The convention is sponsored in part by International Sports Group, and I was invited to speak by ISG team leader and fellow presenter, Tom O’Connell.  Each year, ISG helps organize and carry out a full roster of international conferences, and going on the trip was a great experience.

I made 4 presentations in total:

1. Major League Swing Analysis
2. Video Analysis “How-to” and Demonstration
3. Movement and Mechanics
4. Practical Bat Speed Application

There I am on the left during introductions

In the first presentation I basically just went through all types of clips of Major League hitters that I’ve accumulated and shared my thoughts, opinions and experience on different aspects of the swing – rotation, swing path, weight shift, balance, staying inside the ball, role of the hands – you name it.  I was also able to show how players make adjustments in different parts of the strike zone as well as how they make adjustments to off-speed pitches.

With the second presentation, I did a walk through of how I use my video software.  This is where the deal with Sports Motion came about.  I had shown so many ways to use the software that I started getting a bunch of questions about where to buy it!  I covered how to capture, trim, edit, compare side by side, use time-lines…..all the geeky stuff.

talking about rotation

The idea behind the movement & mechanics talk was to talk about muscle activity in each segment of the swing.  So I used some EMG research from baseball and golf to show muscle activity during the timeline of the swing and related movements and exercises that were similar to these patterns.  A lot of times I’ll do this to make a point to a player about a move I want them to make in their swing – often they can do the movement during a warm-up or exercise, and when they think of it in that context they can attempt to carry over that “feel” to their actual swing.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, was my talk about practical bat speed application.  I had to start it out with a brief review of the studies that had been done on overload, underload and weighted implements, what protocols have been successful, what ranges of weights to use, and different ways to create heavy/light weighted implements. Then I got into what I’ve experienced as the best ways to apply the information (all things I continue to update on this site!).

I'm on the right for a round-table discussion

The icing on the cake was taking a few more days to travel to Salzburg, Austria and Munich, Germany.  We had never been to Europe so this was a nice way to get to see some different parts of the area.  Salzburg was my favorite:

Atop the Salzburg fortress, overlooking the Alps

This is a hitter with a history of success, very good success, but is underperforming this year. 

These images are taken from this year and a previous year, front and side view of different swings that resulted in a HR to Left Center on fastballs in similar locations.

Each image on the left side is from this year, 2009.  The shots on the right are from last year.

My lines/angles represent some things I was looking at, but based just on these images, which swing is better?

      promo code: “jalbert” at checkout for 5% off of total order

The main video software I use is called Sports Motion.  I created a page on the main site where I give a brief list of some of the features, but you can also check out Sports Motion’s myspace page which has some videos detailing features of the program. 

Because of the number of inquiries from coaches at the EBCA conference in Europe, I was able to get my own promo code for those looking to buy the software and now I can make that available to anyone.  So if this is something you are interested in, you can use the promo code “jalbert”  for a 5% discount when you check out with your order from Sports Motion.

If you have any questions related to this, feel free to ask or email

Here is the full article at Baseball Analysts.  It takes into account some sports psychology in addition to mechanics and looks at some statistical changes over the past couple of years.

Peralta’s swing caught my attention when I first saw him in 2005 and this is why

After an outstanding May, I thought Peralta was going to make me look like a genius based on a piece I did on him over the off-season.  Basically just seemed like his swings were consistent but had a vision problem.  He did bounce back this year from 2006, but not quite as studly as 2005.  But he is still 25 and plenty of potential to continue developing…gotta love that opposite field power. 

On that note, a big thumbs up to Cleveland hitting coach, Derek Shelton.  According to the description given:

“As Hitting Coordinator he streamlined the entire Indians minor league organization from the Dominican League to Triple A with all new terminology and approach to hitting”

Mr. Shelton is doing something quite well.  I’d love to talk to him about that “terminology” and find out what their philosophy is all about.

And there’s also a recent article on Peralta at Baseball America and they forsee a shift to 3rd base for him.  Good, less glovey, more smashy.  Looking forward to it. ]]> http://swingtraining.net/mechanics/jhonny-peralta/feed/ 0 http://swingtraining.net/mechanics/quick-look-at-pronk/ http://swingtraining.net/mechanics/quick-look-at-pronk/#comments Fri, 08 Jun 2007 22:50:00 +0000 Jeff http://swingtraining.net/swingtraining/?p=61

]]> aka Travis Hafner

Jay at Letsgotribe.com asked me to check in on Hafner’s swing, so I made a quick comparison.

FYI when I do comparison, I do my best to use swings that are similar pitch type, location and result.  I repeat this over and over.  The result does not HAVE to be the same, but it helps support the contention that the swings are as similar as possible.

Overall I think the swings are very similar and it’d take much more time and feedback from the player (Hafner) to really pinpoint the problem/solution.  It could very well be a factor outside of swing mechanics – ie Cleveland SS Jhonny Peralta (who has been great since I added him to my fantasy team).

In other words, there does not seem to be any physical indication that Hafner will not “right the ship” and become his normal HR happy self again.

Here is the link to Jay’s blog entry

This link is to just the clip itself

And speaking of muscle activity in pitching, I just saw this article about Dr. Mike Marshall.  How timely.

Enjoy

Why has Beltre’s production dropped since an insane 2004, and can he re-approach those MVP-like numbers?

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2007/03/yo_adrian.php