Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Mon Dec 11 12:45:10 2006

>>> Keep your head tracking forward and you cannot counter rotate your shoulders . You don't want to do that as it causes tension.

Keep you hands near you arm pit. One method is to just tip the barrel to the oppo gap from a vertical hand set remaining loose. Allow you upper body to smoothly slave to that hand action . Jack calls this prelaunch torque. TO me your turning the barrel opposite from the dorection it will eventually go. I agree with your instructor. Maybe Jack can help with a better explanation

You can apply great BHT and THT with the barrel returning to plane.

You can reduce your total effort so much and increase your output that you will be amazed.<<<

Hi Mike & Donny

Donny does a good job of describing pre-launch torque. I would also recommend you pay close attention to what he has learned about how to best apply the mechanic. When applied correctly, the mechanic can be a blessing to your batting performance. Pre-launch torque sets into motion mechanics that accelerates the bat-head rearward to the launch position.

As Donny points out, applying PLT produces trajectories of the hands and bat that allows the batter to, "apply great BHT and THT with the barrel returning to plane."

"A ballistic motion, once initiated, produces trajectories that can only be changed at its margins."

The above bio-mechanical principle can be a blessing or a curse to your batting performance. When you initiate the swing with the correct forces, your mechanics are basically on auto-pilot to contact. Initiate the bat with incorrect forces - nothing can be done from that point that produces maximum results.

When PLT is applied correctly, the bat-head is swept cleanly behind the head into the swing plane as the hands arrive at the launch position. When applied incorrectly, the bat is accelerated rearward in a to vertical direction that slices down through the plane instead of into it. This leads to wrist-binding and waves in the swing plane.

Back in the early 1990s, one of my favorite hobbies was doing a video analysis of great hitters in a prolonged batting slump. I found that their slump was not due to a loss in generating bat speed. In almost every case, flaws in how they applied PLT and THT was the problem. Regardless of the bat speed they generated, the resulting wrist-binds and waves in the swing plane prevented them from making consistent hard contact.

I have had hundreds of videos sent to me for video analysis. Of those, only a handful that applied PLT was performing it correctly. Accelerating the bat to vertically was not the only problem I noted. Many of them retained their "knob to the ball" mechanics as they applied PLT. Extending the hands away from the shoulder while accelerating the bat-head rearward also leads to severe wrist-binds as well as flaws to the swing plane.

With that being said, I still think the rewards of getting it right far outweigh the frustrations in-between.

Jack Mankin