One of the most difficult aspects of learning the rotational swing is developing and understanding what almost all instructors term as staying “Connected”. 10 years ago hanging around the baseball and softball fields this term was a virtual unknown among most coaches and instructors.

So, what is connection? Why do I need to stay connected coach? As children we grow up and our intuition tells us that when we pick something up be it a fly swatter, a yard stick, or even a little toy hammer like dads and we swing it, we take our hands to the object we are hitting. This is natural instinct for all young humans. Even if it is the coffee table we just left a mark on and Mom and Dad don’t have a happy look on their face. Learning connection is counter intuitive to what all of us have learned as children.

In the world of the rotational swing connection is the engine that drives the ball hard. You will hear all kinds of debates on the internet web blogs and sites on linear and rotational hitting methods. Even among those rotational purest there is debate about which method is best. None of those purest ever debates about connection. It is probably the single thing that they all realize has to happen in the rotational swing.

So how does connection work and how do I know if I am connected in my swing? As the hitter sets up in their stance lets assume that they are in a good athletic position and that they have the bat in position ready to take a swing. They are tilted forward in their stance knees slightly bent. Bat is positioned at a 45 degree angel in their hands or across the ear hole of the helmet. In short cutting the helmet in half if your viewing them from their back arm side. Or the catchers view of the hitter.

Depending on where you’re at as an instructor with that particular hitter, they might take a stride, or they might not take a stride. One of the first things I do to a new student that comes to me is stopping the stride for a period of time. I do this to help them develop better rotation methods for the swing. Most students who come to me suffer from what a good friend of mine terms “Rotational deficit”. If you take the stride away and teach them how to rotate first then you will see immediate results in quickness and power to the ball. This, in my opinion, not only applies to Rotational hitting but Linear hitting as well. Having taught and used both methods I feel pretty comfortable in that statement.

Now I have a hitter that has good hitting posture and decent rotational skills but is disconnected going to the ball. Disconnection takes on many forms in the rotational swing. I will touch on those a little further down in this article. For now I will state that Disconnection is leak that breaks the rotational engine. It bleeds off power.

As the hitter initiates the swing to the ball they are focused on the first point where they are going to see the ball. I have heard many a coach state watch the hip. That view being the first point of getting a good clear look at the ball. As they initiate the swing they go to toe touch. This creates linear movement towards the ball. At the same time the hands are moving back towards the catcher.

(I am talking about an advanced student in this example) At foot plant the back hip fires (As I teach it) against a firm front side flexed leg. The knob of the bat then initiates the movement of the bat as the hips and the bodies’ core start to rotate. The core of the body is now driving the swing. This is THE engine of the rotational swing. As the back arm starts coming around with the rotation the arm starts moving around into the slot. The arm needs to be away from the body and the hand and forearm are stacked on top of each other. If viewed from front with a tee in front of the hitter, the rear arm would be parallel to the tee. This would be as another hitting instructor who is a good friend of mine describes it. When the bat gets parallel to the ground during the swing this is the Bat Lag position.

At this point in the swing the knob of the bat should be directly perpendicular to the axis of the hitters spine. If I stopped the swing right there and took a pencil and placed in on the knob of the bat pointing towards the hitter it should be in line with the belly button. This defines a CONNECTED swing. The arms are not moving but are just holding on to the bat letting the core rotation drive the swing into contact. The other key here is holding that position as LONG as possible during the rotational portion of the swing into contact. The barrel and weight of the bat force the wrist to un-cock creating a whipping effect through the hitting zone into contact with the ball. The engine of rotation combined with the batter being connected and the wrist un-cocking is how the best hitters in the world drive the ball hard in today’s game.

Disconnection – The Engine Breakers

There are many things that can occur during the course of the swing that will cause a batter to disconnect or break the box as some instructors call it. The “Box” being the front arm angle that maintains a “Set” position with the bat over the shoulder. When viewed from the front of the hitter it would appear as if they have a box formed with their arm and the bat.

They are:

• Taking the hands to the ball.
• Dropping the back elbow to the inside (Close to the body) as a first move creating Bat Drag.
• Dropping the hands then going to the ball.
• The bat not being parallel to the shoulders at contact with the ball (Created by all the above)
• Casting the hands.
• Throwing the front shoulder open too soon.

I hope this article has given you a better idea of what the term connection means in the context of the rotational swing. I strongly suggest you see a qualified hitting instructor to help you become better connected with your swing so that you too can learn to drive the ball hard to all parts of the field. That is what connection is all about in the rotational swing.

This picture shows an example of a connected swing. Arms are in the power L position and are driven by the core rotation. The bat at contact is on a slightly upward swing plane.

Following on from Part 1 of this article where we talked about what root knot nematode (RKN) is, the symptoms and some soft options for control, in this article, we look at the rest of the tools that can be used in an integrated control strategy.

Crop Rotation with Tolerant Crops

Rotate susceptible crops, or crops which have become badly infected, with crops of brassicas such as cauliflower and cabbage or other crops such as strawberries.

Recent research has also shown that the addition of forage brassicas (a type of mustard) to the soil not only adds extra organic matter – thus helping to improve soil structure – but also helps to control nematodes and helps to prevent weed seed from germinating. The reason for this is that all brassicas produce a chemical which breaks down in wet soil to produce a cyanide-like gas. This reduces soil borne diseases (unfortunately, some good microbes too) and also helps to reduce nematodes (but does not seem to affect earthworms). There is a specific brassica known as ‘Nemcon Fumigation Brassica’ which produces higher concentrations of gas than the other brassicas.

Forage brassicas should be planted in autumn and dug in just before flowering whilst keeping the soil moist. They can be also slashed and left on the surface – although this is not quite as effective – where it is impractical to dig it in (because of pipes etc).

A wide range of other plants, produce chemicals that are antagonistic to nematodes. These include: castor bean, chrysanthemum, crotalaria, indigo, jackbean, partridge pea, sesame, sorghum-sudan and velvet bean. All of these crops can be used in rotations or mix-cropped with vegetables. Sun hemp, a tropical legume, and sorghum-sudan, a prolific grass crop plant are popular cover crops that can be grown for their nematode-suppressive properties between vegetable crops.

Soil Solarisation

Soil solarization as described by Wikipedia is “an environmentally friendly method of using solar power for controlling disease agents in the soil by mulching the soil and covering it with tarp, usually with a transparent polyethylene cover, to trap solar energy. It may also describe methods of decontaminating soil using sunlight or solar power”.

Essentially, this is a method of heating the soil so as to kill insect pests, diseases and nematodes. It is simple, cheap and effective.

Rotation and Inter-planting With Marigolds

Most varieties of marigold (Tagetes species) are resistant to RKN because their roots secrete nematicidal chemicals. Research shows that tomatoes planted 2 weeks after African marigolds were dug in showed a 99% reduction root lesion nematode (different from RKN, but a damaging nematode nonetheless). This makes marigolds an ideal rotation crop or inter-planting crop to be planted within or around your vegetable crop. Petite Harmony and Petite Yellow are known to be particularly effective.

If you want to treat a previously infected area of your veggie garden, plant your marigolds in strips or blocks within this area. You can treat a section of your veggie patch at a time. To do this, plant seed or seedlings about 15 cm (6 inches) apart and keep weeds out until the marigold plants have canopied. After flowering, remove the seed heads and keep some seed for the next crop. Removing heads will also reduce volunteers in your subsequent veggie crop. After removing the heads, incorporate the marigolds into the soil with a fork. (A fork is better than a spade, especially if you have nice populations of earthworms in your garden). You can also inter-plant your crops with marigolds which will act as a deterrent to RKN.

Destruction of Infected Roots

Where a crop has become infected, it is imperative to dig up roots and destroy them immediately after your crop is harvested. This will remove a large proportion of the nematodes which would otherwise carry over to infect the next season’s crop.

Reducing Crop Stress

Any crop which is stressed will more easily succumb to infections, not only from pests and diseases, but also from nematodes. Use mulch, water regularly and fertilise.

Finally:

Use of Kelpak, to Generate Root Growth

Kelpak is a natural seaweed extract available in many countries around the world. It generates new root growth. This seaweed product can be used where an infestation has or is occurring in a crop. It does not control the nematode, but rather, it induces new root growth to compensate for loss of root mass caused by RKN. In some areas, where resistance is occurring to hardline nematacides, use of products like Kelpak, help a crop effectively overcome nematode damage and reduces yield losses.

Silica

Use of products that contain silica, such as diatomaceous earth, also help to control nematode and RKN damage. Diatomaceous earth would need to be incorporated before planting, but there are liquid silica products available that can be watered into a crop where the known risk for nematode damage is high eg tomatoes in sandy soil. If used on a regular basis throughout the crop life, such silica products will deter nematode infestation and damage and enable you to harvest a good crop.

I hope all these pointers have been a help.

Good luck!

Lucia Grimmer

In order to slice a golf ball (impart a left to right ball flight for a right handed golfer) you have to strike the golf ball in a manner that will cause a clockwise rotation of the ball. The more dramatic the rotation the more dramatic or worse the golf slice.

For the context of this article, I will speak from a right handed golfer’s swing and perspective.

When defining the golf slice there are a couple of basics characteristics to the ball flight. First, there is the slice that initially may start down the target line then move off line in a left to right movement. This type of slice tells us that the swing path was traveling down the intended target line, but at impact the club face was left open and did not get back to a square position at impact. Usually this type of golf slice doesn’t produce as sever of left to right movement of the golf ball since the swing path itself was not cutting across the ball in an outside to inside manner. This type of slicing of the golf ball is more easily cured. And can usually be done so with a bit of work on the golfer’s setup, alignment, and or grip.

The second type of golf slice is the one that plagues the vast majority of beginning and high handicap golfer’s. This is the type of slice that produces the ‘banana ball’ type of flight and is very uncontrollable and frustrating.

The attributes of this type of slice for the golfer are the ball will initially start left of the target line indicating that the swing path is incorrect right from the get go. When the ball immediately begins left of the target line that tells you that your swing path has come from the outside to the inside.

Now, having done that with your swing, doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you are going to slice the golf ball but you sure have made much easier for a slice to occur. Now combine the outside to inside swing path with an open clubface at impact and you now have a golf shot that starts left and has the double whammy of a slicing swing path across the golf ball, and an open club face. With these two laws of physics going for you; you have just produced one beautiful slice. One that only a proud parent could love! You know the one I’m talking about. The ball that travels 300 yards total distance, but only about 220 yards further down the course (if you can find it all).

A golfer who is plagued with this type of golf slice is going to require quite a bit more work in order to correct this because their basic swing is flawed and must be corrected. But, it’s important to understand what it is in your golf swing and your golf swing mechanics that makes the ball do what it does. Once you understand the 9 rules of ball flight you’ll be more able to understand what it is in your swing that is producing the flight of the ball you are seeing, and as such you can more quickly address and adjust to ensure success.

A major question, developed worldwide during the end of the past century was: How can animals, especially cetaceans, live such seemingly complex lives, using so few signals, signs, or symbols? Was there, in actuality, another, perhaps independent communication system within Nature, that we hadn’t noticed mainly because of our own principal human communications?

A decade ago, such an independent communication system was demonstrated by two humpback whales under investigation by Ceta Research in Trinity, Newfoundland. It has since been found in other animals but only under low stress conditions. Under stress, organisms tend to revert to a dominant use of signals, and to Darwinian struggles for survival. But by discovering an organism with markedly reduced needs, one may usually find Rhythm Based Communication (RBC)

But How does it work?

In order to have this new type of communication, biological rhythms must be shared between two organisms so that synchronization occurs. After synchronization, Rhythm based communication is made possible by an organisms perception of lateness relative to on timeness. That is, the organisms, through synchronization, arrive at a common rhythm, and can then, within this synchronized rhythm, transmit and receive messages using combinations of ON-TIME, LATE, OFF-TIME and EARLY messages. Such information flow is Rhythm Based Communication (RBC).

Imagine two parallel “arrows” of conventional time, each associated with one of two communicating organisms, A and B. Now picture two turning wheels with their centres on the “arrows” of time, with different speeds of rotation (alpha rhythms)

To arrive at synchronization, organism A makes a signal in any time window of a single rotation, but only when the window reaches the vertical or “NOW-axis”

Organism A then repeats this action on the next one or more complete cycles of its wheel, creating a pulsating rhythm always at the same position on its rotation (alpha concept)

The alpha concept can be confirmed by organism B, if it sends a signal which also occurs in a synchronous time window centred on the NOW-axis of any of its subsequent rotations

This sending of a synchronous signal defines the concept of On Timeness (or zero lateness).

Now that the organisms are synchronized, they can transmit and receive messages using combinations of ON-TIME, LATE, OFF-TIME and EARLY messages

If for a humpback whale we use 60 sec as the alpha rhythm then:

On Time (a) would be from 58 to 02 sec, centred at 12 o’clock, on a clock face.

Late (b) would then be 13-17 sec, centred at 3 o’clock.

Off Time (c) would be 28-32 sec, centred at 6 o’clock,

Early (d) would be 43-47 sec centred at 9 o’clock.

Experimentation by Ceta Research has shown that following messages now appear to be identical for some marine mammals, terrestrial mammals and seabirds.

1. Synchronization: Establishing the On Time concept of a demonstrated rhythm.

2. A greeting or “passkey”: Saying hello is done using an Off Time – Off Time – On Time message

3. A reciprocal greeting: Rhythmic mimicry via a return of the hello message is a sign of lowering biological stress and readiness to communicate.

4. A reciprocal overlapping greeting: This happens when #3 overlaps the timing of #2; occurring most often after repeated reciprocal greetings between the same two organisms.

5. The declarative (i.e. a simple noun): Facts are stated as combinations of Late or Early, Off Time or On Time. An example from Ceta Research experiments would be Late – On Time – Late – Early to represent “A Location”

6. The interrogative: Questions are stated as rhythmic, “time-symmetric,” signals, mirror images of the declarative; an example would be Early – On Time – Early – Late to represent “Location?” or “Are you going to Location”?” This is a reversal of the circular direction of RBT.

7. The affirmative (Yes): A double signal On Time

8. The negative (No): A double signal Off Time .

9. A farewell: A rhythmic, opposite phase message, to the greeting of #2 above. The rhythmic coding is On Time – On Time – Off Time This is commonly mimicked by the second organism during departure.

10. Time Compression: A double signal in a single rotation window thereby shortening a message by one RBT revolution an example would be a greeting with a double signal Off Time followed by an On Time signal. Time compression apparently corresponds to the emotion of joy and is invariably followed by a breach for some cetaceans.

Experimentation by Ceta Research on human-animal RBC rhythms show that alpha rhythms differ by species and situation, ranging from 10 sec for young fox kits to 120 sec for fin whales.

Ceta Research believe that RBC could work for all animals (and in fact for all life). Should this be the case, then a universal greeting is feasible. A group of living organisms should be able to send and receive messages, using RBT, as if they were physically together, independent of spatial separation. Also larger vocabularies could be expected and body language should play an extensive role in communication.

It is not only important WHAT the organism does, but perhaps even more important WHEN the organism does something.

If you are a home mechanic trying to keep your air conditioning system in check, or if you are a professional automotive mechanic or air conditioning technician, then you know that an air conditioning pump is an important tool in your tool shed. In this short review we will go over the advantages and disadvantages of two types of pumps frequently used to create vacuum in air conditioning systems, a Venturi vacuum pump or air pump and a Rotating vane vacuum pump or a spinning pump. By considering their pros and cons you should better be able to decide which pump to get for your next air conditioning service application.

Venturi pump

Venturi pumps achieve vacuum on the principle of Venturi. This states that, when a liquid or a gas is sent through a pipe whose diameter is progressively reduced as the liquid goes further down the pipe, the average velocity of liquid or gas molecules increases and the pressure of the liquid or gas is reduced. At the narrowest point along the pipe, the vacuum is thereby generated.

The only real advantage of Venturi type pumps is their price. These “aspirator pumps” are the least expensive of all available pumps. On the other hand, the vacuum obtained is neither high nor is it obtained in the fastest possible manner.

Rotating vane vacuum pump

A rotating vane pump or rotary vane pump operates by having a central rotor positioned off-axis inside of a cylinder. The vanes extending outside of the rotor create an expanding volume on the incoming end and the shrinking volume on the outgoing end. As the rotor rotates, the volume on the incoming end is increased, producing vacuum. The gas pulled out of the system is then compressed and released to the outside air through the outgoing end in the second phase of a single rotator turn.

As rotary vane pumps are based on the efficient electromagnetic motor, rotary vane pumps are efficient, fast, quiet, and can achieve higher vacuum than the Venturi type pumps. Depending on the size of the cylinder and rotor, the rotating vane pumps can pull more volume per minute too, therefore achieving higher vacuum faster.

The only downsides of the rotating vane pumps is that they require special pump oil to operate smoothly and achieve maximum vacuums, and the price – they are a bit higher priced than the simpler Venturi type pumps.

Want to get the right body position in freestyle swimming? Body position is vitally important to a smooth and effortless swim stroke. It’s a key ingredient for swimmer who wants to take their speed and times to the next level. A greater improvement in overall swimming will come from correcting body position more than increasing fitness.

Each training session work on swimming with the correct body position rather than exerting more effort in the pool. You will not only feel better in the water, but your technique will come more naturally and your times will improve with less effort. There are 3 steps to achieving a killer body position in swimming which will blow your competitors away:

1. Lengthen your body – The reason many swimmers hit a plateau is because they get too ‘caught up’ with where they should be pulling with their arms, how hard they should be kicking and many other ‘minor’ issues compared to their body position. The swimmers which focus too much on the other things usually aren’t lengthening out there body. The longer your body is in the water, the quicker it moves and the less resistance it creates. Think of your body as a long yacht which glides effortlessly through the water, and avoid being a big wide barge which is slow and cumbersome.

2. Rotate your shoulders – To move more easily through the water in freestyle, you must rotate your shoulders. No doubt you’ve been told to rotate in the water, but too often swimmers are told to rotate the entire body as they take each stroke. This is incorrect. Elite swimmers work on keeping their hips relatively still with only minor rotation. This allows the hips to generate a powerful kick and provides a strong core for the upper cody to leverage from. The shoulder should rotate to the point where the shoulder is out of the water as it is taking a stroke. This reduces frontal resistance and allows for a high elbow recovery which is a key part of freestyle.

3. Stay flat to the water – Resistance increases exponentially as you get faster. This is why it’s important to reduce your total resistance created by your body. Keep your body flat to the surface or slightly raised at the front, but don’t allow your hips and legs to sink. This creates resistance on your lower body and makes it difficult to swim faster. Remember, the easy way to swim faster is to reduce your resistance.

In your next session, why not focus on improving your body position by lengthening your body, rotating your shoulders and keeping your body flat to the surface. This will help you swim faster, smoother freestyle.

For the benefit of those who are new to skateboarding, let me illustrate what is a hardflip.

Hardflip is a cool trick, and if you can master the trick, you can be the coolest kid in your neighborhood!

Now a more serious definition – hardflip is a boardflip of 180 degrees at the frontal side, with a slapstick of flipping resembling a kickflip!. Rodney Mullen pioneered this trick in 1985, and made it an in-trend thingy not only to street skaters but also to those into skating.

Let me give you some tips to do the trick.

In a hardflip, rather than flipping the board beneath your legs, it is meant to flip at the center between your legs and at the same time doing a backflip followed by a half rotation. Motion-wise, it is similar to doing the frontside flip.

First step to perform this trick, at a moderate pace, roll your board with one feet at the front and the back of the skateboard. With the front foot slightly forward than it usually is, hit down the back kick as you simultaneously drag upwards your front foot and as it moves up, kick it to the side deck as similarly to kickflip. Catch and stomp the skateboard before rolling away.

The importance of the front foot stance is so that your legs will be wide enough for the skateboard to flip in between them and still able to do it without doing a 180 degrees body rotation like you see in a frontside flip. Your back foot however, needs to avoid rotating side tail of the skateboard!

You can either catch and stomp the skateboard with your front or back foot but for newbies, I would advise you to start where you can see the skateboard easily – Front!

It is crucial for you to master the motion of a backflip and a half-twist on the skateboard as the tail requires you to pop it hard in order to send it into a backflip.

It is important to also bear in mind that you should drag your foot gently upwards on the skateboard’s side deck and do not try to flip it entirely which will result in a kickflip. Instead, try to give it sufficient force for a halfway rotation.

I am not able to give all the hardflip tips here. However, you can get more free tips from my site!. Click Here to check out more tips on Hardflip.

Stepper motors are used to convert electrical power to mechanical power, hence they are electromechanical devices. They contain numerous coils ordered in groups known as ‘phases. The motor rotates step-by-step by energizing each phase sequentially. One can achieve speed control and precise positioning by computer-controlled stepping. These motors are available in various styles and sizes with varying electrical properties.

Characteristics of a stepper motor-

Speed control- One can acquire an excellent control on the rotational speed by precise increments in the movements. This has a lot of scope in robotics and automation processes.

Positioning- These motors are extensively used in applications like CNC, 3D printers, X-Y plotters, Camera platforms and much more due to their precise repeatable steps. Disk drives also make use of motors to position their read/write heads.

Low-speed torque- the regular DC motors do not posses much torque at low speeds, but a stepper motor has an exceptionally maximum torque even at low speeds. Hence, they are a perfect choice for applications that require low speed along with high precision.

Various operations of a stepper motor:

The general stepper motors have a different operation as compared to DC brush motors which are capable of rotating when a voltage is applied at their terminals. Whereas, these motors effectively contain multiple electromagnets in tooth-like arrangement around a gear-shaped central piece of iron. These electromagnets are excited by the use of an external control circuit like a microcontroller.

In order to turn the motor shaft, the initial electromagnet is supplied with power that makes the gear’s spikes magnetically attracted to the teeth of the electromagnet. Once the teeth of the gear are aligned to the electromagnet, they are put in a slight offset position from the next electromagnet. Hence, once the next electromagnet is supplied with power, the first one is turned OFF. The gear thus rotates up to some extent to align itself with the next electromagnet. This process is repeated thus forth. The single slight rotation of the electromagnet is known as a step. The cumulative integers of these steps result in a full rotation. In this manner, the stepper motor is turned precisely to its destination. It is important to note that these motors do not rotate continuously, instead they rotate in terms of a step.

On the stator, four coils are fixed maintaining a 90o angle between each coil. The motor’s connections are resolved by the interconnection between the coils. The coils are not coupled together in a stepper motor. The coils are energized in a cyclic order with coils having a 90o rotational step. This determines the direction of the shaft rotation. The working of a stepper motor is easily understood by operating the switch. The current consumption of a stepper motor is independent of the load unlike most of the DC motors. Due to this reason, they tend to draw a lot of currents that are often hot.

Another in our series of boxing how to guides on body punching, this one examining the right hook (or back hand hook) to the body.

Knowing how to throw a right hook to the body enables you to deliver massive power to a very specific and precise location; the soft tissue below the ribs on the left side of the opponent’s body. It is worth understanding that you are not aiming for the ribs. The rib cage is by design a tough structure. For maximum impact it’s far better to take the path of least resistance and strike the soft tissue.

In general, and depending upon your position in relation to your opponent, this body punch is designed to hit the spot behind the guarding arm of the opponent. Precision is great, but raw power and aggression is the trick to knowing how to get the most from this crushing body punch.

Before we get onto the mechanics of how to throw the right hook to the body, you need to be aware that this is not a right uppercut. I’m sure plenty will decide that this is an uppercut, but really it is not. There is a subtle difference between a short range hook and a short range uppercut, with the uppercut to the body striking home in the center of mass. Understand this difference and it will have a positive impact on your body punching skills.

Boxing How to Guide – The Mechanics

1. From the boxing stance, bend your knees in order to lower your centre of gravity. This is quite simply a duck, which aside from being a defensive action also acts as a precursor to a body strike.
2. As the duck is taking place, generate an explosive thrust by pushing from the ball of your back foot. This thrust provides the energy to deliver massive rotation of the upper body (counter-clockwise from the orthodox stance).
3. The bend of your front leg (from the duck) enables the necessary amount of hip rotation. Without the bend, your hips will complete maybe only 25% of the rotation necessary to give the punch the required power on impact.
4. During the rotation, release your back hand in an arc at an angle of 45 degrees to the ground. Ensure that the punch accelerates towards the target to add to the massive leverage produced during the rotation; this is how you will maximize the power.
5. Return your arm and body to the starting position as per the boxing stance.

Boxing How to Guide – Common Faults

1. Be aware of your range. Be sure that if you use this punch at a longer range the opponent is vulnerable to it. In short, the further you are away from the opponent when using this shot, the greater the risk of you taking a punch before yours lands. Reduce the risk of a long range ‘bombing’ with this punch by stepping in with a jab ahead of letting loose with the hook to the body.
2. Make the punch direct. Don’t allow it to loop too low as this leaves a big opening for your opponent to exploit (see previous fault).
3. As always, make sure that your body weight does not propel forward, resulting in your body weight being over your front leg. The golden rule is never let your nose travel past the line of your front knee. If you do, then you are off-balance and you are adding power to your opponent’s punches.

And there it is, the MyBoxingCoach boxing how to guide on landing the right hook to the body. This is a true fight-ending punch, targeting as it does the spleen and other vital organs. Make a mental note of how you want the impact of the shot to travel through as much of the body as possible, that is why landing the punch at an angle of 45 degrees is a big, big plus. Master this shot and it will slip seamlessly into your ‘body and head’ combinations to deadly effect.

Your core muscles involve not only your abdominal muscles, but also your lower back, pelvic floor and hip muscles. Your core strength needs to be included in your weekly strength and conditioning program because your core muscles are used in nearly every single aspect of Judo. Training your core is usually associated with sit ups, crunches and the plank but in order to more specific for Judo you must include only exercises that ‘rotate’ the trunk of the body. Whenever you attempt to throw your opponent you are never performing a movement like a crunch, you are rotating your opponent around. Therefore your core training should involve exercises that I like to call ‘rotational core.”

Rotational core exercises are important for Judo but so is upper body strength. Therefore you if can include rotational core and the upper body you are in for a winner when it comes to training your core for Judo.

Exercises that include your upper body and rotational core include:

Wood-choppers:

Starting with the medicine ball at your right hip bring the ball up past your head in a ‘wood-chopper’ motion.

Wood-chopper Tips:

– Keep your arms slightly bent through the entire movement

– This is a great exercise to warm up your arms and shoulders

– I recommend using a ball 4-6kg.

Hanging leg raises:

– Hang from a chin up bar

– You can either have your hands facing away or towards you

– Contract your abdominals and raise your straight legs up as high as you can

– Lower and repeat

– Inhale when lowering and exhale when lifting your knees

Hanging Leg raise tips:

– If you contract you abdominals before you raise your knees it will assist you in not swinging

– If you cannot hang off the bar your fitness facility may have a harness that allows you to rest on your elbows

– You may also use a roman chair to perform this exercise

– If you have had shoulder injuries I suggest you replace this exercise

Cable Twists:

– Clasp a handle with outstretched arms

– Keep a slight bend in your elbows

– Using your core muscles rotate from the right to the left

– Once you reach your limit in terms of rotation, slowly return to the starting position

– Repeat

Cable twist tips:

– Really try to use your core muscles opposed to your arms

– Don’t use too much weight as this may force you to use your arms opposed to core

– You may also use a Theraband to perform this exercise

Barbell rotations:

– Place a barbell in a corner with a heavy dumbbell on top of it

– Hold the barbell at the end

– With arms slightly bent rotate your body to the left

– Be sure to turn your feet and hips as well

– Contract your abdominals and turn to the opposite side

– Repeat for desired number of reps

Barbell rotation tips:

– Concentrate on using your abdominals, not your arms, when performing this exercise.

– This exercise is rather hard and due to the fact that a barbell is already 20 kilograms you should not have to add much more weight

Push up twists:

– Assume a pushup position

– Bring your shoulder blades together

– Contact your abdominals as you slowly begin to raise one hand above your head

– Maintain balance

– Look at where your hand is travelling as you slowly reach the top of the movement

– Return the hand to the starting position and repeat on the opposite side

Push up twist tips:

– Go slow – this exercise is a slow and control exercise.

– For added difficulty you may place your supporting hand on an unstable surface such as a Dura disc or pillow

Remember in order to train your core for Judo you must be using ‘rotational core’ movements besides a crunch or traditional leg raise.