Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Fri Nov 12 12:23:00 2004

>>> That was very interesting and provocative data you colected on 1 arm swings in the thread below.

I was a little unclear on when you were talking about lead arm vs back arm.

Based on what I read,I am thinking this is extremely important stuff.Here are a few thoughts:

The one armed swings can encourage the feel/use of the rotational component/"connection" while still applying some torque via wrist action.

The two armed/handed swing has a tendency to encourage a disconected swing with compensation for loss of rotational component with more torque.

The two handed swing should provide more torque than the wrist action of the one armed swing via the push pull action transmitted from/through shoulders/arms.

When you swing one armed with the bottom hand you tend to get good batspeed if you stay connected,but this tends to be a long swing radius swing.

When you swing one armed with the back arm,this has the advantage of teaching the maintaining of connection with a shorter swing radius swing.

This supports your progression of starting with first- the one armed/back arm swing,then second -adding the bottom hand to learn BHT/hook to enhance connection/without excessively increasing the swing radius.

One handed back arm swings can help teach the feel of connection and a short swing radius to break the tendency toward "top hand dominance" which tends to disconnect or at least force to long a swing radius.

Thoughts ? <<<

Hi Tom

Very thorough analysis, I would add “ditto” to each of the points you made. – I also find that with the one-handed swing, using top-hand produces the optimum hand-path for the two-handed swing. Since torque is not being applied, the batter starts with the elbow at his/her side. The students soon learn that they attain their maximum bat speed by keeping the elbow back at their side as they rotate. Extending the elbow away to accelerate the hand toward the ball results in lowering bat speed. For hitters learning to convert from linear to rotational mechanics, this is a valuable lesson in producing the most optimum CHP for the two-handed swing.

As Tom pointed out in a previous post -- The batter can learn the mechanics of the CHP and the mechanics of applying torque – What requires the most time, rhythm and patience is learning to efficiently combine the two.

(Tom Querry)
“The right mix of things isn't going to produce the sum of the maximums since the maximum for each component (rotational vs torque component) is produced in swings that have different mechanics.

The "ideal swing" would theoretically be that which minimizes timing error which would be the quickest swing which would be the best combo of short bat head path from launch to contact traversed with as much bats peed/acceleration as possible. “

Jack Mankin