What’s The Right Way To Lead With Your Hips? | Talk Pitching | TopVelocity Baseball Forum

Brent,

Can you explain further your statement on force vector?

“The force vector is the angle of the drive leg ankle to knee. The key is to lead with the hip while driving your shin into the ground to aline your force vector with your front hip.”

When you say “drive your shin to the ground”, does that mean you are rotating on your pads and lifting your heel up so that the front side of the shin is being driven to the ground, almost like a sprinter at his start? And how do you “drive you shin into the ground”?

Thanks for the help,

Glenn

SayPitcher11 said:

Hey, I was just wondering if their was a correct way to lead with your hips. If you look at Randy Johnson at his balance point his body is just sort of leaning towards home plate and his front knee-cap is just pointing towards the first base dugout. If you were to look at Aroldis Chapman at the same point in his delivery, you would see that he is leading with his but and his front knee-cap is inverted to his belt buckle. My son prefers the Randy Johnson lean but, I was just wondering if their is a legitimate difference between the two because they do the same thing except with different styles.

Hey,

SayPitcher11

Every one in their initial approach is a little different, but if you will notice as in the approach to hitting the baseball is a little different with each batter but when they enter the hitting zone their final movements through the zone are almost identical as is what you see with Chapman and Johnson, Most everyone executes some what differently to get to the same finish. I would like to see what each one's timing is from first move/engagement of the hips to front foot touch down which should be 1 sec. to 1.5 sec.

I would be willing to bet that Chapman's time is faster because i believe that Chapman initiates his hip movement and speed to weight shift a little sooner than Johnson's, I could be mistaken, although, if so, it is also possible that Johnson could pick up his momentum and get to touch down as quick or quicker than Chapman, Actually I would really like to view an analysis from start to finish of them together, side by side at the same time, that would be very,very interesting and in my opinion an excellent pitching movement visual aid, I am a firm believer in visual aids, moving and still, I am a very detailed person and I like to see the knee tucked in a little so as to expose that hip jutting right out there and then I like to see that definite first linear hip movement on it's way to weight shift juuust a split second prior to the knee peak, I also like to see that drive foot and knee action drive behind the hips assisting the hip movement. Remember it is not a body lean first, it is hip movement first, As Mr. Ted Williams taught the whole baseball world many moons ago, “THE HIPS LEAD THE WAY,” whether it be in “HITTING OR PITCHING”etc.Very few people are aware that the pitching movements are closely correlated to the hitting approach movements, try hip to shoulder separation for one. the one pitching movement that is executed totally backwards in relation to the sequenced chained reactive movements in pitching is the place in the movements where it is executed, that is the stride foot leading the stride leg before/prior to hip movement,” THE HIPS LEAD THE WAY,” absolutely “NOT” the stride foot and leg, I have heard some people make the comment, well one can catch it up some where in the movement, “NOT, SO,” that comment comes from those who are inexperienced and uneducated baseball people, when the stride foot leads the stride foot leg and the hips there is “NO” catching up of the hips, period.

Well as usual I start out to only speak a few sentences and end up writing a book, those words just keep -a- comin.

What I would like to have come up in our discussions is comments on the “torque and the three pivots”, most important in pitching. also some comments, discussion and thoughts on the shoulder pivot which I term as the “MOUSE TRAP'movement,

Nuff Said.

Great Baseballun.

Don Ervin

kom_ervin@yahoo.com

I am back.

Here is a good drill to work on proper initial hip movement .

Stand sideways, glove side to a padded wall app. 12 inches away, mark line, “work very diligently” on correct pitching position,” place throwing hand side foot on the 12 inch line bring lift leg up, tuck it into position where your hip is jutting out there then move hip only, stick it out there into the wall, Tom House shows a video clip of this drill but the demo. detail is terrible. remember “the beginning/start is the means of the end/Finish. “A great beginning creates a great ending.“

Work on it

Don Ervin

kom_ervin@yahoo.com