Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Thu Jul 17 10:56:16 2008

>>> Jack it seems in his swing that he has very strong linkage in his arms. What I mean is his right arm is straight pretty much locked out throughout the swing and the left arm is bent throughout the swing. It looks like he trying to keeps his arms in that position the whole time and lets the shoulders bring the hands in a circular path to contact. I'm sure he is a natural and doesn't realize everything that he is doing. My question is should a hitter be thinking just rotate the shoulders and the hands will naturally come through? Or should you be using the top hand to help push the bat along?

Thanks.
He could be the poster boy for rotational hitting. <<<

Hi Michael

What you describe is one of the keys to generating great bat speed. Keeping the lead-elbow at a fixed angle (barred or boxed) during rotation produces a circular hand-path that induces angular acceleration of the bat-head from the “pendulum effect.” However, the pendulum effect accounts for about half the bat speed in either Josh’s or Justin’s swings. The balance of their bat speeds is derived from the torque they apply at the handle from initiation to contact.

As I have pointed out before, torque is applied when the hands are applying forces to the handle from opposing directions. Both hands applying force in the same direction does not produce torque. This is undoubtedly the key difference between the great hitter’s mechanics and all the rest. – During initiation, Josh and Justin's top-hands are applying a rearward force as the bottom-hand is being pulled forward. The top-hand of good to average hitters applies a more forward force (same direction as the bottom-hand) during initiation, which provides little or no torque to attain early rearward bat speed.

Jack Mankin