New Website for Elite!

Visit us on the web now at www.elitebaseballtraining.com

Our website reflects the same progressive technology that Elite uses in its everyday training. Check us for our video analysis upload service, the nation's only 3D hitting analysis from AMM, or our live on-line Skype lessons! You can also book all of your lessons and camps right on our website.

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See you on the field!
Justin

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Double Duty coming to St. Louis this week. Featured in ESPN Magazine.

Our annual Double Duty Classic tryout in St. Louis is this week. I will be in St. Louis from Thursday to Sunday looking for talent. The St. Louis tryout has produced some outstanding players the last three years. Through this venue, we discovered Blair Springfield (Decatur, IL), Chuckie Jones (Boonville, MO), and Lance Jeffries (McCluer High School). All hit the national scene with the help of our event. Springfield was drafted in the 7th round by the Cubs. Jones was the 7th round by the Giants, and Jeffries looks to be drafted this year. It is a good feeling to be able to get players help in forwarding their baseball careers. Because of Nathan Durst and Dan Puente of the Chicago White Sox, the Double Duty Classic has become a major event for scouts across the country.

See below, a recent article in ESPN on how our Chicago White Sox inner city program started and how it is helping kids today. I was on the ground floor of the program, writing the proposal for the inaugural season.

http://rise.espn.go.com/baseball/articles/2011/02/09-baseball-ace-program.aspx?pursuit=Baseball

Research at the Kinetic Performance Center

Sorry - the busy season is upon us and its tough for me to sit down at a computer. Those of you who know me, know I am the biggest proponent of video analysis with hitters. To me, video analysis has revolutionized, and increased efficiency in hitting instruction. Hitting coaches who do not use it, are simply guessing. It is impossible for the human eye to breakdown a complex movement of the swing - real time. I have upgraded my cameras and equipment three times in the last year, as technology is steaming ahead in this field (using casio ex fh 100 camera, filming indoors at 120 fps, outdoors at 1000 fps on JC Video Ultimate Software). Now, 3D analysis capability is available, and will blow the current 2D analysis away. I've been working with Michael Napolean at the Kinetic Performance Center in downtown Chicago the last two weeks learning about how 3D analysis can improve teaching of the baseball swing. I told Michael, I got more out of the first 5 minutes of the program than I have in the last five years of teaching (and that's a lot). I was so excited about the analysis, I recruited White Sox big league coach, Mike Gellinger to go with me yesterday to test our swings. Instantly, pages and pages of feedback are fed into the computer immediately after the swing. The best feedback we can see fromt the 3D analysis is with the efficiency of the swing. It will not only tell us if the kinematic sequence is correct, but how much transfer and output are in each segment. With 2D analysis, good instructors can "see" what it is suppose to look like, but with 3D analysis there is specific statistical data to back it up. You can see how this would benefit being able to attack one particular transfer segment of the swing. To understand the data, you would first have to understand the kinematic sequence. TPI 3D, whose technology we were using, has a simple explanation of sequencing if you need a refresher: http://www.mytpi.com/mytpi05/TPI3D/article.asp?id=329 As a basic synopis after testing our swings, you will notice on mine, I had a huge overload on my backside (I was really trying to cut it loose!). The overload led to an exaggerated hip loading, causing my hips to have to start unloading sooner. (You will see this in the early gradual acceleration of my red line). After this flaw, my swing was in good sync, but I got less transfer from my hips to my core. (We would want the hip turn to be less gradual than mine was). I did have excellent hip and shoulder seperation which led to a fast swing and acceleration of the bat. With Mike's swing, his whole negative move and advance was more controlled and less pronounced than mine. His swing had near perfect synchronization but less total output. I attest this to me getting more degrees of rotation in both my hips and torso than he did. There are pages and pages of data I could write from just one swing and I have been scouring the data for the past two days. The clips I've added are a small fraction of the total data it provides. I will continue to update as I collect more data. John Mallee, Florida Marlins big league hitting coach, spoke about furthering this research together. The next step is to get some big league hitters as test subjects to get some good parameters of a high level swing. It will be exciting to see where this leads us into improving hitting instruction!