Things No One Knew About Hitting, Until Now.... Part 1

Neuroscience is at a historic turning point. Today, a full 18 years after the “Decade of the Brain,” a continuous stream of advances is shattering long-held notions about how the human brain works and what happens when it doesn’t. These advances are also reshaping the landscapes in sports and other fields, from psychology to economics, education and the law.

Baseball and softball are great games that are rich with history and full of mystery. At times it seems that they borders on the "supernatural". The inner working of the brain that allow us to experience the games are extremely complex and can't be understood superficially. After many years in denial, I now readily accept that change is the only constant in a technology driven world.

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. -Bill Gates

We are in the infancy of understanding neuro-circuitry but we are certainly no longer in the dark ages regarding the importance of understanding the brain and it's role in modifying behaviors. More has been learned about the brain in the past 25 yrs than in the previous 2500 years and knowledge is accelerating at an enormous pace. Therefore, if you haven't modified your training methods over the past three years you are in state of denial and the game is changing around you. Advancements in understanding how the brain works have begun to shape how we observe the game and how we train players. Thank God we have measurement systems that allow us to quantify if the advancements are truly advancements or just more of the same old crap in a different suit.

Evidence suggest that many coaches fear change while others are just uncomfortable with it. Neither of those approaches will yield sustainable positive results. I've learned that the best approach to managing change is to stay ahead of it... Being in a constant state of excitement and anticipation is much better than being in being in a constant state of anxiety. Anxiety makes us feel displaced, confused and fooled by certain types of technologies.

To appease the technology industry some coaches and owners have adopted very progressive approaches to applying technology and are needlessly spending thousand of dollars on video analysis systems, data driven metrics systems, and virtual reality simulators without fully understanding the limits of these explicit technologies. These purchases only prolong the cycle of misunderstanding and mistrust that exist between all parties searching for answers. With all of that said its easy to see how we were so wrong for so long.

If you do a cumulative assessment of the years of coaching experience from baseball's inception in the US around 1791 to the present, you will find that coaches have accumulated over 17 million years of training and coaching experience. That is a lot of experience! Unfortunately the experience was superficial. Conventional wisdom tells us that nothing stays the same but baseball hasn't made an efficiency improvement in performance for over 17 million years relative to collective experience. Our observations and applications of knowledge were too shallow.

Current sports measurement systems aren't all bad but they are all limited and confined to the physical, observable realm. Over the next 10 years it is possible that the entire, 17 million year knowledge base accumulated and used by previous generations will be of no use to future generations. It is mind boggling how important one piece of information can be regarding the major components associated with hitting a 95 mph fastball.

It is apparent that timing is the Achilles heel of all hitting instructors. This is because timing is a part of time and "time" is a mystery. Even the greatest human minds have struggled to define what time actually is, until now. In 2013, Physicist, Eklaterina Moreva conducted the first experiments proving that time is an emergent phenomenon that is a side effect of quantum entanglement. Question: what does a Quantum experiment that shows how time "emerges" from Entanglement have to do with hitting a baseball? Answer: -Everything-

Human Beings cognitively interpret time as past, present and future and we live our lives according to those predisposed assumptions. We use time as the backdrop to measure things that occur within its span so we can develop an understanding of our place relative to it. A common phrase used in sports is " be in the moment" which is a reference to time and a cognitive awareness of it. This type thinking is problematic in baseball and softball because science is telling us that time emerges within the observable universe. Which means, hitters struggle with timing because every pitch is an independent observation of that particular pitch in space and time. Therefore, if time is emergent then space is also. This is super complex in the world of physics but for hitter it simply means, if there are 100 pitches in a game then there are 100 first pitches. It appears that the brain doesn't use pitch counts or an extended understanding of being "in the moment" to quantify space or objects that pass through it. It uses "now" data within the current electromagnetic field to generate a swing with the highest probability of connecting with the ball at a precise time. Our observations and data support those conclusions as it relates to hitting.

Humans are biological beings and our brains are part of the observable, molecular universe that exist within an ever present electromagnetic field. Its understandable that we've developed tools for helping us to calculate time and speed in our ordinary lives such as watches, and speedometers. In baseball and softball we now have radar guns and other fancy measuring tools which tell us exactly how fast the ball is traveling and what a swing looks like relative to every pitch. Unfortunately the external information derived from these external systems can't be used by the brain to judge time and hit the ball more effectively. For those of you interested in helping hitters reach their highest potential you may want to apply solid scientific principles. Remember that it takes an internal, implicit model of training to engage the brain on its own terms. It has always known that time was emergent but it has taken us "cognitive humans" millions of years acknowledge it....

Part 2: Inside The Hitters Brain