Posted by: James (Jhool2@aol.com) on Wed Jun 21 19:26:23 2000

Does have the back elbow down in the stance and then having it go up help you hit line drives with a shorter stroke? I was popping up a lot of balls with a high back elbow and then I lowered it and started hitting line drives. Thanks.

:Hi Bill... Umm I think that you probably had a problem with the high back elbow becasue maybe you dont know the true function of it. Before I learned what was the right function I also had no sucess with it. But what may be happenning is that you are trying to throw both your hands at the ball. So in that process your back elbow comes down too fast and since there has been no top hand torque in your swing the bat bat head drops quick and becomes heavy. Then your hands drag through the zone, and you have a long swing with no batspeed being created.(this is just a possibility) So you tried to correct that by putting your back elbow down. By doing that you probably notice that you no longer drop the bat head like before and it puts you in a better position to throw your hands. But you will soon see that you have not corrected the problem with bat displacement, top hand torque, and creating bat speed early in the swing. All of which are critical to being sucessful. So to let you know, you should be pulling your top hand back toward the catcher, thats called top hand torque. I like to think of it as getting my back arm extended (by extending the tricept back, its the same as pulling the top hand back) so i try to get my back arm extended to create as much torque as possible,(its also important to keep your bottom hand still to act as a pivot point for bat torque at this point) but in a relaxed manner. Now listen carefully. By pulling the top hand back early in the swing your bat head will start to arc down and back toward the catcher (If it was to continue on this path with no intervention from rotation then youd have a long swing) But the rotation pulls your hands to the fronside faster then the bat head casts out and downward. The top hand torque displaces the bat so that your rotation whips the bat throught the zone in a nice, tight powerful arc. The opposite of just throwing your hands at the ball. Understand. Thats it mostly. So back to the point...Having your back elbow up puts your arm in a better postition to pull back. NOT to say that you cant do that with your back elbow down, but just that it may be easier with it up. Remember.....if your hitting well with it down theres no reason to change it. But its good to know your swing, and know if your doing right. Good luck hope this helps.