long swing?

When I think of a long swing I usually think slow swing. A swing that uses arms and shoulders to swing the bat, possible casting of the bat. Sometimes my son's team(8 year olds) do the long swing by dropping the hands and then swinginig with the arms. Some of this comes from lack of strenght at that age.

Coach W

Long swing is the swing path of the bat. The bat swings in a circle - somewhat. In reference to set up position.... a long swing has the center of the circle at the front hip of the set up, while a short swing has the center of the circle of at the back hip. IMO..

LAball,

Good definition! Kevin, if you look at the still photo sequence in the SWING EVALUATION thread below this one, you will see what a short swing looks like. His hand position is all the way back toward the Catcher when his front foot lands, but he hasn't fired his top hand even in the last picture of the sequence. If his top hand would have fired in the first three pictures, he would have a long swing.

quote:

Originally posted by LAball:
Long swing is the swing path of the bat. The bat swings in a circle - somewhat. In reference to set up position.... a long swing has the center of the circle at the front hip of the set up, while a short swing has the center of the circle of at the back hip. IMO..

The spine is ALWAYS going to be the center of the circle and thus the ultimate axis of rotation. What matters is how close the hands are to the spine. In a good swing, they are going to be tight to the body as long as possible.

quote:

Originally posted by John YaYa:

quote:

Originally posted by LAball:
Long swing is the swing path of the bat. The bat swings in a circle - somewhat. In reference to set up position.... a long swing has the center of the circle at the front hip of the set up, while a short swing has the center of the circle of at the back hip. IMO..

The spine is ALWAYS going to be the center of the circle and thus the ultimate axis of rotation. What matters is how close the hands are to the spine. In a good swing, they are going to be tight to the body as long as possible.

Short answer is, the distance the sweetspot travels from the point the top hand fires to contact determines the length of the swing.

Everyone has mentioned the distance that the bat travels to contact as the indicator of a long swing, and while I do think that this is absolutely true I also think that we need to add time into the discussion.

Hitters can have swings that cover a long distance to get to contact, but they can get there quickly somehow (Griffey Jr comes to mind). So I would add that an additional factor in having a long swing is the time is takes to get to from launch to contact.

I personally look at the coordination between the hips and the bat. When a good hitters' hips stop rotating, belly button facing the pitcher, their bat is at or near contact. When amateurs with long swings finish their hip turn, their bats are usually halfway between launch and contact. They willl be late on good fastballs, so they start theor swing earlier to cheat, and are then succeptible to off-speed..Alomst anyone can rotate their hips 90 degrees in the .15 seconds it takes to be quick...the good ones will have the bat there at this time as well.

quote:

Originally posted by John YaYa:

The spine is ALWAYS going to be the center of the circle and thus the ultimate axis of rotation. What matters is how close the hands are to the spine. In a good swing, they are going to be tight to the body as long as possible.

But the spine tilts forward, in and out. top of the spine , or bottom of the spine? middle? The lumbar region is the only part of the spine that rotates and it has about 45 degress of motion to left or right. seperation between the hips and shoulder tell you is about 20 degrees or rotation of the spine - I would have to guess, so there is not much rotation of the spine in a swing at contact. I think....

quote:

Originally posted by LAball:
But the spine tilts forward, in and out. top of the spine , or bottom of the spine? middle? The lumbar region is the only part of the spine that rotates and it has about 45 degress of motion to left or right. seperation between the hips and shoulder tell you is about 20 degrees or rotation of the spine - I would have to guess, so there is not much rotation of the spine in a swing at contact. I think....

Most hitters' shoulder rotate 90 or so degrees to the point of contact.

Thanks for the responses but I'm a little dense. Is a long swing when you don't stay inside ball. Is distance from load to contact? All the spine info a bit confusing,

quote:

Originally posted by kevin25:
Thanks for the responses but I'm a little dense. Is a long swing when you don't stay inside ball. Is distance from load to contact? All the spine info a bit confusing,

Kevin,

In the photos below, you will see that in the last picture of the sequence his top hand has still not fired yet, in the next frame it would have. This is a short swing. If his top hand would have fired in the first 5 frames it would be a long swing. Load position of the hands has nothing to do with the length of the swing.






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power thanks for your response. what do you mean By top hand firing? thanks again

His rear elbow is still c o c k ed, he has not yet extended "through the zone".

Premature extension of the rear arm would result in a "long swing", which also indicates slower bat speed.

quote:

Originally posted by kevin25:
Is a long swing when you don't stay inside ball.

It can be.

A swing can also get long due to bat drag or a hitch (upward or rearward movement of the hands after the front heel plants).

quote:

Originally posted by floridafan:
His rear elbow is still c o c k ed, he has not yet extended "through the zone".

Premature extension of the rear arm would result in a "long swing", which also indicates slower bat speed.

Kevin,

Here's your answer!

thanks alot guys, appreciate it. i read these forums alot but don't post too often, but am getting alot of good info to help my son. Thanks again!

Squish the bug leads to a short swing, but its not the correct swing.

LaBall- Why does that lead to a short swing?

squish the bug allows the front hip to move back to square the hips thus the center of the circle is the back hip. Otherwise the back hip has to move forward to square the hips leading to a longer swing with the center of the circle at he front hip. imo

quote:

Originally posted by LAball:

quote:

Originally posted by John YaYa:

The spine is ALWAYS going to be the center of the circle and thus the ultimate axis of rotation. What matters is how close the hands are to the spine. In a good swing, they are going to be tight to the body as long as possible.

But the spine tilts forward, in and out. top of the spine , or bottom of the spine? middle? The lumbar region is the only part of the spine that rotates and it has about 45 degress of motion to left or right. seperation between the hips and shoulder tell you is about 20 degrees or rotation of the spine - I would have to guess, so there is not much rotation of the spine in a swing at contact. I think....

Actually the lumbar spine has about 9 degrees of axial rotation one way or the other. The greatest area of spinal rotation is the cervical spine. Infact you can get 40 degrees of rotation just between C1-C2.

I may be mistaken but I dont think we are talking about the axial rotation of the spine upon itself. I think we are looking at its rotation around its axis with the ground. If that makes any sense.

quote:

Originally posted by Gameth:

Actually the lumbar spine has about 9 degrees of axial rotation one way or the other.

9 degrees per segement... approxamitly, and there is about 5 segements. L1-L2 L2-L3 and so forth

I talked about lumber rotation because there are those who talk about the " stretch" or seperation between the shoulder and hips.

In relation of the whole body to the ground? is that what you mean? In that case I believe an MLB swing has the center around the back hip. Average hitters swing around the front hip leaveing a linear component- the bat must go forward before it turns, leaving a loopy swing. Haveing a short swing leaves you a chance to change it to a loopy long swing in case its a change up breaking ball. - Manny's reaching out over the plate home run.

quote:

Originally posted by LAball:

quote:

Originally posted by Gameth:

Actually the lumbar spine has about 9 degrees of axial rotation one way or the other.

9 degrees per segement... approxamitly, and there is about 5 segements. L1-L2 L2-L3 and so forth

I talked about lumber rotation because there are those who talk about the " stretch" or seperation between the shoulder and hips.

In relation of the whole body to the ground? is that what you mean? In that case I believe an MLB swing has the center around the back hip. Average hitters swing around the front hip leaveing a linear component- the bat must go forward before it turns, leaving a loopy swing. Haveing a short swing leaves you a chance to change it to a loopy long swing in case its a change up breaking ball. - Manny's reaching out over the plate home run.

NO, 9 degrees through the entire lumbar spine! Which btw is 5 vertebra. Its about 2 degrees per segment with 1 degree at L5-S1.

As far as our axis. We could debate all year. Perhaps the front leg is the best ref. as the axis but then it will matter how much the hitting is flexed at the hips. We dont have a solid ref. point here since there are so many joints that change angles.

I really think we try to make this too exact.

Shoulder and hip separation is going to be the product of thoracic and lumbar rotation.

We have a twisting/torque of the spine as well as actual rotation of the spine around a axis.

Getting back to the original post. I think a long swing is the hands getting farther away from the body. This will decrease bat speed. Look at MLB players at connection. They usually still have both elbows bent and hands in close as opposed to full extention of elbows and hands out away from the body.

I definitely agree with Gameth- just look at any MLB player...

Why is extension so important though? You've already hit the ball...