Power Breaking Instructional Video - By Request.

[Bluey2King]

Thanks Collin; Great Presention! I hope You get a new camera for your Birthday!!

 

[Jal]

Colin,

Another great video. Thanks again. Very enlightening about the eccentric contractions.

In looking up muscles on the web, I came across this article which explains, amongst other things, why having a muscle at an intermediate length produces the most force. It's longish, but look about two thirds of the way down under section VIII. I'm sure you must know this but just pointing it out for anyone interested.

http://www.mrs.umn.edu/~goochv/HAP/lectures/muscle/muscle.html

Jim

 

[rogelioii]

Last night was Hilarious

So at about 11:30pm last night as my wife and i were in bed.... she fell asleep, so i decided to open up my laptop and surf the AZ threads... Found Colin's video (GREAT VIDEO COLIN!)... I was inspired.... I have a decently hard break, but watching colin's 8 ball breaks really inspired me...

So................ I decided to get off my sleepy ass and try to break several rack before heading back to bed......

I broke maybe 15-20 racks using the breaking methods presented by Colin. Out of those many racks, I had about 4 decent breaks (3 of them were probably as hard as my normal break, (pre colin)) and 1 a bit harder.....

I am having a very difficult time with keeping the tip on the cue ball.

The other 10+ unsuccessful breaks consisted of my ripping a small piece of simonis on my table (VERY ANNOYED AT MYSELF FOR DOING THAT), I dented my game room closet door... I made a few dents on 4 different walls. The worst break of all was when I ripped the cloth, made the cue ball long jump about 25 feet in front of me. It went over a half wall that looks down onto the first floor of my house. the cue ball misses a window about an inch. I hear it bang against wall, fall about 12 feet to stairs and it started bouncing down the stairs.

Needless to say, it woke up the wife.

-roel- <--- Break's like a Champion

 

[Colin Colenso]

Colin, I tried your technique for Power Breaking last night and while I was just renewing some old acquaintances, I did break a few racks. The more upright stance and the rear hand forward movement did help to create more power however my cue ball seemed a little wild most of the time.

I didn't have enough time to emerse myself in all of the techniques fully but was wondering if there is anything that you can do besides taking a little off the effort to minimize a wild and crazy cueball? Maybe it was just the newness of a new style of breaking and my control will come back with a little practice. BTW, I was breaking 9 Ball racks. Regardless if you have something else you would care to share concerning control of the cue ball, I would love to hear it.

Colin, you could hook up with Chalk-Off or some other vendor/supplier to the pool industry to create a high quality video concerning the Power Break and market it to the league players (they have jobs and money to spend ). Maybe Accu-Stats could do the filming and sell your videos and you could receive royalties from each sale. They are well known for their filming and distribution abilities but I like talking to the APA or the BCA leagues (International) and see if they would like to develop a series of videos aimed at specific portions of the sport. I would talk to Pat Fleming of Accu-Stats FIRST and ask him about marketing opportunities because you have unique abilities to communicate and the talent to go with it. While I am not nearly as talented as picking a winner as Purdman, I am sure that your ability to communicate Professional Level Instruction is unsurpassed.

Good luck and thanks for sharing the most astute and detailed fundamentals of the Power Break I have ever seen or heard of.

JoeyA

Wow Joey,
That's a hell of a wrap. Not sure I'm worthy of it. I guess in the area of creating power I have a different perspective as I was a coach to an international level shot putter and helped with some world class power athletes. I also competed myself at a national level in decathlon and shot and discus, but wasn't freakishly big enough to reach the international level. I spent a lot of time studying the most advanced insights into biomechanics for various sports movements, so I think I bring some new ideas to analyzing some areas of pool. Sometimes a new angle of insight is refreshing and enlightening as it expounds upon previous knowledge.

Thanks for the tips on the products marketing. I'll try to put some good quality videos together in the next 6 months. One advantage with today's technology is that it's not that expensive for me to get my own equipment and software and produce these things myself in the way that makes sense to me, and at my own leisure. Whereas in the past, a player was reliant on funding and outside influences / producers regarding the content creation. So hopefully I can produce some videos that appeal to, and are useful to players such as myself, and players who are just a few steps behind and trying to make sense of some of the ideas that are discussed here.

If the videos are good, I guess affiliates will come in to help marketing, distribution etc. Hopefully I can just make some good vids. The feedback I get here is invaluable to improving this. In the past, there was no such mechanism for immediate feedback.

Colin

 

[Colin Colenso]

Colin,

Another great video. Thanks again. Very enlightening about the eccentric contractions.

In looking up muscles on the web, I came across this article which explains, amongst other things, why having a muscle at an intermediate length produces the most force. It's longish, but look about two thirds of the way down under section VIII. I'm sure you must know this but just pointing it out for anyone interested.

http://www.mrs.umn.edu/~goochv/HAP/lectures/muscle/muscle.html

Jim

Hi Jal,
No time to read the article right now, but I think your summary is accurate from my memory. I simplified things a bit. Obviously as a muscle approaches full contraction, it loses the ability to accellerate the limbs or connection points towards each other.

So there is an intermediate point at which a muscle can most forcefully accellerate the two connection points toward each other. This will depend on the particular angles of limbs and the attachments of the tendons relative to their distance to the pivoting point. It gets very complex as I'm sure you can imagine.

But the general explaination that moving the hand up the cue, so as to reduce the length of the pectoral and front deltoid muscles, does place those muscles into a length of contraction that allows greater contractive force, and hence greater accelleration.

Very astute observation. I'll see if I can find a better way of explaining it so that it is both accurate and easily comprehended.

Colin

 

[Colin Colenso]

ok colin, some first questions and notes after being tired of watching your break

0/ funny u always do the same. u aim first at a normal stroke position. u then move your head and body higher to get the arm straighter (waightlifting thing), u do 4 new adressing strokes and then u fire. cool prebreak routine. ps you showed 2 ways to shoot. one where u bend your shoulders and get power from there, and the other where you body moves upwards. it seems the shoulder turning would be a movement that would help consistency and control more then the upwards movement. could u explain me the differences in the 2 moves? why did u chose for the one option?



1/ u are right, your body moves forward and upwards, at the exact moment that your arm (that was at a 125° with the cue, because u are gripping it more forward) is exactly 90°, thats when u start your body movement.
first your back leg thats is slighty non straight, straightens a bit and moves your body forward, this bends your forward leg even more.

2/ the time your body starts to move forward because of the back leg pushing forward. thats the time it takes for your stroke to go from vertical-arm position to fully behind and ready to fire.

3/ at the exact same time, u then completly stretch the forward leg that was highly bend due to the forward movement, giving u a vertical movement, while the leg behind straightens up at the exact same time and gives you the forward movement. combining into your forward and vertical movement.

4/ this forward and uppermovement , is in the opposite direction of the arm and grip moving backwards. these combined give this (coin flipping) movement where the backwards movement is the movement that (blocks) you forward movement.

5/ as your body then jumps upwards and forward, your body Pushes your arm
then forward, giving the coin flip arm/shoulder movement. (blue line) and if at the same time u do the same with your wrist, (smaller blue line) you have the snap break movement.

6/ u finally end with a almost perfect straight back/body letting the cue folow true in the air because your body movement was vertikal, your folow will go the same way. upwards and forwards, straight to god

[edited for length]

now that i can see the slowmo in bigscreen, its time to train this movement. AFK for some hours hope u dont mind i worked on your original video colin. but it was to fast and to small for me to compare to what im seeing in the mirror. if u need any more help with slowmo's u let me know.

ps if u ever are going to get a better way to film yourself, look at the Frames Per Second. thats the most important part. video's on youtube arent bigger then 320x240. almost all digital picture cameras have 640x480 option. so if you are only going to post them on youtube and not commercialise them, u can do pritty well with a 320x240 and 30FPS. almost any digital camera can do this. u could do with slower fps, like 15, but if you are going to make slowmotions, the higher the better

greats from silly solly

Solly my mate,
That is illuminating and hilarious at the same time Can't believe the in depth analysis

I just gotta get a good camera that can do like 60 frames per second, at least, and edit them into slow-mo before uploading.

I did some frame by frame analysis of my original videos, but I could only get about 3 frames which covered the forward breaking motion, and it was too blurry to make much sense of.

Regarding the shoulder turn. I may actually be doing this slightly on some shots, but to exaggerate it requires a powerful hip turn which will affect accuracy.

The goal is not neccessarily to create maximum power, but to create good power that allows consistancy in delivery. But it's good to work on areas that improve power and learn through practice how to make them more consistant. Reduce CB bouncing etc.

I'm still in the early stages I think of developing the break. I've only been working on it with a biomechanical focus for a few months, and a lot of that time I had a sore wrist from the strain the breaking applied. Before that, I had pretty much just bent over and tried to bash the balls. Sometimes I'd fluke the timing to a degree.

But now, having thought about it a bit, and practiced it more, I can deliver good power quite accurately on most breaks, and occassionally I zing one perfect that quite astounds me. Those ones feel like the cue almost gets thrown forward out of my hand.

I'm sure it helps that I have had over 25 years experience training in several sports from shot put, javelin, discus, hammer throw to highland games weight tossing events and even karate, gymnastics and embarassing though it is to admit it, also in aerobics and dancing, which helped put me through university. Such activities help make one adaptable to movements requiring coordination and power.

That doesn't mean others can't get great results quite quickly, but it suggests that it may take a fair bit of practice and some strengthening exercises to develop the technique to its potential.

Colin

 

[Colin Colenso]

I Juust had a thought. What if you used a closed bridge and gripped the shaft tightly, while preloading all the breaking muscles in the rear arm. You could relax the bridge hand and then the rear arm would fly forward. The bridge may be able to serve as the thumb in the finger clicking analolgy. I only get to a table on weekends now, since I started afternoon shift, so I haven't tried yet. Just something, I thought may be possible.

Tracy

You're a smart cookie Tracy!

I've had the same idea, but unfortunately it's near impossible to release the grip immediately so it ends up creating friction. Also, it tends to make the stroke quite wild and innaccurate.

I thought of designing some catch mechanism so the cue is restrained then released in a fraction of a second, but couldn't fathom anything that could work that was within my means to produce. If it could be produced, some mega speed breaks would result, but they would be very hard to control I imagine.

Colin

 

[Solartje]

ok thx for the reply m8.


ps ive got some more questions that happened during practice.
i hit the ball/light always lower then aimed. if watched myself to figure out why, and it came to me that:

as you are moving your body forward, but mainly upwards, at the moment of impact your shoulder lies alot higher then when u where adressing. as the shoulder is higher, so is the arm and so is the griphand. this being higher elevates my cue and makes me hit the cb/light alot lower. is this only my problem? or?

ps this is also a reason why my shaft almost never bended before, as i was never moving my body upwards.

the closer grip is AMAZING. just one simple movement and i can really feel ive increased my speed with LOADS. i think thats the thing that improved my speed the most.

im getting used to the body movement. after some, u can easily start to feel some kind of rhitme on when to move what part. it just feels right. what feels right, must have low resistence, and so i supose it can only be good for the speed and power..

ive got another question on the grip hand. how do you hold your cue in the different steps? from 2 fingers (thumb and ... pointing finger? (sorry dont know the word)) and the rest loose, to TIGHT 5 finger grip at the moment of impact? could you elaborate that part a bit more. im having troubles finding the right balace in between loose enough for the shoulder to pull my wrist/ fingers, tight enough to make a controled wrist movement and TIGHT enough to not let the cue fly 200 yards furter.

ps i can already feel the difference. its amazing. even if im just catapultating a small candle across the livingroom, i can see and most of all FEEL in my body, im creating big forces.

ps2: hope u dont mind my in depth study :s i dont want to devolge all the big secrets, but i like to do my homework. it would be a waist of time to train something without totally understanding what exactly you are training. and, i needed a slowmo and a bigger vieuw so i could compare my mirror too

ps3: ps im 6ft 2'' tall, but i only weight 110pounds. i know i dont have the power most have. what training would u advice for my muscles so they become quicker? bench? (maybe something i could do at home, and dont have to spend thousand of dollars in fitness rooms).

ps4 hope ull be there to critique my next break video shots i might even make them one above the other, so u can see the old-ghost-movement. would be cool to see the differences.

ps5 sorry for the so many questions. but this is the post of the year. sometimes my eagerness to learn can be anoying. (ask me g/f, she knows all about it)

edit: ive tried it. (Silly Solly's quick step lessons to hometraining poolbreaks )

I first just moved the wrist back and forward hundreds of times. this makes my tip move forward around 5" each time. once my body started to know what to do.

I then moved only my upperbody forward and higher. this made my cue move back and forward by 10" each time. i did this movement while rocking back and forward. (ps i saw out state champion do it, and ive tried it, completly stretching the front leg in front, seems to help on the moving up and especially helps on the weight transfer from back to front leg.. it seemed to help, no real idea why.)

i then rotated my shoulders back and forward, this gave me another 10" movement of the tip each time.

if i combine all these moves, and DONT move my arm into a strokemovement, your stroke can travel a good 25" more (sort of), these movements alone already make me break at a (not much lesser then my brake was before) speed when the timing is perfect.

now if u add these up to your break speed and find the right timing, i can assure u , u can create more power then u can handle. and im talking about body damage, not cb control

im i doing it right colin? or am i forgetting anything?

http://users.pandora.be/solartje/solly.avi <--- ok i look stupid but hey, i want to learn, and my englisch isnt good enough to explain well what i would like to say or ask.

is this the reason why u get so much power?
step1: cue travels from me going forward
step2: cue travels from my shoulder twisting
step3: cue travels from my body moving upwards
step4: cue travels from my wrist move.

so my cue traveled a full shaft lengt, without me ever having made a stroke movement.

http://users.pandora.be/solartje/silly solly.avi last silly solly one i OWNED that stupid litle light

 

[Colin Colenso]

Colin,
Well, I'm going to have to disagree with the majority of posters; I thought your break is TERRIBLE!!!!! I've been playing straight pool for several years now and I have seen NO ONE break like this. I think it's a bad idea, perhaps you had been drinking (?do you get free Shanghai Beer?).

Thanks Wille,
This thread was severly due for some brevity

btw. This works for me in straight pool also. I just nominate the *sound mumbled* and then declare that was the one I was called for after it falls. Maybe you're used to noobie 14.1 rules

Colin

 

[Colin Colenso]

crap i didnt get it.... guess why i call myself silly solly about the beer, u can drink on me. i still own the bastard a 6 pack of shangai beer from a bet

ok colin, i installed everything. i took the mirror from the bathroom, placed it next to me, cleaned the dining table, took those small thee lights (small cilinders) as ob. (the are cool, because the are round, and the thingy inside, when i hit it real hard u can easily tell where u hit it. good to check on my controle).

well im having some problems.

first. its very weird to move your body like that, and kick it forward and upwards. im not used to it. i tend to stay perfectly still on every stroke. its like, even if im standing up, and im not using that power and put it in my stroke. its like if im scared.

second: having a bridge lenght that far, made me unwantedly touch the cb (or T light ) alot of time in my adressing strokes

third: ive NEVER ever used a closed bridge, but my accurace to touch the cb where i want is alot higher when using the closed bridge. :s would u suggest me to learn this bridge?

fourth: u own me a lightbulb. my folow true was so big, i hit the lights in my diningroom

5th: i hurt my fingers, when on a brake i slammed them against the dining table. ! hurted for a while but its over now and i dont seem to have broken anything.

ah man, its really not so easy. even with the slowmo's i can now see clearly what u are doing, but the body movement is really hard. im starting to get the 'coin flip' movement in my wirst, and slowly in the arm (not yet good, because im still scared of jumping up like that, REALLY weird feelign) so my arm isnt slaming yet.

do you have any other idea's except train this movement for hours?

Mate, that's hilarious! I can picture you now

I don't think it will help you much if I try to give you exact measurements of bridge length or height. You just have to hit a CB dozens of times and if you hit it on the right, adjust the bridge to the left, or check your swing to make it pull further left. Same for height. If you bounce the CB too much try to swing flatter. It's just trial and error and eventually you'll work out where to place your bridge and how to swing to hit the CB center and flat.

If you're practicing without a CB, then you're better off just getting a rhythm at half speed. You can't practice properly without a CB and a pack or wall to hit it into. As I mentioned, when I missed the CB after slipping my cue off the bridge on one shot, I nearly tore my chest muscle. Contact with the Cb slows the action down enough so that the muscles are not over extended.

I remember earlier you mentioned my lining up. I line up in a normal stance because I can see the line best this way. After I've aligned, I keep my bridge firmly in place while I move my body into breaking position. For me, that is the best way to line up the shot accurately for consistant results. I do the same thing with BHE a lot, so I'm used to freezing the bridge hand in position. Then all I do is stroke the break to hit dead center, knowing my bridge hand is set in the right place.

Colin

 

[Colin Colenso]

So at about 11:30pm last night as my wife and i were in bed.... she fell asleep, so i decided to open up my laptop and surf the AZ threads... Found Colin's video (GREAT VIDEO COLIN!)... I was inspired.... I have a decently hard break, but watching colin's 8 ball breaks really inspired me...

So................ I decided to get off my sleepy ass and try to break several rack before heading back to bed......

I broke maybe 15-20 racks using the breaking methods presented by Colin. Out of those many racks, I had about 4 decent breaks (3 of them were probably as hard as my normal break, (pre colin)) and 1 a bit harder.....

I am having a very difficult time with keeping the tip on the cue ball.

The other 10+ unsuccessful breaks consisted of my ripping a small piece of simonis on my table (VERY ANNOYED AT MYSELF FOR DOING THAT), I dented my game room closet door... I made a few dents on 4 different walls. The worst break of all was when I ripped the cloth, made the cue ball long jump about 25 feet in front of me. It went over a half wall that looks down onto the first floor of my house. the cue ball misses a window about an inch. I hear it bang against wall, fall about 12 feet to stairs and it started bouncing down the stairs.

Needless to say, it woke up the wife.

-roel- <--- Break's like a Champion

Hey Roel,
Thanks for the laugh

Why do you think I've got kiddy foam mats placed around my table? Cause of all the balls I've launched into the walls and onto the floor while working on my power break.

All I can say is that it needs a couple of weeks of practice to start to get regular control over it. Just observe where you're going wrong. eg. Scooped, hit top of CB, hit left or right of CB. Body moved forward to early or late. Wrist didn't feel like it was under tension.

Just keep comparing these experiences to what you need to do, or what you are trying to replicate. Perhaps you could work on the chest contraction seperately, and then the wrist contraction separately, and then work on the upward shoulder lifting. After you have the feeling for these movements, try to combine them....and later increase the power from the legs and see what happens.

It's just trial and error. You'll work it out with practice and soon have a controlled break that is 20% harder than your normal break now.

Good luck,
Colin >~ Not responsible for damage done to tables, walls or light fittings

 

[Colin Colenso]

ok thx for the reply m8.


ps ive got some more questions that happened during practice.
i hit the ball/light always lower then aimed. if watched myself to figure out why, and it came to me that:

as you are moving your body forward, but mainly upwards, at the moment of impact your shoulder lies alot higher then when u where adressing. as the shoulder is higher, so is the arm and so is the griphand. this being higher elevates my cue and makes me hit the cb/light alot lower. is this only my problem? or?

ps this is also a reason why my shaft almost never bended before, as i was never moving my body upwards.

the closer grip is AMAZING. just one simple movement and i can really feel ive increased my speed with LOADS. i think thats the thing that improved my speed the most.

im getting used to the body movement. after some, u can easily start to feel some kind of rhitme on when to move what part. it just feels right. what feels right, must have low resistence, and so i supose it can only be good for the speed and power..

ive got another question on the grip hand. how do you hold your cue in the different steps? from 2 fingers (thumb and ... pointing finger? (sorry dont know the word)) and the rest loose, to TIGHT 5 finger grip at the moment of impact? could you elaborate that part a bit more. im having troubles finding the right balace in between loose enough for the shoulder to pull my wrist/ fingers, tight enough to make a controled wrist movement and TIGHT enough to not let the cue fly 200 yards furter.

ps i can already feel the difference. its amazing. even if im just catapultating a small candle across the livingroom, i can see and most of all FEEL in my body, im creating big forces.

ps2: hope u dont mind my in depth study :s i dont want to devolge all the big secrets, but i like to do my homework. it would be a waist of time to train something without totally understanding what exactly you are training. and, i needed a slowmo and a bigger vieuw so i could compare my mirror too

ps3: ps im 6ft 2'' tall, but i only weight 110pounds. i know i dont have the power most have. what training would u advice for my muscles so they become quicker? bench? (maybe something i could do at home, and dont have to spend thousand of dollars in fitness rooms).

ps4 hope ull be there to critique my next break video shots i might even make them one above the other, so u can see the old-ghost-movement. would be cool to see the differences.

ps5 sorry for the so many questions. but this is the post of the year. sometimes my eagerness to learn can be anoying. (ask me g/f, she knows all about it)

edit: ive tried it. (Silly Solly's quick step lessons to hometraining poolbreaks )

I first just moved the wrist back and forward hundreds of times. this makes my tip move forward around 5" each time. once my body started to know what to do.

I then moved only my upperbody forward and higher. this made my cue move back and forward by 10" each time. i did this movement while rocking back and forward. (ps i saw out state champion do it, and ive tried it, completly stretching the front leg in front, seems to help on the moving up and especially helps on the weight transfer from back to front leg.. it seemed to help, no real idea why.)

i then rotated my shoulders back and forward, this gave me another 10" movement of the tip each time.

if i combine all these moves, and DONT move my arm into a strokemovement, your stroke can travel a good 25" more (sort of), these movements alone already make me break at a (not much lesser then my brake was before) speed when the timing is perfect.

now if u add these up to your break speed and find the right timing, i can assure u , u can create more power then u can handle. and im talking about body damage, not cb control

im i doing it right colin? or am i forgetting anything?

http://users.pandora.be/solartje/solly.avi <--- ok i look stupid but hey, i want to learn, and my englisch isnt good enough to explain well what i would like to say or ask.

is this the reason why u get so much power?
step1: cue travels from me going forward
step2: cue travels from my shoulder twisting
step3: cue travels from my body moving upwards
step4: cue travels from my wrist move.

so my cue traveled a full shaft lengt, without me ever having made a stroke movement.

http://users.pandora.be/solartje/silly solly.avi last silly solly one i OWNED that stupid litle light

Hi Solly,
I'll attempt to answer these questions one at a time below:

1. Yes, there is a tendency for the hand to be pulled up when the body comes up and this can lead to hitting the CB too low. I often do this on my first warm up shot. You've just got to make sure you pull the cue a bit downward during the stroke. With practice you'll work it out.

2. The closer grip is probably the part that gives the most immediate gain, once you get comfortable with it. The long lever can also be incorporated quite easily. But the rhythm / timing / coordination for utilizing eccentric power can require a lot of practice. Watch the video posted here of Charlie Bryant. It is quite clear and he demonstrate excellent eccentric contraction through his shoulder. It's a good idea to immitate his stroke. Once that is worked out, the wrist movement can be developed as well.

3.Yes, when you get the timing and movement right, it will feel right. It will feel like you are powerful and that you have time to apply the force. If the timing or movement is wrong, it will feel rushed and like you are not really pulling strongly on the cue. When learning this, start the movement quite slowly. As you get the timing, you can speed it up a little and add some more power.

4. Your videos are not real clear, but you kind of have things right. But you are moving too much like a robot. The body parts should move more like a wave, or a whip. I show this technique a bit at the 9 minute mark of the video.

So when the shoulder goes up and forward, the upper arm actually remains behind for a fraction of a second, appearing to bend back relative to the shoulder. And when the forearm moves forward the wrist flexes back too. Also you'll notice that my legs and hips drive up and forward slightly before my should is thrust forward and up. This is why the left leg needs to be a little bent before the movement. So try a little more to get that whipping action. It's all one movement but the body parts are active in a sequence, they accellerate one after the other. Legs, hips, shoulder, arm, then hand.

5. The grip. I hold the grip middle hand with all fingers around the cue. The grip is relaxed a bit on the backswing and tightens up just before I hit the CB. I have experimented with holding the cue lower in my fingers, so as to further increase the lever length, but when breaking very hard, my wrist and fingers are not strong enough with this grip to get a good flick.

6. Strengthening: The best excercise you can do to strengthen these muscles is push ups. That will work your pecs, front delts and also your wrist a bit. I also do some wrist flexes with a 6kb dumb bell. You can do the push ups from your knees and try to do 5 sets of 30 push ups every day. Your muscles will get pretty sore the first few days. If the pain continues past this, have a bit of a rest to recover or email me about any concerns or queries.

Don't feel guilty about asking questions. That is the best way to learn. I'll do my best to answer if I have time.

Colin

 

[Colin Colenso]

Shorter Arm Position on Cue

Earlier in this thread, JAL made reference to the contractive strength of a muscle and how this is relative to the length of the contraction.

In the video I simplified things by saying shortening the muscle makes it stronger. But this is not exactly true. Shortening a muscle towards it's intermediate position increases its strength.

So when we move the hand up the cue, we are shortening the length of the pectoral and upper delt toward their strongest intermediate position.

Keep in mind that when breaking with an upright stance, the main muscles involved are the pecs and delts. When in a normal playing stroke, it is the biceps that provide most of the forward movement. So a shorter grip for breaking does not mean necessarily that a shorter grip can create more power from a regular stance position. It will depend on the length of the biceps.

One more thing of interest is that one of the bicep tendons actually connects to the shoulder. That's why you can more fully contract the biceps if you move your arm up and to the front of the body. So even bicep strength plays a role in pulling the shoulder through when breaking.

Thinking about all this will probably not help you, but hinder you

The image and text below comes from the link JAL provided.

 

[pbat2751]

Well done Colin!!!

There is some interesting tidbits I'll be playing around with. They way I break (style?) is similar, so tweaking things should prove interesting. My problem lately is that I don't think I'm getting my legs in to my break enough. Results have been good but could be better. I'll repost tomorrow.

Colin's break style is similar to Strickland's with the forward arm and how they follow threw. Check the tape... and maybe the glove.

Interesting..... moving my backhand up definitely helped with my wrist flick and forced my weight forward when I follow through. I got better scatter than usual with the same cue ball control.

very promising.

 

[predator]

Great stuff. I never saw power break stroke explained in such detail.

There's one problem for me however. This is a completely different technique from my normal stroke, so needless to say...it's hard to control.Sometimes all that extra body movements actually makes my shoulder and grip too stiff resulting in poor power, whereas I should be more relaxed. I'm very uncomfortable shooting with extra body movement. I'll keep trying it from time to time. For now, I'll stick with ordinary stroke break...meaning just lower arm with body still.

I'm so jealous on players in my own club who can produce break power similar to Colin's, but...they don't have near his knowledge, never read a single pool book, never recieved any instruction whatsoever...etc. Hell, they even lose matches to me most of the time! But they can really crush the balls...

 

[chefjeff]

Thanks, Colin. Nice job.

About a month ago, I was immitating all the young guns who break like this. I didn't really know what I was doing, but before I pulled the trigger, I was doing a backward grip-hand loop movement (that weird waggle like the kids do) and came to understand the muscle contraction bit. I even had a sore shoulder after a couple of days of good breaks. One or two of them were awesome and waaay faster than I've ever done, for sure.

So, my question to you is: In the IPT where you play so much for so many days, do you think the power break could be a more of a detriment in the long run as it could make you more tired?

Efren never seems to break this hard and never seems to be tired. He always looks so relaxed. Could it be he paces himself by not breaking so hard?

Jeff Livingston

 

[RSB-Refugee]

I've had the same idea, but unfortunately it's near impossible to release the grip immediately so it ends up creating friction. Also, it tends to make the stroke quite wild and innaccurate.

I thought of designing some catch mechanism so the cue is restrained then released in a fraction of a second, but couldn't fathom anything that could work that was within my means to produce. If it could be produced, some mega speed breaks would result, but they would be very hard to control I imagine.

Colin

Here is a quick sketch I made of an idea I had. The stick figure is obviously a breaker. Green is a cue. Red is monofilament line. Blue is a pulley. The black rectangle is a weight. It is my idea, that as the weight slams into the pulley, the monofilament would break and release incredible energy to the cue. It might work. I wonder if it would be tournament legal? At least it would make for an interesting experiment.

Tracy

 

[Colin Colenso]

Great stuff. I never saw power break stroke explained in such detail.

There's one problem for me however. This is a completely different technique from my normal stroke, so needless to say...it's hard to control. Sometimes all that extra body movements actually makes my shoulder and grip too stiff resulting in poor power, whereas I should be more relaxed. I'm very uncomfortable shooting with extra body movement. I'll keep trying it from time to time. For now, I'll stick with ordinary stroke break...meaning just lower arm with body still.

I'm so jealous on players in my own club who can produce break power similar to Colin's, but...they don't have near his knowledge, never read a single pool book, never recieved any instruction whatsoever...etc. Hell, they even lose matches to me most of the time! But they can really crush the balls...

Yes, predator, it's an entirely different stroke. The force is produced almost entirely from the shoulders in this power break, whereas, with a normal playing stroke, the force comes mostly from the biceps.

This is why snooker players look so weak when they first try to break in pool.

The technique takes quite a bit of practice. I've only recently started to get consistancy, but I still mess the occassional shot up. My first couple of breaks for the day are often very awkward.

Colin

 

[Colin Colenso]

Here is a quick sketch I made of an idea I had. The stick figure is obviously a breaker. Green is a cue. Red is monofilament line. Blue is a pulley. The black rectangle is a weight. It is my idea, that as the weight slams into the pulley, the monofilament would break and release incredible energy to the cue. It might work. I wonder if it would be tournament legal? At least it would make for an interesting experiment.

Tracy

Sure, that would work Tracy!

It made me think of an elastic strap, that say had a connector that disengaged at a certain force.

I doubt such a thing could ever be accepted in a tournament, but it would make a great play tool. It might get quite a crowd in at a Billiard Products expo if the set up a speed camera and let crowd members feel what it's like to break at world record speed...lol

btw. I would ask my enemies to hold onto the end of the elastic band, so when it releases they get a big surprise ...

Colin

 

[Colin Colenso]

Thanks, Colin. Nice job.

About a month ago, I was immitating all the young guns who break like this. I didn't really know what I was doing, but before I pulled the trigger, I was doing a backward grip-hand loop movement (that weird waggle like the kids do) and came to understand the muscle contraction bit. I even had a sore shoulder after a couple of days of good breaks. One or two of them were awesome and waaay faster than I've ever done, for sure.

So, my question to you is: In the IPT where you play so much for so many days, do you think the power break could be a more of a detriment in the long run as it could make you more tired?

Efren never seems to break this hard and never seems to be tired. He always looks so relaxed. Could it be he paces himself by not breaking so hard?

Jeff Livingston

Thanks Jeff.

I don't think Breaking like this is exhausting if you practice it regularly in the lead up. An IPT day would be maximum 40 breaks, which though tough, is less that many players would do on some practice days.

What I found is tiring is the constant intense concentration. Trying to find the best patterns and decide clearly on shot execution so intensely, trying not to make any lazy errors.

For someone like Efren who knows the game so well and is so used to tournament play, it probably just feels like any other day. He's been switched on so long he hardly ever goes off.

For myself, it takes a lot more effort to switch on. That's the price of playing too often against guys who regularly give you a couple of chances most games. The intensity drops.

But when you get punished nearly every time you make a mistake, and don't get much rest in between matches, the mental pressure begins to exhaust you.

The seasoned pros are much better at coping with it.

Colin