tempo or no tempo during the swing

[baseball2234]

a lot of people including a-rod say swing 75 percent is the way to go...nice controlled swing. Others say swing as hard as possible to hit the ball..like you can see jeter clenching his teeth and really muscleing the ball out there. Wat do you guys think?

[Jake Patterson]

a lot of people including a-rod say swing 75 percent is the way to go...nice controlled swing. Others say swing as hard as possible to hit the ball..like you can see jeter clenching his teeth and really muscleing the ball out there. Wat do you guys think?


I am uncertain what the above has to do with tempo. You can have tempo with both swings.
jake

[virg]

A hard swing slows itself down by causing tension, and you get in your own way by doing it. A Dr. told me that facial tension (gritting) negatively affects vision. I'd say go with A-Rod at least until asking Jeter about Jeter.

[Jake Patterson]

A hard swing slows itself down by causing tension, and you get in your own way by doing it. A Dr. told me that facial tension (gritting) negatively affects vision. I'd say go with A-Rod at least until asking Jeter about Jeter.


I teach my players to keep their mouth slightly open to relieve tension in the face.

[tom.guerry]

I think Williams advice is best, hips/body at 80-85%, hands at 100%.

[Jake Patterson]

I think Williams advice is best, hips/body at 80-85%, hands at 100%.

Tom, Why?? What are you saving the 15-20% for??
Jake

[tom.guerry]

I would say the desired feel is primarily related to not wasting energy overrotating the hips/proximal segments/spinning.

[Jake Patterson]

I would say the desired feel is primarily related to not wasting energy overrotating the hips/proximal segments/spinning.


Would this then imply a pitcher should never throw at full speed due to over rotation? Not certain I agree, but will have to give this a little thought.

Hmm......

[Braves Fan 24]

If you go out there and just swing as hard as possible at a pitch, you're not going to be able to adjust if it breaks on you or has any movement at all, just my opinion.

[virg]

Tom, Why?? What are you saving the 15-20% for??
Jake

Jake, the hands are the weakest link and the hips/body the heaviest and strongest. If the strong part explodes at 100% it overcomes/ outruns the weaker part.

[chesspirate]

If you go out there and just swing as hard as possible at a pitch, you're not going to be able to adjust if it breaks on you or has any movement at all, just my opinion.

you've got to get the definitions right. "hard" & "quick" & "swing speed" get used incorrectly so many times on these boards.

The overall time elapsed during a swing will be the measure of the "swing quickness" and not necessarily be correlated with "swing speed" but you can be certain that the force applied to the swing or how "hard" you swing can be done in either a quick manner or a not quick/long manner.

So basically, you can still swing "hard", be quick and be able to adjust; you don't necessarily have to swing "hard" , and be long, in wich case it would be detrimental to swing adjustments for the glorification of ultimate "swing speed"

[hiddengem]

a lot of people including a-rod say swing 75 percent is the way to go...nice controlled swing. Others say swing as hard as possible to hit the ball..like you can see jeter clenching his teeth and really muscleing the ball out there. Wat do you guys think?


What A-Rod is saying is that if you go up there and think about swinging at 100%, you are most likely going to "muscle up" and will end up being slower in the process. Tense muscles are slow muscles. Nice loose calm hands end up flying through the zone, where a tense grip ends up slowing your bat speed down.

The furthest balls you hit are the ones where you just have a nice smooth swing that is in sync and on time. Very rarely do you swing as hard as you can and square up a ball.

[cosmo34]

depends on who you are. swinging hard works for some and swinging easy works for other. Just like almost everything when it comes to hitting, different things work for different players. Personally I believe in a short stroke with a hard swing. I'm all about seeing the ball deep and swinging hard when it gets there. My swing is probably a "95%" swing. I've tried the relaxed "80-85%" rule and it didn't work. Like I said before, things are different.

One thing to think about, is when major leaguers talk about 80-85% swings, they can get away with it because their batspeed at 80-85% is still probably 110-120% of what most people have.

[Jake Patterson]

What A-Rod is saying is that if you go up there and think about swinging at 100%, you are most likely going to "muscle up" and will end up being slower in the process. Tense muscles are slow muscles. Nice loose calm hands end up flying through the zone, where a tense grip ends up slowing your bat speed down.

The furthest balls you hit are the ones where you just have a nice smooth swing that is in sync and on time. Very rarely do you swing as hard as you can and square up a ball.


HG,
I see this more as a build up to strength than I do swinging from a position of strength. Using the hands as an example. I teach a very lose, calm stance. I use a scale of 1-10, 1 being the bat will drop out of your hands and 10 being fully muscled up. Batters start at 2-3 and work their way to 10 at impact. I am uncertain why we can not teach that with the rest of the swing.

Jake

[tom.guerry]

Jake -

I think the arm action is king principle which Nyman proposes for overhand throw also carries over to hitting mechanics.

Dixon was grounbreaking in recognizing 3 different basic patterns that applied to both hitting and throwing and in recognizing arm action as the key difference between the skills and patterns.

Nyman was groundbreaking in recogizing that arm action was king in throwing, but went off track when he did not carry the principle over to hitting.

In the overhand throw, the arm must form a loop and whip by reversal of external rotation/layback to internal rotation/rapid acceleration primarily by soft tissue/elastic properties overlying aceptable bony gemetry and secondarily by muscular force production.

This arm whipping is required to get the energy to the ball.

Similarly, in hitting, the key is to use the arms and forearms (more forearm emphasis in hitting) to torque the handle of the bat actively, continuing as the body continues to load then unload.

This is the only way to get the energy into turning the bat as opposed to dragging it and overturning the body segments.