Bat Speed -- Baseball Hitting Forum

Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Fri Jun 14 15:47:28 2002

>>> This has been a problem of mine for a few years and was wondering what i should do to stop this bad habit? <<<

Hi Danny

Welcome to the site. The recommendations Hitman gave you are sound advice. It is also helpful in solving your problem if you have an understanding as to why you lock the front knee too early in the first place. – Striding to a straight (or lock) front leg is common to batters where extension of the back-arm is the dominating feature in their swing. The batter sets up to “explode” the back-side toward the pitcher. So he blocks off the front-side and drives the back-side forward. The is referred to as shifting the weight “back to center.” The problem is, the bat speed that can be developed from a back-side dominated swing is limited.

Below is part of an e-mail I sent to a player today wanting products that can develop more than “warning track” power. I think it fits into this discussion.

“The site, and our instructional video have good information for generating power (bat speed) for hitting beyond the warning track. That kind of power requires a good deal of torque to be applied to the bat. This means one hand must be pulling back as the other is driving forward. Most batters supply plenty of driving forward with the top-hand. But, only the better ones have mechanics that cause the lead-side to equally pull back. --- Developing a powerful swing does not require gadgets or silver-bullets as much as practicing sound batting principles. Only the lucky few stumble into it naturally.”

Getting “the lead-side to equally pull back” as the back-side comes forward, requires the use (or extension) of the lead-leg to drive the lead-hip and shoulder back toward the catcher. Therefore, the best hitters do not fully extend the lead-knee until just before contact. In fact, the extension of the knee is what brings the bat to contact with real “pop.” That is one reason I have a real problem with mechanics that use up leg drive (like “maximum separation”) too early in the swing.

So Danny, I would suggest you work on lower-body mechanics that also use the lead-leg to rotate the body around a more stationary axis instead of just driving the back-hip at the ball.

Jack Mankin

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> >>> This has been a problem of mine for a few years and was wondering what i should do to stop this bad habit? <<<
> 
> Hi Danny
> 
> Welcome to the site. The recommendations Hitman gave you are sound advice. It is also helpful in solving your problem if you have an understanding as to why you lock the front knee too early in the first place. – Striding to a straight (or lock) front leg is common to batters where extension of the back-arm is the dominating feature in their swing. The batter sets up to “explode” the back-side toward the pitcher. So he blocks off the front-side and drives the back-side forward. The is referred to as shifting the weight “back to center.” The problem is, the bat speed that can be developed from a back-side dominated swing is limited.
> 
> Below is part of an e-mail I sent to a player today wanting products that can develop more than “warning track” power. I think it fits into this discussion.
> 
> “The site, and our instructional video have good information for generating power (bat speed) for hitting beyond the warning track. That kind of power requires a good deal of torque to be applied to the bat. This means one hand must be pulling back as the other is driving forward. Most batters supply plenty of driving forward with the top-hand. But, only the better ones have mechanics that cause the lead-side to equally pull back. --- Developing a powerful swing does not require gadgets or silver-bullets as much as practicing sound batting principles. Only the lucky few stumble into it naturally.”
> 
> Getting “the lead-side to equally pull back” as the back-side comes forward, requires the use (or extension) of the lead-leg to drive the lead-hip and shoulder back toward the catcher. Therefore, the best hitters do not fully extend the lead-knee until just before contact. In fact, the extension of the knee is what brings the bat to contact with real “pop.” That is one reason I have a real problem with mechanics that use up leg drive (like “maximum separation”) too early in the swing. 
> 
> So Danny, I would suggest you work on lower-body mechanics that also use the lead-leg to rotate the body around a more stationary axis instead of just driving the back-hip at the ball.
> 
> Jack Mankin

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