TIPS to ELIMINATE LUNGING....

[nervous]

I work with a few kids who I'm teaching PCR that still manage to lunge. Do you feel that in time once they understand the movements that the lunge will go away. Some still struggle. There not comfortable in a game with no stride although they would probally make better contact.

[chesspirate]

don't worry so much about no-striding in games. Use it as a teaching tool, and let the game swing come out of that.

As far as lunging is concerned, it is an attempt to create energy in the swing.

Keep working on rotation, and the idea of getting the body ready to rotate. Sometimes if the boys really understand what it is they are trying to do it becomes easier, so if they understand they are "loading to unload", or "getting ready to rotate" things may become easier

[Ifubuildit]

This is a common problem. Nothing to be nervous about but something that takes some time to change.

What I have done in younger players may fly in the face of what some think on this board. Chess gave you some good advice.

What I do is tear it all down and start from scratch if its too bad.

1 Take away the stride.

2 Tell them to stand tall and put their weight back on the back leg. (Yes I know this is BAD but I am trying to get them away from the lunge.)

3. Tell them they are not allowed to slide the hips. Only turn them. (Not worried about form, mechanics, or rotation until we fix the lunge. That has to go first)

I do this until I quit seeing the lunge. (About 4 to 6 weeks) This is pretty much the reverse of the lunge but you have to break the habit.

Then I start teaching them the X factor in the upper body for a short period of time until I see a more fluid swing with some rotation and momentum. Again, without a stride. I also start working on balance and rotation getting them off the back leg. Start adding a little tilt to the stance. :)

When I feel they have quit the lunge and they have decent balance THEN and only THEN do I start teaching the Englishbey method. Posture, Connection and Rotation. With emphasis on posture and rotation at the start.

I also stop the counter rotation of the hands and shoulders I have added with teaching them the X factor. The only reason I teach them that is to get them to "Feel" like their weight is shifting back so they wont lunge into the swing. Most times its a factor of sliding hips but counter rotation seems to be effective in assisting in stopping the lunge. Hard to lunge forward if your counter rotating in the other direction.

There you go Tom. Something that works for us both. :clapping
__________________________________________________ _______________
Build the foundation before you raise the roof.

Elliott.

[chesspirate]

Ifubuidit,
I appreciate the fact that you have worked with kids on this one, i do have a question however. It seems counterintuitive to me to stand tall to try and stop lunging. I would think that standing tall would promote a little more of a lunge. What have you seen with this?

[swingbuster]

Toss the ball up inside the lead foot post stride. That is what the HBH does. You cannot and will not lunge with the contact position forced inside your lead foot. You will hit that location through the box in time

[Ifubuildit]

It is counterintuitive but I find if I put them in a tilted position the swing plane with the lunge then becomes a chop down on the ball. Not pretty. Of course there is no connection of the bat swing plane with the shoulder swing plane with the lunge and chop.

I try to do this one step at a time based on the swing plane. From Chop down. To standing tall and taking a level swing, to then tilting and getting the shoulders and the bat on the same plane. I pay attention to the swing plane as much as I do the body motion during this process because its really the best indicator of where the student is in the correction process.

Make Sense?

Elliott.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

My experience with this, is that hitters who are lunging do not trust their hands. They feel like they want to go out and get the ball, rather than letting the ball come to them.

I would spread their stance, get them to crouch a bit, geting their butt under them, and eliminate the stride. Get them to focus on loading the hands and their front side, ready to explode on the ball as they let it come to them.

I've always found that standing them upright is counter-productive.

Once they are crouched and widened, something that can and does happen, is the hitter feels like he needs to generate more bat speed to make up for not having a stride, so in loading, they begin to rock back on their back leg too much. In doing this, they have too much head movement and tend to pop up much more, trying to muscle up. A simple matter of having them stay balanced while trusting their hands, and getting them to understand where true bat speed comes from.

[chesspirate]

If'...
I see where you are going with the swing plane idea, but i would be concerned with the upright stance forcing some to adjust to location by dropping hands.. do you see this or do you just make them hit the high pitch only, wich would be possible at the lower levels.

I just want to reiterate that i think teaching the swing plane matching the rotational forces is a great teach.

I do also agree with Sultan about the hitters feeling like they have to go out and get it. Maybee some front soft-toss and forcing the hitters to wait and go oppo?

I still think that lunging is the hitter trying to get something going, along with Sultan's point about getting out front, they kinda go hand in hand.

Basically, it's a mental reteaching maybee moreso than a physical

[egvfastpitch]

I also think that the stand tall approach by itself can lead to hip slide and bat drag. I DO think however, that if you use Englishbey's "fall drill" , or a variation, it can help understand forward momentum by turning around the front knee.

Recall that Steve used one of those excersise trampoline's (about 6") up from the ground. He stood on it with the back foot and stepped down to the front foot. (Kind of like falling onto the front foot). With weight at front toe touchdown, the tilt and rotation around the front knee was inititated. No lunge, no slide but strong rotation with proper tilt.

[tom.guerry]

Epstein system is best at curing lunge.

[jojab]

Epstein system is best at curing lunge.

By keeping the weight on the back leg? Why try to fix one problem by replacing it with another?

[Ohfor]

:D :d :d :d :D

[Ifubuildit]

Lets go back to my original post on this subject.

Tell them to stand tall and put their weight back on the back leg. (Yes I know this is BAD but I am trying to get them away from the lunge.)

I dont do this or recommend it for any extended period of time. Again it is not the desired result but it is a part of the unlearn / relearn process of breaking muscle memory habits. This comes from my years of experience as a linear instructor and hitter. It is easier IMO to get a young hitter upright and balanced and swinging on a level plane to start the correction process when coming from a lunge swing.

Yes, I do set the tee high because I dont want the swing plane going down for any reason. Again, I am not concerned with connnection or taking the hands to the ball. (More interested in stopping the lunge) Even though I know as do you that 99.9 percent of young hitters do just that when they swing. Dropping the hands would be an issue of concern if my intent was to leave them in the upright position but that is not my intent. I can ignore that until I get the lunge fixed.

I am trying to get the pelvis to rotate and not slide forward. That in my opinion is what I see when a young person is lunging at the ball. Along with using the back leg to push forward in a less than desired manner. Until you fix the movement of the pelvis and in some cases the legs, the rest isnt even worth addressing until you see improvement in that motion and the lunge disappears.

[chesspirate]

just so everyone understands, ifyoubuildit is suggesting this as a developmental step for curing lunging only.

I can go for that

[Ifubuildit]

I dont disagree with your statement on the bad habits but sometimes the journey becomes much more important than the final destination. How that is accomplished is our own personal madness as an instructors or coaches.

I just decided to share some of my insanity. If there is a better way I am all ears.

Elliott.

[fpdad]

I find it easier to start from a loaded, higher position when first training hitters. Their swing plane is more in the shoulder plane. This high starting position is not the same as being upright with no vertical load, like many kids do.
Some kids drops their hands so much from their rear shoulder, they can't even hit a ball on a tee on a slight upward path from this position. Their swings are arcing down and then up much more than just an arc around their shoulders.
Then when they try lower balls, their hands drop even more.
I think getting this idea of locking the arms and hands, and of course the bat, into the shoulders and swinging in the shoulder plane is very important to learn early.
This stage can be a struggle for them to learn how "not" to use the arms.
If they can do this, they can then learn to tilt the spine, and still swing "level" to the shoulders, to hit lower pitchs.

[jojab]

I dont disagree with your statement on the bad habits but sometimes the journey becomes much more important than the final destination. How that is accomplished is our own personal madness as an instructors or coaches.

I just decided to share some of my insanity. If there is a better way I am all ears.

Elliott.

I wasn't responding to you -- rather it was tom.guerry's remark on the Epstein method. If you look at Epstein's website you'll see examples of hitters who don't get off the back side. I don't think he views this as a temporary fix to lunging -- rather it is part of his overall program.

As for your comments, while I do agree that sometimes you do things in the development stages that are temporary (for example, going to a no-stride approach to learn to rotate better), I'm not sure this is quite the way I'd go about curing the lunge.

The way I view it is that the lunge is a result of a lack of connection and proper roation (in looking at a lunge -- the kid typically will be too upright and have bat drag -- meaning they are trying to generate some force in the swing but doing it from the wrong place). I'd go back to the tee, set the tee inside the front foot and have the kid work on PCR in its most basic forms.

After that, I would do soft-toss, then front toss, then to live pitching. If the kid stumbles along the way, rinse and repeat.

I'm not saying your way doesn't work -- I'm just saying that I believe that a developing PCR hitter should always go to the very basics of PCR when learning. If they have a swing fault, the beauty of PCR is that you can trace it back directly to something that is out of whack and work from there.

Back to Tom, I don't need to revert back to other instructors like Epstein to take a "part" of what he has to offer and mix it in with a part of what Peavey may have right, then add 1 cup of Yeager, etc. What I need to know is on Steve's DVDs - backed by the video of what the best players in the world do, and supplemented nicely by some of the valuable members of this site.

[Mark H]

It is counterintuitive but I find if I put them in a tilted position the swing plane with the lunge then becomes a chop down on the ball. Not pretty. Of course there is no connection of the bat swing plane with the shoulder swing plane with the lunge and chop.

I try to do this one step at a time based on the swing plane. From Chop down. To standing tall and taking a level swing, to then tilting and getting the shoulders and the bat on the same plane. I pay attention to the swing plane as much as I do the body motion during this process because its really the best indicator of where the student is in the correction process.

Make Sense?

Elliott.

I often work with hitters on a toss or tee at the armpits to force them to quit pushing the hands down. Then we will work back and forth between tilting for a toss or tee in the zone and back up to armpit high till they begin to feel what they are doing with the arms to "go get the ball/get on plane". It's a connection exercise.

[tom.guerry]

jojab said:

"By keeping the weight on the back leg? Why try to fix one problem by replacing it with another?"

Epstein said:

"stride to balance with the weight slightly forward at toe touch"
"launch the swing from a balanced position".

Epstein's approach is very good at stopping lunging and encouraging a high level pattern IF you undertsand his info.

IF you teach and interpret what he says as keeping the weight back,then certainly you will fulfill your prophecy of failure, but why would you take good info and distort and mess it up like that ?

[jojab]

Epstein said:

"stride to balance with the weight slightly forward at toe touch"
"launch the swing from a balanced position".



To which I would say does he teach what he really says?

I don't know, Tom, why don't you take a look at his website. Here's the link:

http://www.mikeepsteinhitting.com/

Click on Clips and Photos.

You care to explain to me why those three hitters at the top are doing what they are doing? Are they swinging with their weight slightly forward at toe touch? Do they get the weight off the backside?

I will agree that type of drill will eliminate a lunge just make sure they don't fall back on top of the catcher though.

[tom.guerry]

see threads at Shawn's site

[Richmond Hill Phoenix]

I'm not sure if this thread is finished or what... But I had a problem when I was very young of stepping towards 1st (I'm a lefty) when i took a stride. My dad put a glove where he didn't want me t ostep, and said "don't step on the glove". It worked. Do the same thing, but put the glove in front.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

I'm not sure if this thread is finished or what... But I had a problem when I was very young of stepping towards 1st (I'm a lefty) when i took a stride. My dad put a glove where he didn't want me t ostep, and said "don't step on the glove". It worked. Do the same thing, but put the glove in front.

RHP, if it was a matter of over-striding, then that might work, but I think we're talking about lunging in terms of weight transfer. The actual stride length isn't the issue, so the glove will do nothing (except get dirty).

[virg]

Working with newbies in the faster game, I view lunging as caused by the unfamiliar action format in a fast-pitch game. Format in slowpitch playground backyard hitting is:
watch-decide-stride-swing.

In fast-pitch games it must change: watch&stride- decide- swing. We relieve some stress easily by "stride with every pitch!". Wrinkles will remain but are easier to identify and handle now that he's not trying to do it all at once, at the final instant.

A newby's other problem facing fast pitching is a feeling of watching that gunman on the rubber and not knowing when the trigger will be pulled. Find a way to drill him to key with the pitcher's parting and stride. He's got to fully know the pitcher cannot fire without a stride, and must fire once he does.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

I think you make some good points.

Its gotta be a timing thing. Pretty universal but can be dealt with from the on-deck circle for various deliveries. The gearing up should be started before the ball leaves the pitchers hand, and if the hitters find themselves a little out-front, keeping the hands back will do wonders. That's why I think its so important for a hitter to trust their hands, and why in-game swings are often so much different than BP swings. Let the ball come to you and explode.

[WonderMonkey]

I'm not sure if this thread is finished or what... But I had a problem when I was very young of stepping towards 1st (I'm a lefty) when i took a stride. My dad put a glove where he didn't want me t ostep, and said "don't step on the glove". It worked. Do the same thing, but put the glove in front.

Though that is good advice for stepping out. Had a coach that used to put a baseball bat back there and say "You'll break your ankle if you step out.". Kid didn't step out.