Posted by: Joe Hernandez (coach2hit@yahoo.com) on Fri Jun 2 14:45:41 2006

> Jack,
>
> My niece is having difficulty staying back through her swing. She is going and getting every ball with her front knee collapsing. We have been working on the bag and some elementary concepts in rotational hitting, but we are having trouble fixing this problem. Do you think I should have her work on hitting to the opposite field to spell this? Any idea on how to help her understand how not to let her front knee collapse?
>
> Thanks for your time.

Mathew,

Hitting with a bent front leg causes a bunch of problems. To begin with, it allows the weight and balance to move beyond the front foot, it promotes head movement towards the pitcher and it will definetly slow down the rotation of the hips. Put this all together and you have a prescription for a slower bat, difficulty identifying pitches and far less power from your lower body.

What's important to understnad is that when the front leg collapses or remains bent throughout the entire swing, then there is no "center of axis" from which the lower part of the body can forcefully rotate. This will always lead to a weak swing that if it contacts the ball at all it will always do so out in front of the plate.

What you want to accomplish is to make sure that after the front foot lands (softly), the front leg must stiffen to accept the weight transfewr and allow the hips to "fire" open. You still must keep the body loose and relaxed when hitting, but the front leg needs to become "rigid" in order to experience success...this is the only way to control the weight transfer and allow the hips to rotate with force...hence stopping the linear movement...allowing the hips to "snap" with force and keep your head still and your body balanced over the point of contact.

I hope this helps...I'm sure that our resident guru Jack Mankin can explain it better.