Posted by: Joe A. () on Sun May 5 05:46:05 2002

Hi,
> > I am a 15 year old sophomore playing high school baseball. I often hear I have excellent mechanics and a good swing but I am in a slump right now. The problem seems to be I am always popping up which seems to be my back shoulder and also I may be bringing my front shoulder up. I work on a tee often and am able to hit off the tee but when it comes to live batting I am "looping my swing" Please If there are any drills to help this problem and get me out of this habit of dropping my back shoulder I would appreciate it.
>
> Are you sure you're swinging at good pitches. Dropping the shoulder is not all bad. You need to swing on the plane of the ball. Analyze to see if your swing is on the plane or not. If not get it on it. You can drop too far but you still must swing on the plane of the pitch.

Mark,

Droping your back shoulder is a bad thing for so many reason I can't list them here. Don't do it any more. But, the problem is not that you are droping your back shoulder. You are doing something else that is causeing it.

Make sure your back arm (away from the pitcher) drops to your side when you START your hands forward. You can have your back arm any where you want it in your stance as long as it dosent prevent you from droping it to your side when you start your hands in motion. The elbow should be pointing straight down and be againist your side. As the bat approaches the contact area your back arm should straighten out from the "at your side postion."

Try doing your tee and soft toss drills with a stance that has your arm at your side to get the feel of where it should be.

Other then not having your back arm at your side the only other way you can "drop your back shoulder" is to tilt your upper body backward. If you were doing this everybody in the state would see it and tell you about it.

Good Luck
Joe A.