Posted by: rql () on Fri Apr 2 20:53:24 2004

Well, for my son, its been about 9 months since we started serious work on a purely rotational swing. We've worked our way up to front toss drills, cage work and they look OK. So now we're starting the season and at the first game, well.... just horrible. He's initiating the swing WAY TOO EARLY. Then of course, in order to save the swing the shoulders pause and he lunges forward very badly. His first two AB's he K's with wildly ugly swings. In his third AB, he delays long enough to make contact but basically "cue sticks" a blooper into LF (RHB), still way to early. I know the problem is suddenly he has better bat speed, THT is initiating the swing quicker and yet he's still using his old timing cues. All I can say right now is wait longer on the pitch, but that message doesn't seem to be sinking in. How long do I let him work this out?
> > > > -Max
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> > > His trigger needs to change from his hands/arms to his belly button, belt buckle, or shoulder.
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> > Teacherman that answer doesn't mean anything to anyone, what are you talking about?
> > mr v, you are describing a problem and probably incorrectly attributing it to his incrase in bat speed....just suppose his batspeed really increased by let's say 10 % (and what method did you use to document that he has indeed increased his batspeed),and suppose his batspeed was 70 mph (just an example), his increase of 7 mph in batspeed would not cause the things you described....
> >
> > i would look elsewhere in his swing for the problem & solution....
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> Well I don't have any real hardware to actually measure bat head MPH, but the pop of the ball on the bat certainly sounds like a more violent collision. In any case, the swing looks like it begins correctly but then being early, he goes linear and then extends. This puts the contact point at least 1 foot or more ahead of his front foot. He knows full well he's early. He just seems to have no way of changing what's been years of a pretty constant trigger timing. Facing a decent pitcher, (hit spots, changed speeds) didn't help him either. Basically he's a 13 yo kid who's been linear all his life, lots of contact but very few extra base hits. Just trying to find out if anybody else has experienced this.
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> -Max
>>I have went through this with my kids and many others at 1 time or another.I tried to do alot of tee work with only outside corner setting and get the feel of hitting the ball further back and the other way.Put up a screen to opp. field 15-20 foot away and let him work on mechanics and contact point that drives it there.Up the middle is okay if he has good plate coverage but no pull.The ball should be in line with rear opp. corner of the plate or split the difference of front and rear corner but no more forward.After he gets comfortable turning into the ball deep over the plate you can go to straight toss on outside pitch only from 15 feet away.Keep it on the outer 3rd of plate.Use the cue[let the ball come to me].After he gets this down[no easy task]feed him one inside and see if he just keeps turning on it and hits it out front properly.Then back outside over and over.Often this helps their timing to wait on the ball.As his timing gets better I use[look away react in] as a cue.Always go back to [let the ball come to you.Make sure his hands do not drop or uncock before the hips do,I have seen this many times,due to fear or just use to swinging this way.