Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Fri Apr 1 11:00:48 2005

>>> My son is 13 and very flexible. When he takes the slack out of his front arm his hands wind up 10-14 inches behind him (towards the catcher). It seems to me that this is causing his hands to be very far away from his center of rotation even though his front arm is tight against his chest. His top hand is "dragging behind" when he slots his elbow. It is also causing his top wrist to bend in ways I can't duplicate and that don't seem very natural. I was thinking on having him just pull his top hand to his shoulder and let the front arm react accordingly but wanted to make sure I wasn't changing his swing for the worse by having too much slack in his front arm. Ken Griffey seems to have his hands behind his body before he starts forward with his shoulders but not nearly as far as my son does.
Thanks - Tom Waz <<<

Hi Tom

Having an extended lead-arm take the hands into a wider path can be helpful or can be a problem depending on whether or not the batter’s transfer mechanics can keep the bat-head accelerating in sync with shoulder rotation. If the bat-head stays in sync with rotation (like Griffey Jr.), the wider path will generate greater bat speed. However, a wider hand-path presents a greater load to rotation and if the batter’s transfer mechanics are inefficient during initiation, the head-head will fall farther behind the power curve.

Jim C. made some good points on this problem in his reply to you. Here is a re-post of his March post comments (brought forward) and Tom’s reply: “Your idea about pulling the top hand to the shoulder is not bad. If by 'slack' you mean 'bend', then you never really want his front arm to be without slack early in the swing. But he needs to get the feel of holding a certain amount of tension in his front elbow so it doesn't drag open. When the rear elbow gets ahead of the hands, some people call it "dragging" or "bat drag" - like you are trying to pull the bat through. Review the "shoulder shrug" that Jack illustrates - especially the rear shoulder - pinch the rear shoulder blade a little to load. Look for the bent front elbow to be postioned above the belly button and to only go forward and around from there.”

>>> Jim,

“Thanks for your reply. I did mean 'bend' when I mentioned 'slack'. Do you conscientiously allow the arm to straighten, or do the forces in the swing overcome the 'tension' that you're trying to maintain by the time you're at the contact position?

I noticed that right after he slotted his elbow the force on his top forearm wasn't in a direct line with his bicep but was more of a twisting away from his spine. He was able to get his top arm in the correct position by contact but had to rely too heavily on his wrist to get the bat head around early in the swing.” - Tom Waz <<<


As Jim pointed out, if the batter pushes on the handle with the palm of the top-hand toward the pitcher during initiation, “the rear elbow gets ahead of the hands, some people call it "dragging" or "bat drag" - like you are trying to pull the bat through.” I refer to this as “swinging the elbow under the armpit.” The elbow sweeps ahead of the hands and then inward toward the bellybutton. This results in a “disconnect” from rotation and a considerable delay in generating bat-head acceleration.

Tom, I would suggest a frontal video of his swing to see if the back-elbow is staying back at his side during rotation or is sweeping inward toward the bellybutton. This could result in most of the problems you described. If it is sweeping inward, we can discuss initiation mechanics that accelerate the bat-head (first rearward) instead of the knob toward the pitcher.

Jack Mankin