Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Sun Sep 5 16:43:29 2010

Hi Mark

Since I have responded to your question by e-mail, I will reprint my reply to you.

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Thank you for the email. -- The "Squashthebug' site was not available. Although I have not used their produce, I have watched video of batters practicing with it. It appears its function is to negate the friction between the ball of the back-foot and the ground as the foot rotates.

Squashing-the-bug is used mostly by linear coaches who believe the back-hip should rotate about a posted front hip. The batter is encouraged to land on a firm and straight lead-leg and rotates the back-hip forward as they squash-the-bug.

I have no problem with the back-foot rotating, all good hitters do. My problem concerns only using the back-leg to power hip rotation. Video shows that the top MLB hitters land on a well flexed lead-leg and use the extension of the leg to rotate the lead-hip rearward at the same rate the back-hip rotates forward. This provides for a much stronger hip rotation.

See the video below.

Momentum & Hip Rotation

Mark, Batspeed.com will be introducing our new rotational training aid "The Connector" in the near future. I have been working with it on my students the past few months and found it does a great job of helping the student stay connected to the body's rotation which produces a cleaner swing plane and increases their bat speed. -- If you are interested, I can e-mail you when it is available.

Best regards,

Jack Mankin