Posted by: Dave A () on Tue Mar 25 12:47:05 2003

I am 15 years old from CT and my hitting coach (who is considered one of the top hitting coaches in new england) has been telling me ive been opening my shoulders up too early. For some reason he has something against alot of shoulder rotation to produce bat speed. He says to start the swing from hands ( this is after ure legs and hips of course). I was wondering if it is in fact you shoulder and hands at the same time thats starts it. I can see that he doesnt want me pulling off pitches, but if i read the pitch early wont i not have to worry about that ?
> > > > Do not start hip rotation until you make ball contact,,, If you start rotation of the hips too early you will pull your head and your eyes and will lift up with the hips,,You will automatically blink when the bat hits the ball,Eye training of big eyes on contact..... See the ball hit the bat,,,,.. Seeing the ball will improve your hitting more than any other one thing.Head down on the swing...Knob of Bat to the ball.then swing ... Solid foundation, solid legs,,, Hitting begins from the waist down...
> > > > If you could explain what starts the bat from the upper body more clearly to me it would be greatly appreciated.
> > > >
> > > > Regards,
> > > > Dave
> > > >
> > > >
> > Dave, Bob may have incorporated more misinformation in one paragraph than was previously considered humanly possible.
> > Bob, if you are being humorous, save it for the grownups, not 15 yr olds. If you are serious, have read any of the posts at this site ever???
>
> Dave-
> the way hitting is thought about here, hip rotation is transferred into shoulder rotation - the torso/midsection connects hips to shoulders.
> The turning of the shoulders is the start of the upper body part of the swing. Starting the hands and arms before shoulder rotation will put the kinetic chain of energy out of sync -shoulders should start the hands moving, not the other way around.
> Now Jack talks about tophand torque. This action is most likely not what your hitting coach means bystarting the upper body part of the swing with the hands.
> Does your coach suggest you drive the hands to the ball or throw the hands/bat at the ball once hip turn has started?


He never uses either of those terms, he just says to keep your hands inside the ball really. He deals more with the lower body mechanics more than anything so i have been studying the swings of major leaguers such as griffey and manny to try and perfect my swing.

He would say i would be starting my shoulder rotation to soon in my approach to the ball. I find this hard to correct without a video and seeing youself do this, because it is one of those problems dealt with timing that are hard to feel.

I realized bob was providing a lot of mis information, im 15 and more knowledgable at hitting than he is.