Backward chaining for hitters

Agree 100% with backward chaining for hitters.

Disagree 100% on where you start (your finish).

The follow through can end in a lot of different manners after solid contact so I might consider the start point of backward chaining for hitting either the contact point or the power V point. Lot's of room for differences of opinion here.

At a coach's conference Tony Gwynn was the speaker after a well known hitting guru who went on and on with his complex theories and had to be asked to leave the stage. Gwynn's primary focus was just having hitters make contact with the bat squared up and palm up, palm down. He wasn't talking about backward chaining but if that's the goal then that's the place to start.

More complex theories.Feel free to ignore.Possibly necessary for analysis.

Buster-

N-yman has consciously gravitated toward backward chaining due to his success with it in teaching throwing where "arm action is king".

I am not familiar with the details of what he does in hitting where arm action is mysteriously "not king" (I think it's king in both which is one reason backward chaining is good in both),but he does now have info out which may give more detail.

Others have more intuitively/less consciously,but effectively adopted the same end to beginning approach.

What you have recommended is slightly different in that you start with a particual follow through position which is fine,I would speculate, as long as you realize that different contact locations (in/out/speed) will mean different follow through trajectories.

Epstein has a basic backward chaining approach beginning with the creation of torque/separation which I think makes the most theoretical sense since I consider dynamic body torque ("xfactor stretch") to be at the heart of the swing.Then he proceeds with torque and numbers and progressive difficulty of going from dry swing to front toss to live. I think he is extremely tuned in to how to analyze and teach the swing because he has intuitively ended up where most people are headed.

Mankin has way more "arm action is king" focus,even more than I,and he has a slightly different approach.HE starts turning back from contact to lag position then forward,somewhat similar to Epstein BUT with emphasis on arm/bat action NOT torque (Epstein "intuitively" figured out to control arm connection with bat on deltoid to focus on learning body torque,which again I think is the best approach,which is similar to the progression that worked best for Jones in golf--Epstein lacks back arm/top hand detail which is the main area he leaves almost purely up to trial and error (gets hands flat ASAP,scoop sand with top hand is about as far as he goes).

Then Mankin works on one arm back arm to learn "CHP" (learn feel of maintaining connection which requires maintenance of circular handpath).

Then Mankin works on adding lead arm to hook handpath.At this point in the tape with demos by ex Astro John Elliott,Elliott has to get into lower body action and how it needs to synch with arm action to prevent front side breakdown-see Final Arc 2 for this/avoiding premature front leg locking,etc).

In golf,Jones approach was based around how to turn the hips as forcefully as possible which required focus on correct set-up,balance,timing of weight shift,preventing front side breakdown (proper extension sequence with maintenance of internal rotation of lead arm to avoid "flying open"), and preventing back arm dominace.

Jones in golf and Mankin in hitting are the only ones which really get into the requirements of the grip which is also an essential part of set-up/drills and often neglected (takes a surprising amount of thought/full swing understanding to justify/tinker with grip- more complex in golf because of club head angle requirements,but still important in hitting to prevent wrist bind/permit optimizing both loading and unloading).

Lau has a much more "forward chaining" type of approach (like Hodge in throwing). Both forward and backward are good/necessary.The big limitation I see in Lau is his lack of full understanding of handpath extension sequence/hook.He is very good on weight shift and body sequence (stride then swing stuff) and avoiding "top hand dominance",but I think you need to supplement the lead arm action info.He has figured out how to get good results with the flat palms,lead arm extension/top hand release after contact cues, but this will just create a long disconnected swing in many.This is why backward chaining has not worked for him I would guess.If you do not know the details of the lead arm action requirements,then backward chaining will not help,instead you want to do forward chaining trial and error.

In any case,if you get enough stuff in the ball park and know what works and what it looks and feels like,you can make a lot of progress with kids without a lot of detailed understanding.This makes analysis and communicatyion very limited,however.

Tom , basically this can be used at times to see and then show that "hey, your never getting to this point at the finish". A few soft tosses later the player self corrects and makes the adjustment.

It can be due to a focus and over emphasis on other cues /positions that cause the player to lose the flow and momentum of the swing.

I personally feel this in golf making self adjustments on the load/ take away but finding that I am not getting through the ball and beyond to the finish.

In golf and baseball, all of this happens over a short period of time and can he difficult to describe to your pupil without some points in time where you need to arrive.

It is a good visualization and to say as another poster said " the finish point is at contact" doesn't work and can BE the problem.

No big deal but it is interesting to check this point in the swing and note. If your perfect at contact with an accelerating bat you WILL finish. If you look good at contact and never finish then you are leaving something on the table as far as power.

I agree that some of Epstein's drills really force a finish due to the torque that is generated. You never see an Epstein drill done properly that lacks finish

quote:

Originally posted by tom.guerry:

N-yman has consciously gravitated toward backward chaining due to his success with it in teaching throwing where "arm action is king".

Tom,

When I read this - I almost cried with joy.
I cannot tell you how overjoyed I am that he has embraced the latest in a long line of pure bs.

It seems like every 6-9 months - another new "concept" is introduced - replete with a fancy name and some wonderful bio-mechanical explanations.

It is truly thrilling.

LOL

quote:

...If your perfect at contact with an accelerating bat you WILL finish. If you look good at contact and never finish then you are leaving something on the table as far as power...

The issue is seldom whether or not you leave something on the table. Effect, not cause.

The issue is "was the contact position a segment of your swing." If it is, then learn to accelerate through it. If it is not, learn to get there.......then add acceleration. Accleration guarantees nothing and probably causes more than its worth to a learning hitter.

I'll bet you I can get to your textbook "finish" position, with great acceleration and never go through the contact position.

That is what I see as a major problem with young hitters as evidenced so well by the College World Series Players. They swing, they don't hit. And the aluminum bat allows this. I believe it was Wheeless who hit a HR opposite field today for Texas on a terrible swing, mis h i t the ball and it leaves the park. With a wood bat the left fielder charges the ball. Never, did he go through the contact position on that swing as did almost ALL of Florida's hitters.

As soon as they run out of "athletic advantage", which many did in the CWS, they are easy outs. Take away the aluminum bat and it's ridiculous.

Kids 18-22 years old, supposedly at the top of their level, that now have to learn to hit.

When will coaches learn.

wrong key.

quote:

Originally posted by ozzir:
Take away the aluminum bat and it's ridiculous.

Rshard/teacherman/ozzir/etc....


We finally agree.

But it aint changing anytime soon.

We all need to get used to hearing the ping - and watching the metal hammer getting plopped onto the ball.

LOL

I've been to a wood bat game.zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Wake me when it is over.

Are you blaming the bat????

kids don't hit well with them after playing Aluminum for for 8-10 years do they.........

One thing that would help is if they wouldn't pause after they load

Swing,

Perhaps you could convince the American public to embrace the sweet ping of the metal (on a check swing). After 100 years of great wood bat baseball.

Personally - I love the half swing 250 ft line drive off the $300 metal club.

And the sweet sting of a hard hit garbage swing aluminum grounder that scampers through the infield.

Yeah - great stuff.

Lets get astroturf back as well. LOL

quote:

Posted June 26, 2005 11:25 PM

quote:

One thing that would help is if they wouldn't pause after they load

Might have helped some of the Mets and Yanks if they had "paused" as many struck out on the change up tonight. Come to think of it Giambi did and lined a hit into RC to win the game.

It just dont work that way in "Cyber-Baseball World".

If only those multi millionaire players would have learned how to "backward chain" through the multidimensional scap loading jamboree - they would have made another gazillion dollars.

Meanwhile - you clowns are giving advice and criticizing these professionals on a free website.

LOL

How totally pathetic. Buy a mirror fellas.
Then look into it - hard.

quote:

Originally posted by swingbuster:
...Might have helped some of the Mets and Yanks if they had "paused" as many struck out on the change up tonight. Come to think of it Giambi did and lined a hit into RC to win the game.

So, pausing after the load is the key??????

According to you, you can actually be loaded?

Totally disagree.

OZZIR

The drill is bad,the position described is wrong and useless, aluminum is bad, pause is bad, most coaches just screw kids up BUT...you are great.

Something you can agree with... maybe even totally agree. Glad you made some positive contributions toward the discussions. Glad I logged on to visit......right!

Direct Barry Bonds quote from ESPN clip

" You can't punch unless you get to that center point of gravity or get your foot down. I'm here( in this post stride position) to make a decision.
)...I don't need to stride or anything from this punching position to really torque my hips and make contact or drive the ball out of the ball park"

Argue with Barry..........and please explain to him why he is wrong. Getting to this foot down, balanced position to make a decision seems important to him.

Game...why don't you share your thoughts on hitting the change and we will take a few shots at you or maybe even agree.... what the heck give it a shot ?

Swing,

I have no desire to criticize professional baseball players who can hit the ball far harder and longer than I ever could.

But feel free to take some shots at me anyway.

LOL

P.S. I do like the Hands back hitting device though. I think it is a very effective training tool.

quote:

Originally posted by swingbuster:

Direct Barry Bonds quote from ESPN clip

" You can't punch unless you get to that center point of gravity or get your foot down. I'm here( in this post stride position) to make a decision.
)...I don't need to stride or anything from this punching position to really torque my hips and make contact or drive the ball out of the ball park"...

I don't see the word "pause" in his statement.

Nor do I see a pause in the clip.

quote:

Originally posted by swingbuster:
...Glad you made some positive contributions toward the discussions...

I guess your definition of positive contribution is "agreeing with swingbuster".

Even if you are wrong????

quote:

I guess your definition of positive contribution is "agreeing with swingbuster".

No, just maybe offer your point of view giving an alternative teaching method. Also not assume that one cue/ method was ever intended to mean it was an end all for teaching to replace common sense.

Tom G. You made a good point about the grip. Most of the people that have described the grip on the sites I have read on the Net are incorrect. On one site, I showed about 20 clips and pictures of major leaguers and their grip, and still had people disagreeing.......I just laughed and erased the clips after a while.

Not sure what got your unders bunched buster.

All of my posts in this thread have been about an alternative teaching method.

Yet, you accuse me of not having one.

Teaching the follow though and finish has nothing to do with going through the contact position. Period. Fact. End of story.

Backward chaining is a great tool. It's a "goal oriented" training. Teaching your body to achieve the goal.

Apparently your goal is to look pretty at follow through. Mine is to have the ball centered on the bat at contact.

You better have the right goal.

Working on the right grip can be of great help when trying to center the ball.

quote:

Apparently your goal is to look pretty at follow through. Mine is to have the ball centered on the bat at contact.

If your quoting me then use my words not yours. I said nothing about looking pretty. I am just calling into question what might be going on in a swing where you never get to a good finish. Learning that you might not be transfering energy and turning properly might, might be the end result.

The easiest way to center a ball on a bat statistically would be a bunt for most people so what does that prove?

My point is very simple.

Using the finish or follow through as your starting point for backward chaining is a mistake.

You have to start at contact. The contact position is the goal. Teach them contact and acceleration to and through contact and their finish will be pretty.

Teach them a finish or follow through position is no guarantee of them being able to hit the ball.

I can agree with you that it could work out that way.

"pause" may not be the best cue from the scientific correctness police angle,but it can work well like almost any cue.

My opinion is that overall,Epstein has the best approach since it is organized around optimizing body torque (not maximizing separation,but creating good dynamics of stretch and reversal for powering a quick swing).

This requires that the body continue torquing/coiling/loading AFTER the front foot is down/bearing weight.Most have the tendency to "swing while striding" which is often related to "top hand dominance" (both Lau descriptions) where the tendency to not trust the swing and to actively try to hit early with the back arm/top hand ends up interrupting the load/coil thus "rushing" the swing.Thinking of a "pause" here can improve mechanics in many.

Again, I believe Epstein has the best "feel" for this if you read his descriptions,BUT all feel descriptions tend to be fairly individualized. The criticism of Epstein comes mostly from the Ny-man perspective of "scientific (over)correctness".Being scientifically correct is useful to a point,but when pursued too narrowly ends up losing a lot of other value in teaching/communicating/using cues.A good cue communicates a wide range of things,not just a narrow scientifically correct motion.

While "pause" is bad because the swing could then be interruopted with time for re-loading usually not possible,there must be some sort of pause as the coil/uncoil reverses. Some people might feel a pause.Some might not,BUT almost everyone needs to "stride,THEN swing" in the sense of coiling continuing/being accentuated by the front foot coming down which slows forward "weight shift" and boosts hip turn velocity (while hands "stay back") then sends momentum UP as the hips decelerate using the front foot as a base.

Now Ny-man could say you are an idiot (actually,I think he prefers the term "moron" for contributors here) for using the word "pause",but again this can be a good feel description for teaching.

Epstein further describes the feeling of the torso having an adjustable degree of stretch/coil after "drop and tilt" before there is "reversal" which he feels as a "yank".He describes how you can wait on the ball/adjust for offspeed in this situation. At some point you do run out of stretch/coil/ability to wait and have to get to the front foot early so an ugly compensation results,but most kids can do with a little more rather than a little less "pause".

Please point to the pause in the Bonds clip.

Especially the one where his front foot is down and he's thinking about whether to swing or not.

Theoretically,we want reversal powered by elasticity of soft tissues which is more efficient/quicker than just muscle force production.At some point,the elastic reversal happens.Does that mean there is a pause ? I don't know the scientific answer to that,BUT I think you don't need the scientific answer to that.Description of xfactor Stretch:

http://www.skilltechnologies.com/XFactor Stretch.htm

notice description of importance of dynamics of stretch to enhance stretch shorten cycle of muscles AND use elastic properties of soft tissue

There may or may not be a brief "pause",but how will the player perceive it- a pause ? a yank ? a jerk ? a smooth flowing motion ?

Probably all of the above.

Will we see it on video,or is it happening too fast or not at all ?

What is the resoltuion of the Bonds clip in frames per second ?

What is the resolution of human feel ?

Pause will work for many as a cue,maybe others need a different word.

What exactly has the Bonds clip to do with this ?

quote:

Originally posted by tom.guerry:
...Will we see it on video,or is it happening too fast or not at all ?

What is the resoltuion of the Bonds clip in frames per second ?

What is the resolution of human feel ?

Pause will work for many as a cue,maybe others need a different word.

What exactly has the Bonds clip to do with this ?

You're really stooping now Tom.

And, you forgot the N Y M A N slam in your last post.

Sorry,I forgot to say,Ny-man is probably learning more from you at this point (if "ozzir is Richard who has done a very good job with his son) than you from him.Same with Englishbey. ny-man is very good with throwing (except poor lead arm emphasis which he may be revising),but keeps diving down the wrong scientific silos in hitting,but people like "ozzir" do help keep him out of trouble.

I do not see what the debate about exactly how accurate "pause" is scientifically has to do with using the word as a teaching cue and what the coach might be trying to accomplish with it.

Is Donny definitiely dooming his students to failure if they use the hands back hitter and the word "pause" ?

Tom, You are improving. There was a time when I did not understand anything you wrote. Now, I can understand most of what you write and even notice a little hidden humor too.

Why would Gwynn say " when I stride to hit there is no weight transfer ...my front foot moves on its own? Did he really do that or did he want his readers to keep their balance and not lunge.

Bonds seems to talk about getting to the punching position with the foot down to help others understand how to turn into the ball. Is there a huge pause.....I don't recall him saying that..... or is it his mental cue to keep your balance as your reading the pitch. Does he keep his weight centered to back as compared to an ARod...seems to...

They are just all just words designed to try to tell other hitters what they feel they do when they hit well.

You brought the word "PAUSE" into this thread not me.

I brought the word pause into it because hitters and throwers are never loaded. They are either loading or unloading. (N Y M A N)

The change from load to unload is uninterrupted. A load is not a position that you move to and hold until you decide to swing.

Not that it doesn't happen sometimes (offspeed adjustment) but it isn't part of a good swing.

I would hope that a device to teach hitting would not violate an absolute.

Bonds is one of the very few hitters who gets a running start. He has no pause, just like Greg Maddux gets a running start in his delivery.He has no pause either. Most all major league hitters don't get a running start and either start from a dead start or start and have a pause before they get going with their swing. Most all major league pitchers have a pause before they throw.

So what.

quote:

Originally posted by ozzir:
I brought the word pause into it because hitters and throwers are never loaded. They are either loading or unloading. (N Y M A N)

Pure Hogwash.

quote:

Originally posted by bbscout:
Bonds is one of the very few hitters who gets a running start. He has no pause, just like Greg Maddux gets a running start in his delivery.He has no pause either. Most all major league hitters don't get a running start and either start from a dead start or start and have a pause before they get going with their swing. Most all major league pitchers have a pause before they throw.

So what.

They do not pause their load/unload.

They may pause before it. They do not pause during it.

quote:

Originally posted by bbscout:
Bonds is one of the very few hitters who gets a running start. He has no pause, just like Greg Maddux gets a running start in his delivery.He has no pause either. Most all major league hitters don't get a running start and either start from a dead start or start and have a pause before they get going with their swing. Most all major league pitchers have a pause before they throw.

So what.