Posted by: bob (kingr2@ocps.net) on Sun Dec 21 08:48:50 2008

> Folks
>
> I have used the hitting vest with outstanding results. Young hitters must learn to get their hands inside the ball, and stop casting their hands away from their bodies. The vest will allow you to feel that, without thinking about it. It trains your hands to take the shortest, most efficient path, so that the barrel can get to the ball quickly. It will also keep the front arm from barring, and keep the hands from wrapping back around the body...all things that take more time to get the barrel to the ball. The natural shoulder tilt you see in all hitters is not retricted by the vest, and so the front forearm will still work upwards, but it will not fly out away from the body in a way that a lot of weak young aluminum bat hitters who are reaching, and or fooled, will do. The vest does not force the front arm to be "trapped" across the chest...if you have this vest you will see this for yourself. Pitch height is adjusted to with body tilt,shoulder tilt, or whatever you want to call it, but the vest does not restrict going down to get a pitch low in the zone, as it has absolutely not effect on the shoulders ability to tilt...something that every hittter does on every hitable pitch to some degree. I worked with a professional hitter yesterday who insisted on using the vest at different intervals, and watched him get to balls that were down, in on him, keep them fair, and really drive them. His professional hitting coach uses something similar to this vest. Young hitters will hate it when they first use it because they can get away with so many bad habits with aluminum, and still hit the ball pretty well because of the weight of the bat and the size of the "sweet spot"...I had an entire team use these vests everytime they practiced for 3 months (except in live situations)and had a 100 point increase in batting average at the end of the season...granted, all of these kids were underclassman when they hit .230, and had an extra year before they recorded a .330 as a team, but it was still pretty amazing. I would prompt anyone to try it out, as it is designed to be used, before just saying that it will not work, or worse, is actually counterproductive. You can't think and hit at the same time, and this device allows the student to go to work without THINKING, and allows him to focus more on FEEL. Give it a try.