Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Tue Feb 15 10:43:18 2005

My 14 year old son has a problem where he opens his front side too soon and his hands tend to drag. I have had trouble finding an easy way for him to stop from doing that. Recently I have noticed with most every good hitter that when the back knee begins it's turn the hands should begin to move forwards as well. So, I am telling him to pretend his hands are connected to his back knee and when the back knee starts to turn, the hands starts to go.

Does this sound ok?

Hi Rob

Welcome to the site. – In order to give you the best advice, I need to have a good understanding of what you mean by “he opens his front side too soon and his hands tend to drag.” If you mean he opens the front side during pre-launch and therefore, is not in a good loaded position (hands hidden from pitcher) to initiate the swing, I would agree that this is a problem for rotational hitters.

If however, he does initiate the swing from a good launch position, I fail to see how he could open the front side to soon at the start of his swing. Keep in mind, with rotational transfer mechanics, the muscles in the arms are not used to bring the hands around. Also note that although the rotation of the back-knee and hips contribute to the rotation, they are not connected directly to the arms and hands. It is the rotation of the shoulders that fling the arms and hands into their circular path.

Rob, when viewing a batter from the mound, we should see the front shoulder starting to rotate before the hands appear. That is why I am not sure what you mean by, “he opens his front side too soon.” It could be you are envisioning a more linear approach to initiating the swing.

Jack Mankin