Thanks! Will do.

What do you mean by that?

@chetwomach she weights her front foot (changing her axis to the spine, instead of her back leg) and _then_ she engages the barrel. She's probably athletic enough to be on time for the fastball, but because she has a spine-axis/2-phase swing, her front leg is fully weighted by the time the offspeed arrives. It's awkward for her because even if she waits long enough to connect with that offspeed pitch, the swing itself won't feel right and it will be all arms/upper half instead of torqued hips tilting (diagonally rotating, NOT laterally!) to efficiently throw the lower half of the body's mass into the swing. The alternative is to develop a rear-legged launch, in which a rear coil hip socket is stretched against the rear scapula being wound in the opposite direction as the leg/hip coil. Launch open from that position by turning the barrel rearward in a supinating back wrist motion which will cause the back humerus to move opposite the direction of the wrists and toward the torso - it's only a _feeling_ of the bat going rearward... the actual path of the bat will now be moving into the strike zone because the back leg/hip socket has unloaded in a diagonal tilt). If you look at the most effective hitters in baseball/softball you will notice that at the point of contact, the only thing that has moved in their upper body are the wrists having turned "rearward" at the moment they unload that rear leg coil - prove that to yourself by watching slow motion video of the best hitters in the game currently and see that their entire upper half has not changed from launch to contact except that they have used the wrists to manipulate the bat in a rearward motion to put it on plane, causing a closing of the distance between the humerus and the torso. Mookie Betts has a video on KZbin somewhere where he was showing his bat launch movement in the swing and he was saying "back... back... back." In other words, if you didn't unload the lower half of the body and just stood with a locked lower half, the upper body motion would simply be turning the bat with the wrists only and it hitting the catcher. This method allows you to be lightning quick to the fastball, but because there is no weight shift until bat launch, it is the exact same swing to get to the off speed... you're able to sit in the fully loaded position and stay hip socket and scapula stretched and wait. So, you need the same swing for both the offspeed and fastball... the current iteration of her swing requires too much guesswork as to what she's going to be thrown b/c currently she can't swing without weighting her front foot.

This would be a good topic for discussion, but SUPER hard to have just in a comments section without visuals. One question/objection I have to your comment is that I see a LOT of good hitters hit the offspeed pitch by landing on their front foot, and then flexing into their lead leg to buy time, and then getting a hit when fooled. I see it in Griffey's swing, and Jordon Alvarez's swing. Do you have any good example videos you like of hitters not having a weight shift before they launch their swing for me to reference?

@hyperx5984 thanks for reaching out. Don't feel bad about all ready having some of the technology... that happens all the time for those of us trying to help our kids get better. When someone decides to work with us for one of our coaching services and they already have the tools, we just discount our prices to account for the same retail amount that the tools go for (at least in most cases) So if that sounds good, shoot me an email to talk about next steps, my email is [email protected] or a text at 509-599-9657 Looking forward to hopefully working with you.

Good question... not sure to be honest. If I had to guess I would say that in general it might be an issue where girls need to have more intention. I know we see this with boys too, when making tags as a middle infielder on base stealers... the ball always comes out, because there isn't enough aggressiveness and firmness in the tag. They are playing too loose and soft. Again, I'm just taking a guess but changing the mindset would be where my instincts tell me to start.

@chetwomach Appreciate the response. That's a good thought. I'll bring this up with her. Thank You!

Here's a link to the chart I was referencing in the video: pin.it/152dLVPHR

So I don't disagree that that would be a better way to evaluate in game accuracy, you're right. But it's a worse way to train velocity development. A run-n-gun like this where the only focus is on moving faster, has been a huge part in her development of a + arm. And then on other days we focus on accuracy, athletic throws etc. I like switching focuses between the days. If every day is always about accuracy we never build the velocity.

@ At many power 4 camps they test your arm speed/gun from a distance between 40-60 feet, need to train both..

That chart was for the 2021 USA nationals team. So fully mature women.

@@artrail20 Nothing to get alarmed about, as her hands grow and becomes stronger she will be fine, second year of 12u u should notice the difference - definitely would work on grip strength..

What does stay balanced mean to you?

@ That’s a good question… Rotating around your center of gravity - not past it, due to excess linear movement, which also causes excess head movement laterally and sometime vertically.

You are 100% Spot on. I don't think enough people know what rotational acceleration is and how to train it. But what people don't realize is that ANOTHER benefit to high rotational acceleration is the athlete doesn't have to start their swing as early as a kid with low rotational acceleration scores has to. So they get more time to recognize the pitch. Thanks for the comment!

@@chetwomach my daughter has very good bat speed for her age, tops at 63 mph off a tee. We care more about training RA to be able to wait longer and recognize pitches. In a few years in 14u, she will see some nasty breaking pitches and the ability to wait and recognize will set her apart. Hitting breaking pitches is what limited me to being just a pitcher in college so I want to make sure she builds the tools to get past that.

@IvanTolentino-iv2yx I actually don't think that's good advice in this situation. I find that 99% of the time we 'think' a kid is pulling their head, that they aren't. I think there's actually a deeper problem going on here. But I get a lot of comments like this so I made a video addressing them that you can check out here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oma4h3iKnc95hqc

You are 100 percent correct. The exercises build new neural pathways that create more coordination and that allows kids to access more strength and fluidity. Great comment!

Thanks

Those are good numbers depending on your daughters size. I actually have some resources that I will edit together for a follow up video to answer this question. Stay tuned, and thanks for the great question!

lol. Yeah nope. I think that’s probably not in my son‘s cards.

@@chetwomach Or any kid that age

Glad it was helpful!

Thanks for the sub!

100%

Awesome breakdown bro my son just turned 13 this is gold thanks

Maybe it’s not the best but it was wildly effective for me. But I am curious have you tried some things that were really effective at overcoming fear?

That’s fair on too much running for medical concerns. But how would the other team feel disrespected?

Thanks for the kind words!

Good point. Here’s one of the studies I was referring too: Edgett, B. A., Bonafiglia, J. T., Baechler, B. L., Quadrilatero, J., & Gurd, B. J. (2016) This one was how sprint training (which is plyometric in nature) converts muscle fibers over 6 weeks from slow twitch to fast twitch.

Great question. So a couple things... The most common place we see this is with kids who extend their wrists too early, and don't know how to deliver the barrel late. They will often push the barrel away from their back shoulder too soon and then sweep their hands and barrel through the zone at one time vs. waiting to fire the wrists into contact. (that's one potential problem) We also might have a deceleration problem with some movements of the body. For the body to accelerate from the ground up, we need to train the athletes to rotate fast, and stop fast with each segment of the body. (super hard to explain in a comment section of a video though ;-) So we might need some declaration training And then lastly how you tell if you are getting good bat speeds in relation to hand speeds is you take your bat speed number (if you're using a blast motion sensor) and you divide it by your hand speeds. If that number is 3.2 or higher you are being pretty efficient at converting your hand speeds to bat speeds. If it's lower, you have some inefficiencies. Hope that helps!

@@chetwomach thanks. We were going to do your evaluation and program this summer but our 10u LL all stars unexpectedly over achieved and finished 3rd in Texas state tournament. That only left us with about 5 weeks before fall tournaments, we took 10 days completely off. It looks like we will have a good break from mid November to late February where we can really focus on training new methods with you without worrying about being game ready for a while. In our last bat speed tee work set she averaged 58.1 mph bat speed and 17.6mph hand speed, 3.3 ratio. We train a lot with heavy bats and with her 33/30 she average 47.8 and 16.6 for a 2.9 ratio. I’ll go back and plot the ratios over time and see how the 32/22 and 33/30 bats trend together. Is the ratio a optimal range or higher the better? Her last live pitching set she averaged 52.4 and 15.6 for a 3.3 ratio. How do we bridge this gap between live a tee?

Another good question... but anything better than 3.2 is a good transfer of hand speed to bat speed. As for briding the gap between T and live pitching the T will always be faster as the body doesn't have to make any adjustments to pitch location or speed. However we like to do all of our bat speed drills first on a T to train the body to move as fast as possible, but then we do all those same drills off a a machine throwing at game like reaction times. This is what helps us get as close as possible.

We do ask that you throw them a moving ball, as their mechanics will change from T to Front Toss, but yes, you get a free assessment when you take a 14 day trial of our online hitting membership program.

This was true for him as well. He did not want to eat this much. He had to eat when he wasn't hungry.

I get it. But if we want to help our kids get better we have to help them find a way to get the right amount of calories AND the right types. We did this by meal prepping healthy meals on Sunday evenings. We'd specifically do 1,000 calorie snacks and lunches. Chicken and rice were his go to.

While it's on the high end I think this is why some people struggle to gain. This kid was in peak puberty, growing fast, lifting and training hard 5 days a week. 3 days in the weight room and multiple other training days as well. Not everyone needs that much, but I swear to you it's what it took. It's not what I'd recommend people start with though. I recommend starting at 3,000 and if they don't gain, add 500 calories a day until they do.

thanks!

Well thanks... I'm sure I'll get the hang of shooting better videos as we go along.

I suppose technically you are right, as there's other tissues in there as well. But he got leaner body fat percentage wise as he put on those 21 lbs. And he grew an inch or two so there's some bone mass and other tissues. But it was 21 pounds of good weight not bad.

5000 calories js wild

@@stormcloud_19i got fat as shit went from 150-180 in 5 months eating 3500 cals every other day

what do you mean on any platform?

Rotational Acceleration

Yeah I need to make that more clear. Still working on my site. After I do the assessments for you I give you options to add a bat sensor after your purchase. I'll work on getting it done before.

It 100% is. I actually developed it for my oldest son... who has incredible home run power. But when I tried to share how we did it, everyone just said it was only because he was 6' 1". So when my little daughter started jacking shots we tried to reach out to the softball community instead. But it's IDENTICAL programming.

Yep, it's identical to Baseball in my opinion. The program my daughter was on was originally built from her older brother's program.

Man I'd like to hear you logic on why this is BS... cuz getting my kids to lift early was maybe the MOST important part of their athletic development?

Love it!

I would put loading in a different category personally. For me Loading happens in the 'gather' phase of the swing and before you stride forward. Still important, but the way I talk about it we do different loading movements in the 'gather' phase than we do in the stride phase (which this drill is more about the stride phase and 'launch' phase of the swing. At least for how I like to talk about it.