Posted by: Giant Fan () on Tue Oct 30 11:26:16 2001

>>> Jack, I will study Major's post. It seems like a reasonable response. But in the meantime, I would appreciate it if you, in your own words would also respond to my last post. I answered your question & furthermore I apologized for apparently having put words in your mouth. But you implied that you do accept the notion of throwing the bathead as opposed to throwing the hands and all I am asking is that you provide your analysis of the two different concepts. >>>
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> Hi Fan
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> Major Dan’s post did a good job of explaining the difference in mechanics of the two concepts. I consider “throwing the hands, quick hands, knob at the ball, extend the hands, and etc. as linear cues because they concentrate on accelerating the hands away from the power source – the rotating body. A batter using linear mechanics does not worry as much about “linkage” to shoulder rotation, as his swing derives its main power source from the muscles in the arms.
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> Rotational mechanics stress keeping the hands back (linkage) to allow shoulder rotation to accelerate the hand-path. The benefit of a circular hand-path is to rotate (or throw) the bat-head – not the hands themselves. The same is true for both top and bottom-hand-torque, their purpose is to accelerate (or throw) the bat-head into the arc of the swing plane. Neither is used to “throw” or accelerate the hands forward. Shoulder rotation and the load of generating the bat’s trajectories mainly determine the trajectory of the hands the lead-arm's rate of separation from the body.
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> Jack Mankin


Thank you, Jack, Major Dan and some of the others who addressed this issue earlier this month. After having studied all of the various comments over the last month, reviewing the material at this site, reviewing the tape and duplicating some of the experiments discussed earlier this month, I have reached some conclusions.

(1) If you want to hit "linear" (and there are some occasions where "linear" might be desirable), think "throw hands". Outside pitches would be conducive to "throw hands", but "throwing hands" on an inside pitch would be disaster.

(2) If you want to hit "rotational", thinking "throw bathead" probably adds little if any batspeed, but probably is a useful cue in getting the shoulders/bat started earlier.

(3) Contrary to my earlier beliefs, the kinetic chain is much less relevant than I had earlier thought. Jack is right: lower body mechanics contribute to the swing only to the extent that the lower body contributes to shoulder rotation. There is not all of this "energy" that keeps accumulating from the ground up, culminating in all the this energy being translated to the bat. Pure and simple, the more powerful the shoulder rotation (and "clearing the hips" facilitates more powerful shoulder rotation)the more powerful the swing.

(4) Upper body strength, particularly the arms has more relevance than I had previously thought. Given the same strength and degree of shoulder rotation in two swings, the swing that has greater arm strength will be more powerful.

Thanks again to everyone for helping me to increase my understanding. I know I have been a pest but I will now make my exit.
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