Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Thu Jun 5 08:53:06 2008

>>> I have been thinking about just rotating the bat head a lot lately. Nothing else about the swing. I was standing up and just simply rotating the bat head. What I found was I started thinking to myself to keep the knob still and it SEEMED as if the bat head would accelerate better and my shoulders would take over instead of my arms (I am an arms hitter).

Do you guys (Jack of course included) think that trying to keep the knob as still as possible be a good cue to help achieve a circular hand path and help connect bat to body?? I am talking about from initiation to contact. I don't mean keep it still even in pre-launch mechanics. <<<

Hi Dave

You are definitely on the right track. Here are two key principles to efficient transfer mechanics. (1) The muscles of the arms should not be involved in accelerating the hands (or knob) -- the hands are accelerated around the swing plane by the rotation of the shoulders. (2) The role of the arm muscles are used in applying torque that accelerates the bat-head around the knob (PLT, THT and BHT). --- Using the arms to accelerate the hands (and knob) results in disconnection to shoulder rotation and impedes bat speed generation.

Not adhering to these principles are the core reasons for the poor batting performances of Andrew Jones and Ryan Howard earlier this year. Video analysis shows that both of these hitters were using their arms to advance their hands (and knob) forward while accelerating the bat-head rearward during the Pre-Launch Torque (PLT – prior to initiating shoulder rotation) phase of the swing. Advancing the hands ahead of shoulder rotation causes the rotation of the bat-head to be out of sync (disconnected) with shoulder rotation and greatly limited their bat speed production.

Jack Mankin