Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Sat Dec 29 14:27:58 2007

>>> George,
Muscle memory is a fact and what you stated about muscle memory is an opinion only. Ten thousand swings one way and 2 weeks in your cage won't eliminate the 10 thousand swings someone does especially someone in there 20's. Another thing you could be late and still hit the ball hard with these mechanics. The stance has nothing to do with hitting ok. Everyone in pro ball uses a heavy bat because when you make solid contact the balls is hit harder than with a very light bat. I'd say the average bat is 34 inches 34 ounces. You never hit before george and you know nothing about playing at a top level. Gary was injured for a bit last year still hit 25 home runs and almost 80 rbi's and hit 265 a down year for him but at the major league level is still a very productive year. He has a career 296 average and like I said before if you hit 280 and above in the bigs you are a good major league hitter. You are a joke and continue to have a small mind about the great hitters that produce and in your opinion still need to change in order to stop failing 7 out of ten times. The real stat is that these same hitters that are failing 7 out of ten times, are hitting the ball hard 7 out of ten times. The more you try to figure out these hitters mechanics that you bad mouth the better off you will be as a coach. Until than you are part of the problem. <<<

Hi Mike

I agree that overcoming old muscle is one of the biggest hurtles a batter must accomplish to adapt different swing mechanics. Below is my reply to an e-mail from a hitter that was having the problems you outlined.
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“I have found that in order to overcome old muscle memory and ingrain new mechanics, a change of mind-set is far more important than the number of drill reps.. Therefore, when practicing your swing, it is important to keep in mind that the purpose of swing mechanics is not to get the hips to rotate or take the hands and knob to the zone. The ultimate purpose of all swing mechanics is to accelerate the ‘bat-head’ around the swing plane to contact.

When setting up your practice program, I would suggest that one of the most limiting factors to a hitter’s development is his tendency to only concentrates on those mechanics that swing the bat-head forward toward the ball. However, before the bat-head arcs forward toward the ball, it must first be accelerated rearward from its launch position behind the head, rearward to the lag position (first 90 degrees of acceleration). Therefore, as you prepare to initiate your swing, I would suggest you envision mechanics for accelerating the bat-head around the entire 180+ degrees to contact instead of just concentrating on mechanics for only the last 90 degrees (forward from the lag position)

As a hitter initiates the swing, it is very tough to keep his hands back when he is concentrating on taking the knob or bat-head forward. If the hitter would envision the bat-head first accelerating back toward the catcher at initiation, his hands would tend to stay back in order to accelerate the bat-head in that direction -- rearward.

When we ask the body to perform an athletic movement, the sub-conscious mind will set up a motor program for the rest of the body to aid in accomplishing the task. Therefore, I have found that if I can get the batter to correctly envision the bat-head first accelerating rearward to the lag position before he directs his energy toward the ball, the more likely he will generate the correct hip and shoulder rotation to accomplish the task.

If, on the other hand, the batter only thinks of swinging forward, he has the tendency to first extend the hands forward. This is mainly accomplished by using the arms to thrust the hands and knob, which does not require good hip and shoulder rotation. With this vision of the swing, keeping the hands back and allowing the hips to lead does not compute to his vision of the swing. He now has to consciously think of starting hip and shoulder rotaion ahead of accelerating the hands. -- He may be able to think "hips first" in practice, but in the game, old muscle memories will win out almost everytime.

Once I feel the batter is starting to have the correct vision of the swing, I use the cue, “Rotate the heel (initiate lower-body rotation) – Rotate the bat-head (initiate the acceleration back toward the catcher”). I ask the student, “what must you do with the top-hand as your elbow lowers to accelerate the bat-head back at the catcher?” After a few attempts, they learn to hold back (or pull back) the top-hand at the shoulder and allow shoulder rotation to accelerate the bat-head back. When they start to get the bat to accelerate correctly, the hips just naturally rotate ahead of the hands and they have the “L” in the back-leg and lead-arm at contact.

Jack Mankin