Posted by: grc () on Fri Jul 6 09:41:38 2001

Since I haven't been following Little League baseball much over the last few years, I'm not sure why kids with relaxed elbows are popping up more than kids with high back elbows - unless maybe their strides are too long. Even with relaxed elbows, the long strides may be causing their back shoulders to drop too much, or maybe their timing is so far off, given the long strides, that they wind up hitting underneath the ball. I do know that at the high school and college level, high back elbows, for hitters with normal bat speed, cause more problems for them than for hitters with relaxed elbows. Those with high back elbows have longer swings and, unless they have extremely fast hands, have to start sooner to attack the ball. For most of them, it doesn't work out too well. We try to get our high school/American Legion kids to have a relatively wide base, relaxed hands and elbows and short strides. This allows them to wait longer and apply maximum rotational torque with better timing. Those that make the adjustment generally experience higher on-base/hitting success rates. There are so many variables involved in this process that it is difficult to generalize too much. But if the game I saw last night, a 1-0 game between college age kids using wooden bats, is any indication, the incorporation of a relaxed elbow is a must. The only hitter that made any kind of decent contact was one with a low back elbow. Anyway, that is my "take" on the issue. Thanks, Roger Moore



> just so there is no misunderstanding, most hitters who use a high elbow are doing so only for a split second.....in their stance the back elbow is about 45 degrees.....when they stride, their hands go back AND the back elbow goes up to about 90 degrees......even before the stride foot has landed the elbow has come back down to about 45 degrees....jack and tom think this assists initiation of top hand torque......i think rql believes it is merely a cocking mechanism....some people believe it adds momentum to the swing......delgado, ramirez, sosa of today use the high elbow...aaron & mantle of yesteryear used it....mcgwire does not use it......i personally wonder if it has much value...........i will disagree, though with the notion that it causes a "long swing".........the swing doesn't start until the stride foot has landed, and so if the elbow is back where it started from (45 degrees), how has the swing been lengthened?..............respectfully, grc......