The Product Designed to Bust this Common Myth
Has anyone ever told you that force comes from the ground? Think again. The 108 Performance Trunk Vest is the tool we created to bust this myth. When you start to put it to use, you’re going to see why we’ve been so wrong for so long.
If we think about the term “ground reaction force,” most people don’t realize the significance behind the second word: Reaction. Force doesn’t come from the ground. The ground is reacting to us. We put force into the ground, which subsequently helps us get force out of the ground. We are the driver of energy. It’s not the other way around. The ground is nothing without us, but we are everything without the ground. As a result, how we leverage our body to put force into the ground is critical. This comes down to our three critical points of connection: The left foot, right foot, and our trunk. We might get energy from the ground up, but we don’t put energy in from the ground up. We put energy in from the top down. This is where the trunk comes into play.
One of the best metaphors we’ve ever created is rethinking the idea of shooting a cannon from a canoe. While common sense tells us this isn’t a great strategy, we put a different twist on it. If you want to shoot a cannon from a canoe, that canoe needs to be anchored down from both sides. The anchors holding the canoe down represent our feet. The rope attached to the anchors is our legs. The cannon is our trunk – the driver of the energy. The canoe it’s sitting in represents our pelvis. This is a critical distinction. While it’s commonly thought the lower half drives our energy during rotation, we’ve come to a different conclusion. The trunk is the driver. The pelvis simply provides the platform from which it can rotate around. The feet anchor us in from down low. The trunk anchors us in from up top.
When you use the 108 Performance Trunk Vest, you’re going to learn the power behind controlling the “top of the triangle.” Using a couple of strategic attachment points, you have the ability to give your athletes real time feedback on a myriad of issues:
- Spinning and peeling off of baseballs
- Losing posture
- Getting stuck on the backside
- Lunging
- Over rotating
- Pushing out of the ground
Below is an example of a variation we’ll commonly use with players who get stuck on their backside. We’ll put the attachment on the back of the vest and pull backwards at an angle. This creates a constraint for the hitter. If they sway back and stack over their back leg, they’re going to get pulled out of balance. You’re increasing feedback around an area of their swing that has lost feedback over time. To counter this, the hitter has to learn how to get against their front side so they can maintain balance while swinging. If they can’t get against their front side, the vest is going to pull them backwards.
If you have a hitter who flies open and struggles to hold posture during rotation, you can angle the cord behind them. This feeds the mistake of flying open and forces them to counter by maintaining posture during the swing. If they don’t, they’re going to get pulled back and miss the baseball.
You can also get creative with the vest and use it during athletic swing variations. Below is an example of a shuffle swing. The attachment point, this time, is on the front of the vest. This increases awareness during rotation. It makes it more difficult to spin and over rotate because it’s pulling the front part of the chest back towards the catcher. As a result, the hitter has to work hard to turn in a tight window without getting pulled back. This prevents spinning, stacking, and over rotating – for example.
Don’t just anchor your hitters from down low. Anchor them in from up top, too. You won’t find a better product on the market that helps you do this.