Posted by: tom.guerry (tom.guerry@kp.org) on Sun Apr 14 17:04:18 2002

>>> At webball.com they have some good info but no forum to ask
questions. Maybe you can help. They have published some research that
says to stay inside the ball "a straight line is always the most
direct and quickest route". That statement is obvious, common sense,
but they go on to say "with the bathead kept close to the back
shoulder, you're staying inside the ball". That's the statement that i
would appreciate some clarification on. Thank you so much <<<
>
> Hi Max
>
> "Knob to the Ball, "Hands inside the Ball", "Hit the inside of the
Ball" are just a few of the batting cues used by linear instructor's.
The intent of these cues is (as you stated above) to have the
hand-path take the straightest route (A to B) during the swing. In
other words, the linear instructor wants to eliminate any arc or
circular motion of the hand-path as the bat is accelerated.
>
> As I show in the instructional video, a straight hand-path does not
apply any force to the bat that causes the bat-head to accelerate
around the swing plane. As long as the hands are extended straight
out, the bat-head will simply trail behind the hands until the batter
applies torque at the end of the swing. So the coaches at Webball.com
get the result they are looking for, and "with the bathead kept close
to the back shoulder, you're staying inside the ball".
>
> The problem is, without the additional bat speed generated from a
circular-hand-path, the bat-head is always lagging behind the hands.
The batter has little choice but to "Hit the inside of the Ball" or
"Hit to the opposite field." --- You will hear coaches instruct their
hitters to "Keep your hands in-there" and then complain about the bat
"dragging" in the zone. How can the poor kids can't win with linear
mechanics/coaches?
>
> Jack Mankin
>
>

Thanks to Jack and others,many coaches are willing to acknowledge that
there are different kinds of swings that can be classified as
rotational or nonrotational/linear.One reason kids still can't win
even though this is dawning on coaches is that coaches don't realize
that a good nonrotational/linear swing can NOT be a power swing.The
more you try to power the nonrotational/linear swing,the more the
power plane of the body(perpendicular to spine)will fight the plane of
the armswing so spatial and timing accuracy are degraded.Coaches would
do much better acnowledging that this is a placement/control swing.If
you are going to swing hard some times and less hard others with
linear mechanics,you will be very inconsistent.Better to swing the
same way for each location and look for this locat