[Jeff]

dkerby

You wrote-: "Jeff, I think that Leadbetter said it best. "I believe that Hogan's lateral hip slide is a major cause of his high finish. Let me explain why. The slide toward the target position his hips well foward. As his hips began to rotate open from this forward position, Hogan raised his body and stood up on the shot after impact."

I disagree with Leadbetter's assertion that it was solely the lateral pelvic slide that is responsible for Hogan's excellent high finish. I think that Hogan's excellent high finish was simply due to the i) overalll efficiency of his downswing pivot action + ii) his superbly executed continued-torso rotation post-impact. His downswing pivot action was so efficient that he fully released his power accumulators to a straight right/left arm post-impact situation. However, he not only released his power accumulators perfectly, he also continued to turn his torso superbly during the followthrough and finish phases of the swing, and that directed his straight arms in an upwards and leftwards direction to a high finish.

You also wrote-: "I think that the key here is that Hogan was able to pivot with the Center of Mass way to the left near or over his left leg."

I personally don't think that having the center of mass (body mass near the center of the torso) slightly leftwards increases the efficacy of the downswing pivot action. The human body is not like a spinning cylinder, which spins faster when the center of mass is near the central axis of rotation. Hogan had a superb downswing pivot action for many reasons, and one of the main reasons relates to his body alignment at the start of the downswing.



Hogan had a typical reverse K look at the at the start of the downswing. I personally believe that when the upper torso is angled to the right (causing the head to be slightly right-of-center) while the lower torso is angled to the left (thereby creating the reverse-K appearance) that the human body is optimally positioned to perform an efficient downswing pivot action. The yellow line represents the skeletal structural alignment between the head and left foot (spine, pelvis, left thigh, left tibia) that can be braced when the downswing is initiated by a pelvic shift-rotational movement. I personally believe that Hogan's super-efficient lower body movement during the early/mid downswing required this skeletal structural alignment (spine and upper torso angled slightly to the right) to allow it to occur with maximum efficiency. In other words, I place major emphasis on body alignments (especially supporting skeletal structural alignments) that allow for optimum biomechanical movements and I place minor emphasis on central body weight distribution (especially passive weight [organ weight and mesenteric fatty tissue weight] distributed in the mid-body).

Jeff.