We asked if anybody could think of any sports movement in which a front, leading knee gets locked for any purpose. Kelly obliged...
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Kelly: Many batters lock the front knee on the swing. Is it the same in golf? The key to defense in basketball is to be sufficiently fit to be able to bend at the knees for the full game...
Well, we asked for an example, and Kelly came up with one, so he wins. LOL.
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1. Am not sure that golfers and batters would characterize the "firm front side" as having the knee locked -- with the bones in full hyperextension. But still, yeah.
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2. Some batters and golfers do find the concept "hit against a firm left side" useful.
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3. Golfers who think "hit against a firm left side" do so -- why?
Because they're trying to prevent swaying -- and the fixed nature of their position allows centrifugality. Like a stone in a sling, or the Batmobile firing a grapnel to lurch around a street corner, the clubhead whips faster around a fixed pivot.
The bottom line is, golfers and hitters are trying to prevent weight travel with the "firm front side." Blowers has taken to calling these swings "Back Leg Specials."
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4. There's no such thing as a pitcher who throws the ball without his weight moving towards the plate. :- ) The goal of the followthrough is to dissipate this weight travel as smoothly as possible -- not to prevent the weight travel suddenly in a "crash" effect.
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5. So we see that the golfer's and batters' "firm left side" concept underlines the pitcher's absolute need to avoid a "firm left side."
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6. Still, there you go. An example of a straight front leg. Kudos. :- )
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Kelly: I went to the MLB highlights for the pirates from 2007 and looked at two good games from June. He consistently locked his knee and rotated around the knee from 3rd to 1st with the toe pointed roughly midway between 3rd and home. In short, his past success was with the locked front knee.
I rewatched the video you have linked above. He looks more relaxed on the follow through for most of the pitches, lest torque and more drive. In fact it's quite surprising how short his stride is for the power he generates. Additionally, he looks like a good athlete on the mound. With a flexed knee he should be able to field well from the mound.
Interesting!
Here are two possible interpretations of the fact that the Young Ian Snell also had the locked front knee, and (at times) pitched well with it:
1. The locked front knee is a good thing, or at least, not harmful to Snell's pitching.
2. The locked front knee is a bad thing, and Snell was succeeding in 2006-07 despite needing work on his mechanics -- and these inconsistent mechanics later came to the table to present their bill, so to speak.
I'm guessing you can figure out which of the two Dr. D presumes to be the case. In particular, with Snell, we just now had the confirming example of Snell throwing his first great game for the M's, and this great game overlaying the first game in which he flexed his front knee, kept the ball lower, and decelerated smoothly.
But take your pick. :- )
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It is interesting that the toe-to-3b mechanic has (related) plusses and minuses to it. After all, the pitcher does want the toe left pointing to 3b as it skims the ground, and the big negative about the foot winding up that way -- to me -- is that it interferes with knee flex and a forward finish.
But locking the knee has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, that I can see.
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In any case, Snell needs to be able to finish more nose-to-leather if he's going to keep the slider down, where it has bite. Last time out, he did exactly that.
Eyes slideways,
Dr D
"2. The locked front knee is a bad thing, and Snell was succeeding in 2006-07 despite needing work on his mechanics -- and these inconsistent mechanics later came to the table to present their bill, so to speak."
If you want your upside scenario, thats it. Maybe the key to becoming even better than in '06-'07?
Let me start by saying I don't disagree with a locked front knee being an odd choice for most sports motions. Here are some comments about how you might incorporate a locked front leg in a pitching motion to generate power, though I would certainly defer to the crowd if they seem off. First, the front foot plants below the back foot, so even with a locked front leg you still get significant forward weight transfer. With a short stride, the power generated in a pitching motion must come from the waist up in large part with the primary source of torque being hips, to shoulders, to arm. Snell is rather upright in his motion -- the antithesis of the Seaver motion where the back knee drags on the mound. So he must be using some other kinestetic method to generate power.
Let me phrase my point in the form of a question; if a pitcher were not allowed to make a large stride while throwing, what would they need to do to generate torque and power?
When I wrote about Ryan Rowland-Smith's locked front leg, Kyle Boddy of Driveline Mechanics left this comment (italics were from my original post):
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“Another mechanical flaw that RRS possesses is his locked plant leg as he releases the ball. It’s a flaw that many pitchers have that’ll make you cringe if you watch it frame by frame. The problem with it is that it shoots a power surge back up through the body that scrubs much of the forward momentum and forces the pitcher to produce most of the velocity with his arm. As you can imagine, pitchers with this defect often fall victim to arm injuries, especially in the shoulder. Oh, and not to mention problems in the knee, hip and back.”
I disagree with this assessment. ASMI notes: “…[pitchers with] greater front knee stabilization and extension will throw with greater ball velocity.” Furthermore, joints are meant to handle directly in-line forces like extension and flexion but are NOT meant to handle side-to-side movement (hence ACL ruptures/tears occuring on mostly sideways displacement unless hyperextension is achieved).
Overall, I don’t much care if the pitcher “locks out” his glove leg. In sports science, extending the knee joint is the first step of an efficient push against the ground – we call it “triple extension.”
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I don't fully agree that the lock isn't a bad thing, but he's the biomechanics expert (relative to me, anyway). What's interesting is his comment about the side-to-side movement, which probably applies to Snell when he had a crooked foot, but not to other pitchers who have the locked knee but a straight foot.
And if he gets the front side gliding to a stop smoothly, you have the specter of plus-plus command, like Schilling or Clemens...
Funny how pitchers can look hopeless (34 bb, 27 k) one month, and like Cy hopefuls the next month :- ) ... wonder if that's them, or us...
Their right crosses develop awesome power without long strides...
QB's also...
I agree with both of you.
A pitcher could of course get greater ball velocity by crashing to a stop just before he releases the ball. It hyper-accelerates the centrifiguality for him to stop suddenly as the sling is moving forward.
The problem is the loss of control and the injuries. If you were trying to stop a car, would you want your travel path to suddenly change during deceleration? A pitcher with a locked front knee has his CG abruptly veer upward as he hits the front halberd.