Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Wed Apr 13 11:57:36 2005

>>> Hi Jack
You did a swing analysis for my 10 year old daughter Kassidy 2-3 months ago and it was great! Very detailed and personalized. The main problem she was having was her back elbow sliding toward her belly button instead of staying by her side. She's still having this problem which is causing the bat to "drag" through the contact point. Any drill ideas etc. on how to help her stop this.
Thanks <<<

Hi Terry

Thank you for the kind words. – There are two main cause and effects that occur with Kassidy’s problem (elbow sliding toward her belly button). (1) Relying too heavily on the backside to swing the bat. (2) Spine bends as the back-shoulder drops to allow the elbow to swing under and inward.

As I pointed out in the swing analysis, Kassidy needs to get the lead-side more involved in the swing. To accomplish this, have her address the heavy bag with her normal launch position – make sure the hands are up near the back-shoulder. Place a playing card between her chest and biceps of the lead-arm. The arm should be tight enough across the chest to keep the card from falling.

Once she has assumed the correct launch position, have her take her top-hand off the bat. The top-hand should remain up near but not touching the bat. She should practice using the rotation of the shoulders to swing the bat to contact (heavy bag) without the card falling using only the lead-arm. This means the bag should be placed far enough back (about even with the lead-knee) so that the bat is brought to contact before the arm sweeps away from the chest.

This drill will obviously reinforce the use of the lead-side in her swing. However, she may still retain the tendency to collapse the backside. For the back-shoulder to drop and bend the spine, the lead-hip must slide foreword (toward the pitcher). Impress upon her that the lead-hip must not slide forward, it should stay back and rotate around toward the catcher during the swing.

Once she is comfortable in correctly performing the one-arm drill, she can then place the top-hand on the bat. At first it should just relax and go along for the ride with the elbow staying back at the side. At this point of the swing, the main function of the top-hand is to provide a pivot point for the lead-side to pull the bat-head around (BHT) – the top-hand serves like an oarlock while oaring a paddle through the water.

Terry, if she can grasp the true function of the top-hand once the elbow lowers to the side, not only will her problem be solved, her bat speed will also increase

Jack Mankin