Want to be a great hitter? (Who doesn’t). Then, learn and apply what you’ll read in this article.
The greatest baseball hitters of all time have commonalities as their “GO MOVE” to launch the barrel, and it does NOT include: (1) snapping the barrel rearward at pitcher’s release; (2) they do not laterally tilt or bend the spine backward; (3) they do not collapse their back shoulders; (4) nor use the rear leg to throw the barrel by turning the back leg forward or squishing the bug.
Counting Milliseconds: Launch quickness—being ready to release the barrel within the time constraints of hitting M.L.B. pitching—is the greatest challenge in all sports. M.L.B. hitters “feel” and want a “SINGLE GO MOVE” that activates the right motor synergies. The high-level baseball hitter “feels” in milliseconds OPPOSING FORCES ACTING SIMULTANEOUSLY IN AN INSTANTANEOUS SINGLE MOVE. In baseball, the “rate of force development” from launch to contact is 012 milliseconds – half of the time as in golf. In baseball, the hitter wants to see and recognize and wait to launch his barrel until the pitch comes out of the pitch tunnel, approximately 12-15 feet away from home plate. Unlike golf, from launch/top of the backswing to contact is DOUBLE: 025 milliseconds and hitting a non-moving ball sitting still on a tee. Next, snapping the barrel rearward, starting at or around the pitcher’s release before the pitch design/location can even be determined and recognized by the hitter, is a recipe for disaster and the inability to create any late adjustability.
Launch in Baseball is Different from Golf: Some try to teach hips first, shift and swing, block using ground force with the stride leg, slot the back elbow, etc. – some explanation and variation of the kinetic chain – but that is not what high-level hitters feel. Opposing forces acting in an instantaneous single move is NOT THE SAME AS THESE GOLF concepts: coiling posteriorly of the back hip, counterrotating the shoulders, or snapping the club rearward, etc. Cues and feelings closely related to golf are NOT what high-level M.L.B. hitters do:
• COIL BY TURNING: Golfers posteriorly turn the back hip pocket towards the intended target (pitcher).
• STRETCH: Golfers counterrotate their torsos and shoulders as a fused unit, trying to show the rear of their backs down the target line.
• SNAP IT REARWARD: Golfers create a long club head path by unhinging their wrists and accelerating the club backward at the top of their backswing.
• LATERAL TILT OF THE SPINE BACKWARD AT THE LUMBAR REGION.
• REAR LEG PIVOTS/TURNS FORWARD/SQUISHES THE BUG.
Use all Three Planes of Motion: At pitcher’s release, hitters have more frontal plane loading of the pelvis and sagittal plane movement of the spine rather than a posterior turn of the back hip and a fused counterrotation of the shoulders. It’s not a binary choice between the front leg and the rear leg. The real issue is how to load the pelvis and integrate it with the spine using all three planes of motion. The movements are made and felt in the pelvis and spine rather than the legs and shoulders. Adding tension to the hip joint via the capsule is not good enough. To create stability in the hip joint/pelvis, the hitter must create torsion and rotational torque to create the stability needed in the rear hip joint to avoid the common flaw of coil backward and shifting forward. The contralateral movement of the pelvis in the frontal plane is a far more effective way to create energy and power from the middle. At toe touch, great hitters create stretch and elasticity as the barrel is “connecting” and getting flatter by using the scapulas, rhomboids, humeral heads, shoulder sockets, etc. Their heads are stationary and remain over their belly button rather than bending extremely laterally or tilting rearward. A “GO MOVE” by snapping the barrel/club rearward and laterally tilting/bending the spine rearward, resulting in the back shoulder dropping significantly and the back leg pivoting/turning/spinning transversely, is not the formula for hitting high-level pitching.
GO Move: At peak torso acceleration:
• Stabilize the shoulders and segment the spine; differentiate between the lumbar and thoracic spine.
• Where is the ball, and where is the barrel?
• When & how is the barrel forced out of the hitter’s hand arc?
• The back shoulder should not be dropping or turning transversely.
• The hitter’s “single GO move” should activate and attract motor synergy and synergistic contractions.
• Late adjustability for inside and outside pitches.
• Late adjustability for pitches up in the strike zone or down in the zone.
Conclusion: Energize the spine so it can slingshot the barrel rather than squishing the bug by pivoting on your rear leg. The elasticity created by the stretch of the upper posterior back and the squeeze of the anterior chest is released at GO, which is synched with peak torso acceleration. This happens without an oscillating of the shoulders in a pinch backwards/snap forward transverse motion. If the GO MOVE is “good,” then there is alignment at contact: the ball, the barrel, the bottom-hand wrist and knob, the top-hand forearm, the spine, and the head all lined up on the same incoming line. And with rate of force development that takes the least time — milliseconds.
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Michael Lotief is President/C.E.O. of Swing Attractors. Swing Attractors uses its proprietary software and user-friendly dashboard to consult with M.L.B./college teams to identify individual hitters’ movement profiles. Coach Mike was part of 40 conference/NCAA championships; he’s invented hundreds of hitting devices; he’s a 40-year cancer survivor (twice).
