listen and contribute the best possible factual information to improve our understanding of how the body swings and throws. and more importantly how to develop a players optimal/maximal potential to hit and throw a ball. It is not a place for those who THINK they know more than anyone elseabout how the body swings and throws. nor is it a place for those who wish to engage overt or covert self promotion (that is other than myself ;-)..... ).
www.hitting-mechanics.org is an attempt on my part to light a candle in what I consider the great darkness that exists with respect to understanding how the body optimally swings and throws.
www.hitting-mechanics.org is also an attempt on my part to realize the power of the Internet with respect to providing and obtaining the best information possible on how the body swings and throws. Over these past 10 years I've come to understand that most of what are considered "good" hitting or pitching mechanics is nothing more than one person's opinion. Or it is nothing more than what people "perceive" as opposed to what actually is happening.
And that with respect to developing a better understanding and providing information and assistance that the Internet is in my opinion a big disappointment. Most of the information/discussions/forums are are either social gatherings with little or no capability to coherently discuss hitting in pitching mechanics or are forums that are provided as sales tools. Those forums of the social gatherings have very little real interest in pursuing hitting in pitching mechanics other than offering opinions with little or no factual information to support those opinions. Those forums that do "try" to discuss hitting in pitching mechanics are usually trying to sell books or videos. Also these forums are very much biased toward whatever is being sold i.e. the forums are sales tools as opposed to having true intellectual curiosity as to how to best swing a bad or throw baseball
It IS a place for those who honestly and sincerely wish to improve their knowledge, abilities, skills and performance with respect to swinging and throwing.
I hope you enjoy your visit/stay here as I look forwards to increasing my knowledge and understanding of how to optimally swing a bat and throw a ball.
Paul Nyman
Posted by PaulNyman at 06:30 PM | Comments (0)