Posted by: donny buster (donnybstr@aol.com) on Tue Sep 16 03:28:27 2003

I have been practicing with a friend of mine recently who has noticed that when I swing everything seems to be going in synchronisity and at the right time in corrolation to the pitch. Everything that is except my hands. He said that he has noticed that for some reason my hands seem to be behind the rest of my body. I asked him and he said I am not dropping my back shoulder. I am 15 and I use a 29 oz bat, so I would assume it isn't too heavy. Any ideas as to why my hands are lagging behind?
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> > 29 oz. means your using a 32 inch bat[-3] I have not seen any kid come on to my H.S. field with a 31 inch bat.I have seen big strong kids with their hands lagging their body rotation.Often it is a lack of connection from shoulders to hands.You may want to film from the side and see if the rear elbow is getting ahead of the hands ,this happens from dragging them.This actually ties in with my thread above flattening hands.I feel you need to have the lead shoulder pull pulling the bottom hand down and forward while the rear elbow pulls the top hand back.if the rear elbow gets ahead of the hands you have no ability to drive the top hand with the rear shoulder.
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> > I did not say that the bat weight is the only reason the hands could be lagging. My point is/was that 29 oz. by design is heavy relative to the strength of most 15 year olds. THe rules are like that for safety reasons for that age group. Coaching 7th graders that come up to JV level from 24 -27oz shows me the difficulty they experience.Our city league allows 24 but the JV has to use 27. It is like playing with a bat weight still on the bat. Sorry, size does matter for early teen kids. PLayer weight/bat weight ratios affect the balance and quality of the swing when measured over a large group of kids.....simple fact.