Posted by: SMB (sybanks@gmail.com) on Thu Nov 27 23:10:31 2008

> Jack,
>
> I am first time poster, but long time reader. I appreciate what you are doing with this site.
>
> Frankly, I am not a baseball guy, but I am learning. I have a 10 yr old who has played since t ball; We have a new coach that claims he is a hitting guru. He preaches the palm down/ palm up which I see the benefit. But then he says right before contact you should "flip" your wrist. What i think he is thinking is that by doing so it will cause a little more "ump" at contact. But after researching your site I think he is wrong. Please advise.
>
> Thank you in advance and keep up the good work.


OklahomaDad,

I would strongly advise against teaching a kid to "flip" their wrists at contact. What the coach is advocating is classic misinformation he has heard over the years without doing any research to back it up. If you read more on this site Jack tells us that the muscles in the wrist and forearm are much to weak to make any significant contribution to power by themselves-especially in a 10 year old. Jack is correct. Try swinging with only wrists and forearms. The wrists will not speed up the bat head. More than likely it will cause confusion because the batter will find himself trying to time the contact point just right so he can "flip" his wrists. If you attempt to "flip" your wrists BEFORE contact, you will lose pretty much all of the torque you have created so far from the rotation of the body, and the push-pull action of the hands. Rolling the wrists before contact is a horrible coaching point. If you look at video, you will notice the rolling of the wrists comes way after contact during the "power V" position. You need to make sure you tell your kid to NOT do this.