Thread by @SteveEnglishbey

Lastly for tonight. For those who follow me and Paul you can go to his site to see the "1 frame" Paul is talking about.

https://twitter.com/setprosports/status/1469237157478998022

And let me preface my comments here by saying that, yrs. ago I became known by members of Setpro as a guy who understood the Setpro info well enough to convey it in a very accurate manner.

The back story, so to speak, on my coming to this point is this: I had been out of baseball for many yrs. [I did not even watch baseball for yrs.---until my wife signed up my only son to play and he, over time, became a huge fan of Ken Griffey].

Around 2000 I had been working as a trainer of athletes [hired by James Cooper who is now Adrian Peterson's trainer] and I found out that there are these guys --known as hitting instructors-- that were getting paid to work with young hitters.

That struck me as kinda weird in that when I grew up there was no such thing as professional hitting instructors. Like most in my day, we all learned via observation [trying to copy our favorite hitters] and visa what I call "disorganized baseball."

Meaning that most of the learning happened AFTER the little league/pony season wherein we got groups together-----WITHOUT SUPERVISION--to play all summer from about 10am until dusk.

THIS kind of trial/error/feedback is really how I learned to understand the rules of the game and how to physically go about it.

Thus, having been away from the game for a pretty long time, and having the "unregulated" ,so to speak, kind of experience I had growing up, I was somewhat shocked at this notion of professional hitting instructors.

Add to this the fact that many who knew me said along the lines of ...."Steve, you really need to be a teacher...that's your natural inclination." Over time, I started to think: "You guys may be right."

So, this combination of finding out about paid hitting instructors and my possible "fit" as a teacher, led me to thinking ...."hey maybe I could become one of these hitting instructor guys."

At this point I had 2 points which guided me:1] Just because I played and played at a pretty high level does NOT, ipso facto, mean, I can be an effective teacher of hitting. And 2: I started lifting weights at 9 yrs. old, and had a long interest in exercise "stuff".

I should also mention a very important 3rd point in this mix: I had worked as as researcher for Newsweek magazine [ Houston office from 1991/1991].This experience really helped me/forced me to work hard at finding really good [objective/accurate] information.

So, with all of the above in mind, I started to trying all the info I could about good pitching/hitting. [I read thru all the books I could find,eg., Lau/Williams/Rose/Arron/Louisville Slugger et al].

Eventually this lead to me finding the Setpro website. And after spending hours reading thru the site, I said to myself that "I don't who this guy is but this THE smartest son of a bitch I have EVER run across."

And that led to me calling him, and saying alot of the above and more. And that was the first of quite a few phone calls with him. All of 'em good---he liked 'em and so did I.

Now, back to this clip, Note the LINEAR movement. The head moving downwardly [downwardly TOWARDS the plate]. Note also the EXTENSION at the throwing elbow----really BEFORE any back scapula protraction. [an action that should really PRECEDE elbow extension].

[This is best seen/understand in looking at other high level pitchers wherein the optimal unloading shows a "leading" of the back scapula protraction that in turn facilitates elbow extension].

In other words [and looking at the dynamic clip--and not just the still frame] the optimal proximal to distal sequencing is "off." The elbow extension really occurs INDEPENDENT of scapula protraction.

You can infer this from looking at the dynamic clip and the still clip. The still clip shows the distal component going "linear" in that the arm and shoulder go TOWARD THE PLATE.

IF the proximal to distal was correct, the "finish " [post release/still clip] would NOT look like this, and the head's action [moving downwardly ---flexion] would also NOT look like this.

Said another way: Paul's analogy of the "flatbed" [stride process], "merry -go-round", and "ferris wheel", is a VERY good analogy. AND this construct correctly understands/emphasizes the merry-go-round.

That is to say the angular speed/momentum developed via the rotational plane of the shoulders rotating PERPINDICULAR to the axis of the spine [VERY similar to maximizing momentum transfer in swinging a bat!]----is KEY.

What this pitcher is doing --as seen by the still and the dynamic clip--- amounts to "getting OFF the merry-go -round" ..."too much too soon" [my phrase]

This can be inferred by looking at the downwardly direction of the head, and by the throwing arm/scapula going more directly towards the plate [as opposed to moving towards first base---which can be readily seen in guys like Cole et al.].

@threadreaderapp unroll