Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Mon Dec 8 23:37:20 2008

>>> I've been struggling with bat drag and was wondering what drills or technics others are using to prevent the elbow from getting ahead of the top hand during the rotational wing?

Cheers, Jonny fitz. <<<


Hi Jonny

There are two main cause and effects that occur with your problem (elbow leading hands & elbow sliding inward toward the belly button). (1) Relying too heavily on your backside to swing the bat. (2) Spine bends as the back-shoulder drops which allows the elbow to swing under the armpit.

I would suggest working with a heavy bag to get your lead-side more involved in the swing. To accomplish this, address the bag with your normal launch position – make sure the hands are up near the back-shoulder and your lead-knee is even with the bag. Place a playing card between your chest and biceps of the lead-arm. The arm should be tight enough across your chest to keep the card from falling.

Once you have assumed the correct launch position, take your top-hand off the bat. The top-hand should remain up near but not touching the bat. you 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. – The card must not fall at contact.

This drill will obviously reinforce the use of the lead-side in your swing. However, you 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 yourself that your lead-hip must not slide forward as you initiate rotation. It should stay back and rotate around and back toward the catcher during the swing.

Once you are comfortable in correctly performing the one-arm drill, you can then place the top-hand on the bat. At first it should just relax and go along for the ride with the elbow remaining back at the side through contact. 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) – as and example -- the top-hand serves more like an oarlock while the lead-side pulls the paddle through the water.

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

Jack Mankin