Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Wed Aug 8 19:00:40 2001

Sometimes I think I swing with too much torso rotation. I feel like my hands are WAY too far back when I swing. I feel too tense in my upperbody. At contact my hips are facing the right field post is (left-handed swing)and my shoulders face the pitcher. My question-is it possible to have too much hips? Is it supposed to feel like this? Does this mean I'm not using enough torque or too much hips, not enough shoulders? Too tense?

Hi Maximum

Players of all ages have sent me videos of their swing for analysis. I often see the problem you are describing while evaluating their mechanics. In most cases I will also find that the back-elbow will be ahead of the hands and will have slid inward toward the bellybutton. The batter will normally reach full shoulder rotation with the bat still 60 to 90 degrees from contact. This is an indication that at the start of the swing, there was too much slop in the batter’s transfer linkage which results in the bat-head being slid forward instead of arcing outward into the swing plane.

Good hip and shoulder rotation by themselves is not enough to insure a good swing. The bat-head must also undergo a corresponding rate of rotation. The mechanics of the best hitters will bring the bat-head to contact in the same video frame that the shoulders finish rotation. Some of the great hitters will even have the shoulders rotating a couple of degrees after contact. The weaker hitter will finish shoulder rotation 1 or 2 video frames before the bat is brought to contact. --- The two main reasons for the poor linkage from the body’s rotational momentum to the bat, are the top-hand pushing the lead-arm away from the chest at initiation, and the breakdown (or the added bending) of the lead-elbow

What you will normally see, is the lead-elbow bending and the lead-arm separating away from the chest at initiation. This causes slack and allows the back-elbow to outrun the hands and slide inward toward the bellybutton. The chest will usually catch back up to the lead arm, but the hand and bat trajectories have been set and only poor bat speed can now occur.

(A) Having a little flex in the lead-arm at initiation is fine – but, do not let it flex any further or a more linear hand-path will result– in fact, the lead-arm should straighten as the swing proceeds (except on inside pitches) to develop the most productive hand-path.
(B) Do not push forward with the top-hand at initiation – pulling back with the top-hand will not only accelerate the bat-head into the swing plane, it will also help straighten the lead-arm during the swing.

Jack Mankin