Posted by: tom.guerry (tom.guerry@kp.org) on Tue Nov 4 17:03:12 2003

Group, I would appreciate your opinion on what constitutes barring the lead arm. In the eyes of many, I have had a problem with this in the past, but I look at great hitters like Griffey and Brett Boone and it appears they are doing the same. What, in your minds, constitutes barring the lead arm and how detrimental is it to the swing??? Thanks for the opinions!
> >
> > My thoughts are this. I believe the lead arm can bar on the pitch middle to away, but will bend on pitches in. The thought I have is the lead arm and shoulder should always be soft, even though it's straight. For many moons I tried to establish extension with the lead arm and it instantly put strain on the lead shoulder, creating front side pull or early top hand roll-over as well as incomplete shoulder turn. What I thought was top hand dominance in my swing was really amounting to be the opposite (bottom hand/arm dominance). I still haven't got the problem licked, but in regards to my Son. We recently started to implement a drill where we release the bottom hand at contact. the results for him were quite amazing. He literally finds the barrel with regularity. Now certainly there are other issues involved with how the top hand should work, but here is food for thought.......We always want to hit the ball deeper into our bodies, well if the lead hand/arm are fixated on that idea of extension, then it extends much further out in front the plate, where as not forcing that extension, keeps the extending back arm back more. In other words, the lead arm tends to pull the back arm to extension to far in front of the plate. I don't know if this a relevant issue as it relates to the lead arm, but I will say, "my perception of many great hitters is that the lead shoulder and lead arm look like a wet noodle to me. Certainly not all, but many. What degree on a scale of 1 to 10 would you say your tension level is at contact with your lead shoulder. Mine is probably close to 9 or 10. I think I might do better if it were around 2 or 3. Have you ever experimented with this idea and does it make any sense. I think everyone agrees the swing should be tension free, the question is where should we feel it?
> >
> > Coach C
> P,H if you look at those clips they are probably outside pitches,and you will also probably see them loading into this arm barring process.They load a little longer ,deeper IMO as they delay to let ball get deeper.The barring of the arm allows thw barrel to have a wider radius to reach outside location while keeping the arm connected to shoulder rotation.In a linear extension I would see bend in that lead arm early then a pushing forward of both hands until they extended outfront with hands leading then wrist snap at the end

I think of "barring" as a flaw that consists of premature arm extension/straightening of the lead arm at the time of launch.Arm extension creates a tremendous mechanical demand for energy transfer out of the torso with depletion of torso energy preventing nice sequencing through the lower body then torso into the bat.The lead arm can stretch prior to launch,but needs to be set at launch so it remains circular for most of the approach to contact.For the outside pitch,you can then extend the lead arm just before contact to reach the outside location without decelerating before contact.I believe this is what rql is describing.An example would be "Palmeiro 3" on the youthbaseball site linked by Nick.

Notice the longer loading cycle before launch(more uncocking of bat before heel drop then launch) as he prepares fot the outside location.You can see the internal rotation of the back arm well with hip cock,then the cocking of the bat with scap load before the uncocking begins going into toe touch(noticeable pre-launch tht,bat centered at toe touch,turning toward catcher,hands still back).Then watch the elbows extend through contact which stops the torso turn.Does he decelerate before contact ? Hard to tell without seeing the result.