What do we know about the baseball swing?
What do we know about the baseball swing?
Research from: A Comparison of Age Level on Baseball Hitting Kinematics
It’s one of the hardest skills in all of sports, based on this research study here is an outline of how we should attempt to build our swing. GROUND UP!
“To enhance our understanding between youth and adult baseball hitting, kinematic and temporal analyses of baseball hitting were evaluated with a high-speed motion analysis system between 12 skilled youth and 12 skilled adult baseball players. There were only a small number of temporal differences between youth and adult hitters”
“Upper-body swing…the high-caliber group produced greater lead elbow maximum angular velocity (36%) when compared with the low-caliber group. No significant differences in any of the other upper-body variables were found.”
Think of an olympic hammer thrower, to create maximum output they will need to take the slack out of the hammer, they stay connected and tight. Before launching, the hammer will stay in position of tension upon release. The arms never bend, never allowing slack in the kinetic chain, this helps to produce maximum force.
LEAD ELBOW EXTENSION (MLB)
LEAD ELBOW EXTENSION (YOUTH)
Let’s take it further, what are they talking about? Who are the subjects and how old?
“Therefore, the purpose of this study was to quantify and compare baseball hitting mechanics between youth baseball players (12–17 years old) and adult baseball players (college and professional players 20–26 years old).”
“The longer stride phase time for adult hitters compared with youth hitters implies that adult hitters take more time “loading up” in preparation for the swing phase. This ‘loading up’ phase is important in generating energy in the lower extremities and trunk that can be subsequently transferred up the kinetic chain to the upper extremities and bat (Messier & Owen, 1985; Messier & Owen, 1986; Milbum, 1982).”
STRIDE PHASE (MLB)
STRIDE PHASE (YOUTH)
“…It is important to note that adult hitters went from a lead knee flexion of 70° when the hands started to move forward to 11° at bat-ball contact, which is nearly 60° of lead knee extension. This observation emphasizes the importance of lead knee extension during the swing and illustrates the importance of lower extremity strength, such as the quadriceps, because this muscle group is solely responsible for extending the lead knee. High muscle activity from the lower extremity has been reported during the swing.”
FRONT KNEE FLEXION + EXTENSION (MLB)
FRONT KNEE FLEXION + EXTENSION (YOUTH)
“As the lead knee extends, it helps “brace” and stabilize the body as the pelvis and trunk rotate and the upper extremities moves forward. This same “bracing” due to lead knee extension has also been shown to occur in baseball pitching, an important occurrence that allows the trunk and throwing arm to rotate appropriately over a solid base.”
“In contrast to adult hitters, the lead knee flexion of youth hitters progressed from 47° flexion when the hands started to move forward to 15° flexion at bat-ball contact, resulting in only 32° of lead knee extension. In addition, the left knee straightened significantly faster in the adult hitters compared with the youth hitters, as illustrated by the significantly greater peak left-knee extension angular velocity in adult hitters. This observation implies that youth hitters do not flex the lead knee as much or straighten out the lead knee as fast compared with adult hitters. This may result in less kinetic energy being transferred up the kinetic chain, from the legs to the trunk to the extremities, and finally to the bat.”
“This phenomenon may partly be due to a lack of lower extremity strength or muscle coordination in youth, especially before puberty when strength and motor programming are still developing. These findings illustrate the importance of baseball-specific strengthening, conditioning, and training”
“Based on the trunk twist angle, the trunk’s contribution to the swing does not appear to be dependent on age level. The sequencing of pelvis and upper torso rotation was the same sequencing reported in Welch et al. (1995). Throughout the swing, the upper torso remained in a more closed position than the pelvis (from Figure 1, the upper torso would have a smaller angle than the pelvis) and achieved a greater peak angular velocity of the upper torso than the peak angular velocity of the pelvis. Moreover, the peak angular velocity of the upper torso occurred later in the swing compared with the peak angular velocity of the pelvis. This sequencing occurred in both youth and adult hitters, and is important because kinetic energy is transferred up the body from larger, slower moving segments earlier in the swing to smaller, faster moving segments later in the swing.”
“…that batting is a sequence of coordinated muscle activity that begins with the lower extremity, followed by the trunk, and terminates with the upper extremity. These authors reported high muscle activity in the lower extremity and trunk, but relatively low muscle activity in the upper extremity. These EMG data demonstrate the importance of hitting-specific lower extremity and trunk strength and power training because the kinetic energy generated in the lower extremity and trunk is transferred up the kinetic chain to the upper extremity (which may partially explain why high upper extremity muscle activity is not needed during hitting), contributing to the large angular velocities generated in the upper extremity (Milbum, 1982). This same pattern of kinetic energy transfer from larger, slower moving segments to smaller, faster movement segments has also been reported during overhead throwing.”
For anyone that reads this, thank you! We do a lot of learning and developing as well. It’s our passion and when we find substantial research that can help, we want to share it! We wanted to present you with information. Information we hope you can use to help your athletes on and off the field. We understand we cannot be there for you everywhere your athlete is playing, but what we can do is provide you all with as much value as we can. We understand training is expensive and this is our way of saying, “thank you.” Our goal is to help educate everyone on what to look for or what to practice at home, to help each individual become the best that they can be. It shouldn’t be a secret and our information is your information. Thank you for your attention and taking the time to read this article — we hope it helps!
If you have any questions, at all..please do not hesitate to email me at J@EBSbaseball.com
