Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Tue May 10 17:11:03 2005

>>> I am having trouble with throwing my hands at the ball like my coach always says. Any drills I can do? <<<

Hi Tyler

I am sure your coach has your best interest at heart and is just teaching you what he was taught. However, if your coach means by “throwing the hands” that you should use the arms to throw you hands away from the back-shoulder, he is not teaching you the mechanics used by the best hitters.

The drill Mike gave you will cause the hands to direct their force in the same linear direction. However, that is not an efficient recipe for generating bat speed. To take advantage of the “flail” or “pendulum” effect to accelerate the bat-head around the swing plane (like swinging a ball on a string), the hands must remain back and be flung into a circular path. To apply torque at the handle to add bat-head acceleration, the hands must apply force from opposing directions (push/pull) – not extending their force in the same direction (like throwing two ball).

Tyler, throughout the rest of your baseball career, you will be bombarded with conflicting views on batting mechanics. If you are to be confident which is the correct path to take, you will need to study frame-by-frames of the best hitter’s swings with an open mind.

Jack Mankin