Postural alignment is an oft-discussed but often misunderstood aspect of baseball batting performance. In fact, poor spinal alignment is probably the biggest inhibitor of effective movement patterns in baseball hitters.

Lack of proper spinal alignment (often called “posture”) compromises the key performance indicators needed to be a good hitter: power, strength, stability, balance, and even reaction time. The spine is the body’s signaling pathway. Poor spinal alignment hinders the biomechanical positioning of skeletal muscles and joints.

Study degrees of movement

When analyzing movement, it is helpful to analyze when and how a hitter “bows,” or even if he actually bows. All degrees of movement causing movement of the shoulders or spine should be investigated.

Examine the following items in the photo on the right:

• The downward angle of its back shoulder
• How far his elbow fell
• Supination of the upper forearm

These faults are created by the hitter not stabilizing their back shoulder and segmenting their spine, but leaning/leaning back with their spine. The spine is the primary interconnecting link between the pelvis and shoulders during axial rotation of the trunk. Good baseball hitters can distinguish between the lumbar and thoracic spine.

If you examine the form of baseball’s all-time greatest hitters, you will notice that the concave of what appears to be the rear lateral curvature is located at the thoracic spine and not at the lumbar spine.

For example, whenever Babe Ruth approached the plate, his form showed no backward lean of the spine or drop of the back shoulder. Compare this to the right hitter in this image, who does not distinguish between his lumbar spine and his thoracic spine. What Ruth does in her movement pattern is not created by the tilt at all; rather it is created by the use of both sides of one’s body and the separate activity of one’s hands (split grip) and forearms, as well as the use of the rhomboid, scapula, oblique, dorsal, serratus muscles dentates, pectorals and trapezius.

There are two distinct and distinct movement patterns: dropping the back shoulder and tilting the spine back, and arching/twisting the spine, allowing it to “throw” the barrel.

Improper spinal alignment distorts joint angles, leading to decreased power and torque production. Improving postural mechanics and spinal alignment during baseball hitting will improve muscle function and “draw in” new movement patterns and better motor synergies, thereby improving overall hitting performance.

Barry Bonds’ photo above shows another example of proper punching form. On the right you can see the axial rotation of its body as the spine “throws” the barrel and gets behind the baseball. Bonds turns the knob, which speeds up the cannon, without dropping his back shoulder or leaning his spine back. His left forearm is parallel to the court, while his left elbow remains close to his back hip. This indicates his ability to stabilize and decelerate his lead hand and create a hand hinge, which creates a quick bat whip that maximizes his potential to create the highest swing impact.

Measuring and identifying degrees of freedom

It is a mistake to treat the spine, shoulders, and various trunk muscles as a single entity (the torso), and worse, to rotate and move all of these parts as a single unit when swinging. To truly appreciate the artistry of how big hitters interact between the many degrees of freedom to swing seamlessly, it is essential to make better distinctions, with more precise language and measurements, of all the individual components involved in action.

Teams that can accurately measure and identify the motor synergies that create the most effective elasticity will have a huge competitive advantage over their opponents and excel at player development.

The best hitters in the sport begin their swing by creating some stretch early, but then continue to dynamically increase the stretch as late as possible in their movement pattern and as long as necessary relative to the location of the incoming pitch.

Only taking into account the transverse plane of the movement distorts the analysis of the movement. The frontal and sagittal planes should be major considerations in measuring how elite elasticity is created. How planes of motion interact, intersect, overlap, and interact with each other is critical in analyzing motion data to determine hitters’ movement patterns.

Movement analysis by Swing Attractors

Our movement analysis takes the data already captured and explores motor synergies in greater depth; for example, instead of labeling and measuring the “core” or “torso” as a single unit, we look at how the diamonds, obliques, lats, shoulder blades, serratus, pecs, trapezius, etc. . all interact. Particular attention should be paid to the complexity of the degrees of freedom challenges by not neglecting any detail, nor trying to group parts and pieces together for the sake of simplicity.

Every hitter is different, but everyone wants improved and consistent game performance. Using data and motion analytics is not about prescribing how to move. Rather, it’s about diagnosing the “why” in order to help the hitter be consistent with their best moves. The diagnosis must be as accurate and precise as possible for the intervention to be meaningful.

For more discussions on typing concepts, visit www.swingattractors.com.

Mike Lotief is the President and CEO of Swing Attractors. He has coached in 40 conference/NCAA championships and invented hundreds of hitting devices; he is a 40 year cancer survivor. Swing Attractors uses its proprietary software and user-friendly dashboard to consult MLB and college teams to identify hitter movement profiles.