Posted by: Mike (reyg121@yahoo.com) on Tue Dec 4 11:32:48 2007

> > > If you bar arm do you lose power? What is the proper load and cocking of the hands? I am getting jammed a lot and hitting weak ground balls and my hitting instructor tells me to take my hands straight back as far as possible and I am bar arming when i do that and i want to know if that is making me get jammed and hitting weak grounders
> > >
> > > Thanks
> >
> > Why don't you watch some videos af some great hitters and slow it down. Especially on the outside pitch you will notice the front arms are barred out. The texeria videos that mr. mankin posted watch those and you will see mark having his arm barred the whole time.
>
> hey mikey!
> it is my humble opinion that whenever you straighten you arms, you lose bat speed.
> try this: sit on a barstool with your hands in your lap. now have someone spin you around.. now extend your arms out away from your sides, so you look like you're on the cross... YOU WILL SLOW DOWN!!
> now put your hands on your belt buckle... even though you just slowed down, YOU WILL SPEED UP!!! how does this apply to swinging a bat?
> i'm hoping you can implement a little LOGIC & understand the LAW of PHYSICS this illustrates.. TO EXTEND YOUR ARMS IS TO SLOW YOUR BAT is the LOGICAL deduction you should make. KEEP YOUR HANDS IN TIGHT! that way you will have your hands inside of the ball & be able to get the bat on the ball rather than having your arms extended & swinging over the top ove the ball, thus hitting a lot of grounders. if you want to complain that you must extend your arms to cover the outside of the plate.. get closer to the plate!
> darrin erstad is a bar arm hitter... as his age increased, he has headed down that slippery slope out of the league.. he was pretty much helpless this last year.. & it's going to get worse.. he has overcome this deficiency in past years because of his youth & athletic ability ..but as he ages, so must his performance.. he has gotten to the point where his wide open stance coupled with his straight-armed swing are no longer up to overcoming the handicaps he has put upon himself.. if he were to close his stance,shorten his base,move closer to the plate,& keep his hands in tighter, he would definitely last longer. the question is does he understand why he is fading & does he know what he must do to adjust.. probably not.
> there are several things which you might be doing which are slowing your batspeed to the point you are getting sawed off inside..stance & post-pitch movements are usually the culprits which will guarantee your being late before the pitch is halfway to the plate.. perhaps you have a wide stance, which will cut down on your ability to generate lower body torque, thus slowing your batspeed. perhaps your stance is too open, which has the same effect of slowing your batspeed.
> concerning post-pitch movement,the most common fatal errors i observe hitters doing are ANY MOVEMENT WITH THE ARMS & HANDS OTHER THAN FORWARD ONCE THE PITCH IS RELEASED WILL CAUSE YOU TO BE LATE. examples:
> 1. dropping the hands
> 2. doing a little circle hitch with the hands before
> 3. drawing the arms & hands back before starting forward.
> if you start out with your hands as high as COMFORTABLY possible & as far back as COMFORTABLY possible PRIOR TO THE PITCH RELEASE, & can
> stop yourself from doing the 3 things mentioned above, & understand that ONCE THE PITCH IS UNDERWAY, ALL ALL ALL YOUR BODY MOVEMENT MUST BE FORWARD AT THE BALL & RESIST THE DESIRE TO "BUGGYWHIP", then you will be getting to a lot more pitches on time than you have been getting to. if you can find PAUL MOLITOR film, this guy is my god..
> closed straightaway stance, short base, hands eye-high & behind lead shoulder..all torqued up & ready to uncoil.. a short step & WHAM! right at the ball.. awesome.
> i see a lot of focus on swing mechanics on this site.. but not too much thought to what a hitter should be doing prior to the pitch release.. if you are doing things which slow the launch, that will cause as many problems as the swing mechanics,,, MORESO, actually because it means no matter how fast your bat, you have sabotaged your self & guaranteed the train will leave without you.. a lot of hittes think they have way more time to get to the ball than is the reality... that is why more often than not, hitters are for the most part LATE LATE LATE.. proof positive is in the fact that hitters fly out, pop up,pop foul, foul straight back, & miss completely FAR MORE TIMES THAN THEY HIT THE BALL ON THE BUTTON.. there must be a logical reason. it is that they do not miss the ball so much as they do things that guarantee they are going to be LATE.

Listen everybody watch the texeira videos and you will see that his arms remains barred the whole entire swing especially the outside pitch. Sammy sosa griffey vlad a rod chipper andrew jones many more all do the same. So you do not lose bat speed george stanley.