12 yo DD swing

[softballphreak]

Well, I'm surprised that the first thing I noticed was she looks like she might be failing from my ds syndrome... that lead foot looks like it steps 'in the bucket'.

I hope you all don't take this wrong...when I read some of the posts, it sounds like you guys are arguing about the swing...but for alot of the guys on here I'm guessing they are male, we are visual learners. The words dont' seem to do it for me nearly as much as the video and stop motion gifs that get posted.

It looks like this yound lady gets going really well.
1. Balanced stance
2. Coil
3. Stride & Separation

From there it looks like that is where the swing begins to fail. But how?
Those hands drop down to the ball, but it loks like more is going on. Look at how many 'squares' her head drops in the fencing.
Her front elbow appears to beging the charge on her whole frame dropping. Would she be better server on that drill we just saw... the boom boom thingy, where it is promoting that high front elbow, then settign the plane of your forearms to put the barrel online with the ball? Am I seeing this at all right? I think this is very much the same issue my daughter is having.

Everything that happened after she came to separation was because she started her swing from the top. The swing starts at the bottom: foot, knee, hip, hands last. Fix that first. The rest may fall in place.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

This is a top-down swing. She needs to lead with the hip. The bat drag is one of the results of not leading with the hip. If the bat were too heavy that would only add to the bat drag, as she tried to pull it around her unfired hip.

I'll copy this from one of MTS's prior posts ... which IMO is pretty much spot on.

a heavier bat can encourage better mechanics - more muscle involvement from the forearms and wrists - more involvement from the legs and hips to lead the swing.

What we have here is a girl that doesn't have a clue of how to use her 'body' appropriately to power a good swing ... ... ... and as MTS alluded to, swinging a heavier object can introduce such a hitter to a superior approach to powering the swing ... especially the use of the rear leg and lower torso.

 

[softballphreak]

I'll copy this from one of MTS's prior posts ... which IMO is pretty much spot on.

a heavier bat can encourage better mechanics - more muscle involvement from the forearms and wrists - more involvement from the legs and hips to lead the swing.

What we have here is a girl that doesn't have a clue of how to use her 'body' appropriately to power a good swing ... ... ... and as MTS alluded to, swinging a heavier object can introduce such a hitter to a superior approach to powering the swing ... especially the use of the rear leg and lower torso.

I'll have to see that. Bats that are too heavy usually create bad mechanics from what I've seen. Once the mechanics are learned I could see the benefit of swinging a heavy bat for some purposes. I'm going to start using a "heavy" bat during pre-season this year to see what difference it will make. Hopefully, we'll have some kids being able to swing 24- or even 25-oz bats during games. We've got at least two D-1 colleges around here saying nothing less than 24 oz.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

I'll have to see that. Bats that are too heavy usually create bad mechanics from what I've seen. Once the mechanics are learned I could see the benefit of swinging a heavy bat for some purposes. I'm going to start using a "heavy" bat during pre-season this year to see what difference it will make. Hopefully, we'll have some kids being able to swing 24- or even 25-oz bats during games. We've got at least two D-1 colleges around here saying nothing less than 24 oz.

A lot of the weighted training bats I've used are wood, are generally shorter than a regular bat, and are considerably heavier. An example would be a 30" / 40oz bat. If someone is used to powering their swing with their arms, they will look pretty silly trying to drive the ball off of a tee or front soft-toss (which is primarily how I've use weighted training bats ... long-tee & front side-toss). Once they begin driving the ball, they've learned to use their rear leg & lower torso ... and that's what I want captured ... I want hitter's to learn to hit with their 'body' and not rely primarily on their arms/shoulders.

 

[Chris O'Leary]

Bats that are too heavy usually create bad mechanics from what I've seen.

In my (direct) experience, putting a too-heavy bat in a kid's hands causes them to try to pull with their back arm.

That leads to serious bat drag.

Maybe a heavy bat can work under close supervision, but I'm skeptical.

I prefer to fix the hitter's mechanics before introducing a heavy bat.

 

[cshilt]

In my (direct) experience, putting a too-heavy bat in a kid's hands causes them to try to pull with their back arm.

That leads to serious bat drag.

Maybe a heavy bat can work under close supervision, but I'm skeptical.

I prefer to fix the hitter's mechanics before introducing a heavy bat.

I highly agree here.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Softballphreak, if you are skeptical, and I personally find it refreshing that people are skeptical when something is foreign or different to them, then take it for a test run. Visit a cage, select a weighted training bat, and have someone throw front soft-toss to you while you attempt to drive the snot out of the ball ... see if the additional weight doesn't discourage making pure arm-powered swings, and instead finds you tapping into your rear leg & lower torso better ... the odds are good that you'll use your body in a segmented manner so as to induce stretch and fire mechanics (with the hips & lower torso leading the upper torso).

 

[Wellphyt]

She has a nice little coil with no sway. I would not mess with the lower body.

IMO your daughter simply needs to learn how to get the bat started correctly. She starts in her stance with flat hands, which will make it very difficult for her to feel the under-the-hood action required to establish connection. She also looks to be counter rotating her shoulders on a horizontal plane, which is not ideal.

I would probably start with some top hand only tee swings, using a skip-a-rock setup. Then progress to two hand tee swings using the same setup.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

I highly agree here.

A heavier bat goes beyond simply building strength ... it can also be used to 'introduce' the use of a different set of muscles. Quite often we see kids posted here that are swinging light bats and over emphasizing their arms. These are the kids that are in need of an education and introduction to a better way to swing a bat.

 

[cshilt]

Softballphreak, if you are skeptical, and I personally find it refreshing that people are skeptical when something is foreign or different to them, then take it for a test run. Visit a cage, select a weighted training bat, and have someone throw front soft-toss to you while you attempt to drive the snot out of the ball ... see if the additional weight doesn't discourage making pure arm-powered swings, and instead finds you tapping into your rear leg & lower torso better ... the odds are good that you'll use your body in a segmented manner so as to induce stretch and fire mechanics (with the hips & lower torso leading the upper torso).

Putting a heavy bat in the hands of someone with a concept of a proper hand path probably won't have the same affect as putting one in the hands of a bat dragger. Again, I'm not opposed to training with a heavy bat, I just don't think it helps this 12U player until she is swinging from the ground up using a good hand path.