Posted by: Brian at the CWS (support@batspeed.com) on Thu Jun 21 15:11:19 2007

> My daughter is transitioning from linear to rotational hitting, but the coach still suggests hitting "down". I've read (on this site) that during rotational hitting, "this places the rotational plane of the hips and shoulders angling upward at about 10 to 15 degrees". It seems logical to do this with an overhand pitch that is usually angling downward through the contact zone. But what about fastpitch softball? Here we see rise curves that angle upward through the contact zone. It would seem less likely to make contact with a ball that's angling upward in the contact zone while the bat is also angling upward from the opposite side of the plate. The timing would have to be perfect just to make contact. How is this issue addressed in rotational hitting? Or is linear hitting the better technique for fastpitch softball?

Hi Alfred:

We recorded several of the women's and men's college world series games and transferred the footage onto computer with our Motionview swing analysis software. It is amazing how similar the swings of the best women's hitters are the men's.

We created a 5 minute video with Motionview which we are currently featuring in our booth at the men's CWS to demonstrate the similarities in the swings with side by side analysis. In one comparison of men and women, we show that the bat is on a slight upward plane for BOTH the best women and men.

It is important to keep in mind that the principles that we discuss on our instructional videos apply equally to men and women. When we return from the CWS, we'll post our video demonstrating these similarities.

Brian
BatSpeed.com