3 Home Runs to 24 in Just 1 YEAR | The Science Behind His Transformation

[00:00:01][music] >> The man you just witnessed blasting baseballs out there is named Dawson Harmon. I've been fortunate enough to be working him with this cat since he was a high schooler and I've got to see his [music] career progress. In today's video, what we're going to talk about is how this cat went from hitting 250 with four jacks at a division one school to the very next year >> [music] >> hitting 370 with 24 pumps. There's a lot to contribute to that success. One of it is, you know, he's just consistently been working his you know what off. So, he's one of the hardest working cats. He drives, you know, hour and a half both ways. That obviously is going to contribute. And he's on our, you know, world-renowned programs for building strength, speed, and power. So, there's definitely going to be big contribution there. But, science is the real reason and the main reason >> [music] >> how he was able to make such a drastic jump in just one year. And by science, [music] what I mean is the term conservation of angular momentum. [music] So, here's an old-time video of a description of conservation of angular momentum that I'm going to throw in here >> [music] >> so you guys can get the gist of it.

[00:01:19]>> We can demonstrate the conservation of angular momentum the same way a figure skater does by going into a tight spin.

[00:01:25]I'm not a very good skater, so I'll use this turntable and a pair of hammers.

[00:01:30]I'll hold them out at arms length so I get >> [music] >> nice large radius and I'll set myself in a slow spin.

[00:01:37]I'm spinning around at a constant [music] speed and then I draw the hammers close to my body and I spin around very rapidly.

[00:01:45]As soon as I move them out, I slow down [music] again. And I can repeat this as many times as I want until the friction [music] of the turntable stops me.

[00:01:56]>> So, you may be asking, "Hey, how the heck does this relate to Dawson Harmon's swing?" How it relates is when he was coming up through high school in that first year at the Division 1 level, he was a pretty linear mover with his swing. He would go off one leg, you know, sink on the front side, [music] and gain ground towards the pitcher before he released the barrel. The big adjustment he made directly deals with the conservation of angular momentum because his goal started to be, "I want to turn as close as possible to [music] my center of mass." With all these YouTube videos I post, you know, if you've been following me for a while, you know that I talk about, "Hey, when I got my truck lifted and bigger tires on the truck, the gas mileage went up." The reason being is because it's harder [music] to turn those bigger tires cuz they're further away from the center of mass. It takes a lot more energy. Same thing is going to happen with, you know, throwing biomechanics, swing biomechanics. The tighter you are to your center of mass, the quicker you're going to rotate, in turn creating more momentum for [music] the barrel into the baseball. So, Dawson's whole approach shifted from, "Hey, instead of going to get the ball, instead of linear going out to get it, I'm just going [music] to sit back, rotate behind it, and let that conservation of angular momentum come into play to just effortlessly deliver my barrel." So, that was the number one change that he made to have that amount of success in just 1 year. And that is something that we actively worked on in the weight room [music] through our medicine ball drills, our cable chops, everything like that. So, in today's video, I'm going to show you some of the exact medicine ball drills that we did with Dawson that was able to prime those biomechanics for him to carry that into the batter's box, and for him to have so much success. [music] So, stay tuned. Check this one out.

[00:03:52]>> Step on the road, got got see you go.

[00:03:57]>> [music and singing] >> So, this right here is going to tell us everything. What I'm going to do is I'm going to place this on the uh left side of his ear, and the goal is for him to rotate behind this PVC pipe, and then stuff like this primes him for when he gets in the batter's box to think turn behind the baseball rather than go get it. So, the first one We're going to grab the med ball and we'll go half kneeling variation. So, from here load in the backside, come up, stay behind this, and just rotate behind it. Up and down.

[00:04:30]Notice. Notice how he rotates behind it.

[00:04:34]His head stays in one spot. He's not drifting forward. His head stays in line, and he's pivoting around that center mass. So, that's a good one to start with. Now, we're progressing, we're still loaded in the backside, staying behind it, and rotating, but now we're going to bring out a bench, and this is going to be a seated variation.

[00:04:56]He's not gaining ground. He's not drifting. Seated.

[00:05:01]Pivot. All right, step three, now we're just progressing into his regular leg kick that he does in the batter's box, making it as specific as possible, staying tight right to his center.

[00:05:11]Good, one more.

[00:05:14]Now, to progress it even farther, if you're still having a hard time with this, we can do falling from an elevation. So, now he's increasing the elastic profile of the move. He's going to fall from a box, sticking in that right side, but out of this hole, he's not going to drift forward, he's not going to drift up, he's just going to sink and rotate.

[00:05:37]What I wanted to share with the viewers at home is the adjustment that you really made from year one um at High Point to year two at JUCO, that crazy gap and just noticing from afar, right, on the kind of the process which you were doing was this right here. You're like turning more in a phone booth rather than you were getting a little jumpy, you know, at high point.

[00:06:02]>> Worked with a buddy who went to High Point who was with the twins who had the leg kick. Hit off with him, so I was like, "Why not me?" It's basically a lot of this hitting off your back leg instead of trying to go get the ball. Hitting off the back leg is like magic.

[00:06:16]>> It's not going to get the ball cuz, right, it's coming at you 95 plus. You don't want to go get it, right? A lot of people think to generate power they have to go get it and and collapse or or decelerate on the front side, but the easier way to do it and the more efficient way that he learned is just let the ball come to you and just try to turn behind the ball, right? So, that's everything that we preach and that's what these kind of med ball drills are going to do to, you know, teach you those fundamental biomechanics. You know, we patterned the out of when you were doing it that year and then now you're pairing that with your specific hitting drills and and you're able to carry that over into game. Also, too, like always remember I always preach and what we talked about in the beginning, angular momentum, right? You're just going to turn a lot faster and more efficiently close to your center.

[00:07:04]Hitting is not about how much power you can produce, it's how much power you can produce in a phone booth. You want a very short runway. You want to be twitchy with it and you want to snap and you want to fire and you want to rotate behind the ball.

[00:07:17]>> Hey, that's a wrap. Hopefully, you enjoyed that video with the man Dawson Harmon. Like I said before, I've had a chance to see this cat since he was in high school. Always been committed to the grind, always been committed to the process. Drives an hour and a half every single day. So, at the end of the day, with that amount of work ethic and the God-given talent that he does have, he's going to have success. But, that was one thing that really stood out to me and something that we patterned and worked on and it finally transferred over to the batter's box is simply just turning in a phone booth. Turning as close to your center of mass as possible. So, those are some med ball drills we gave you in that video that you guys can start implementing. Focus, get a partner, get, you know, your pops, your mom, whatever it may be and put that PVC pipe right here next to the ear and I was moving it out of the way, yes, as he started to deliver just cuz I didn't want his hands hitting and stuff. But, just that biofeedback of that pull right there is not going to make you want to drift forward, it's going to make you want to sink [music] and turn behind it.

[00:08:18]You're going to be faster. The ball is going to start looking like it's coming to you a little bit slower. You're going to have more time and you're going to be able to start staying connected and really piecing up the ball. Yeah, and that was a big change that we implemented with him. Hopefully, you enjoyed that type of video today and also, you know, Dawson is doing our programming wherever he's going. He just came back from Summer Ball. He was doing it at South Carolina. I'm sure he's going to be doing it at Miami. And how he's doing that is through our world-renowned Summers Method Plus app that has year-round programming whether you're a youth player, a high school player, college player like him, or all the way up to the pro and big league level. Fortunate enough to have thousands of kids using that app every single day. Go ahead, click the link in the description to find out how to sign up for that. But, all in all, we're pumping out weekly content on this channel. So, do us a favor and subscribe for us. I appreciate you. We'll catch you in the next one. Game Rewards or Grinded knows how much you've invested.