How to fix elbows leading the hands at connection?

crankermo · Feb 14, 2010

Our travel team has just bought the RVP hitting analysis program and the biggest team wide flaw we noticed is at connection the back elbow is flying away from the body and leading the hands through the zone. This is causing loss of control of the bathead and loss of the whip. We started using the rock skipping drill to show our girls where w want them to get to. Are there any other drills or tips out there that will help fix this?

Thank You.

Mark H · Feb 14, 2010

To me the rock skipping cue is my biggest heartburn with RVP. Rock skipping is throwing. Throwing is forming a loop with the arm to deliver energy which by definition is elbow leading/bat drag as defined on Siggy's site. How to fix it? It's generally all part of their pattern. Fan the front leg open, drop the arms to line up with the pitch and cast your swing. I would disagree there's a loss of whip. I would say there's a delay of whip. Classic bat drag hitters commonly show suprising power. It just takes them too long to develop it. So back to how to fix it. There are some demos on here of drills. I use constraints to break the pattern and force better movement starting with taking away the stride and anchoring the front foot. I slow the movement down to the point where they can create good movement. Then work up from there. I suggest studying Siggy's site to make sure we are talking about the same thing. I suppose RVP would have you use video comparison and the awareness that creates to work on the problem. Surely they have more drills to deal with it than that rock skipping thing? Want to end a conversation with Slaught ask him about the criticisms of his rock skipping cue. If RVP can't do it for you my recommendation is Englishbey.

http://imageevent.com/siggy/hitting/analysis?n=0&z=9&c=4&x=0&m=20&w=0&p=0

crankermo · Feb 14, 2010

Mark,

I agree 100% with everything you said. We modified the rock skipping drill to only show the girls where the elbow shoud be and how it felt there versus the wrong placement. Clips 23 and 24 on Siggy's site epitomize what we are seeing throughout our entire team. The swings look great with the naked eye. Where are the demo's on how to fix this? I've been working with my daughter from the ground up trying to fix this. We do dry swings slowly to see and feel the correct placement but as soon as she faces live pitching she reverts back to what's "natural" to her. Guess we just need to spend more time breaking down the old muscle memory with the new correct muscle memory. I appreciate any advice you can give. Thanks.

Mark H · Feb 14, 2010

As soon as the focus is on hitting the ball her mind reverts back to it's "hit ball" programming. Don't jump from slow dry swings to bp. Ramp it up with dry swings, then tee work, then soft toss then front toss, then bp, then games ALWAYS asking her to keep the goal in mind of a good swing and if she hits the ball that's a bonus. She can work back and forth between static start no stride swings and full stride swings all the way through this. You can also do some one arm work using a small bat and holding the lead arm with the top hand. Englishbey has tons of stuff on this but you already bought RVP so I don't know that you want to make any more investments.

The part about the goal in her mind is a HUGE deal. As long as the goal in her mind as she trains is "hit ball" it's going to be difficult to work on programming changes. The training goal needs to be "good swing" for now even when she is ready to take this to a game. And you and the other coaches need to be on board with this. Praise her and them for a great swing even if she misses the ball a foot. The results will come. When the good swing is automatic, finding the ball will not be a problem.

JC heir · Feb 15, 2010

after fighting this with my own DD , I am now finding out that this seems to have epidemic proportions with young female hitters. Last practice I videoed 8 girls in our 14u organization, & found noticable bat drag problems with 7 of them. I can tell you I have found no easy miracle cures.

RayR · Feb 15, 2010

JC heir said:
after fighting this with my own DD , I am now finding out that this seems to have epidemic proportions with young female hitters. Last practice I videoed 8 girls in our 14u organization, & found noticable bat drag problems with 7 of them. I can tell you I have found no easy miracle cures.

I have found through front toss (where I can accurately hit locations) you can force a player to swing differently. I can throw low outside and low inside all day and with their old mechanics not be able to hit well at all. When they change their approach (sitting lower, keeping the hands inside and getting rid of the casting / bat draggy swing) they start hitting these locations.

I look for hitting the away pitch opposite field on a line and ripping the inside pitch down the 3B line fair. They will not be able to do this with their old mechanics.

I have been doing less drill work and more front toss as I feel the best medicine is failure to force change. Drill work is a time waster and just makes everyone feel like they have accomplished something. I would rather have them use that time to work on their fielding or throwing.

I will caution that this approach only works for the mentally tough players. Some players get extremely frustrated and will give up. But, then you get a sense of who your real players/students are.

RichK · Feb 15, 2010

Cranker, I'm in a very similar spot as you. Have a young 12U team, we early on identified a lot of bat drag, started working with RVP (not the analysis software, just the videos) and am now spending a lot of time absorbing what's on this site. We've worked a ton of dry/matrix swings, keys being to start with proper grip and 45 degree bat angle. Without starting properly there, the hand path ends up adjusting into a drag later. Next, really focus on firing hips first, shoulders follow, hands and barrel follow last to bat lag. That will create the leverage they need without the drag. Cue on leading the front elbow up the ramp as Howard says and the hand path tool shows. Check the wrist hinge and battle angle in bat lag position. Chances are, their wrists went weak sometime between set-up and initiating post-load causing drag-- often because they never fire their hips and thus flatten hands/drag bat to generate leverage. Also, tee up HIGH down the middle pitches. That forces them to solve some problems. I like to have them hit over a back obstacle, typically another tee, once they start getting fixed for negative feedback when they revert.

We've been able to "cure" about 7 or 8 of 12 of our girls any remnants of bat lag off a full tee swing in about six weeks. The other 4 we're still working with. More of them probably still drag against front-toss and live pitch where they fall back to what's comfortable, it will take more repetitions but it's a process -- hopefully they're on the right path and much better off than if they hadn't gotten started.

I agree with MTS that tee/drill work can be mentally challenging (to player AND coach when it isn't going well) though I'm hoping a positive attitude can push through it.

Good luck!

Hitter · Feb 15, 2010

Mark H said:
To me the rock skipping cue is my biggest heartburn with RVP. Rock skipping is throwing. Throwing is forming a loop with the arm to deliver energy which by definition is elbow leading/bat drag as defined on Siggy's site. How to fix it? It's generally all part of their pattern. Fan the front leg open, drop the arms to line up with the pitch and cast your swing. I would disagree there's a loss of whip. I would say there's a delay of whip. Classic bat drag hitters commonly show suprising power. It just takes them too long to develop it. So back to how to fix it. There are some demos on here of drills. I use constraints to break the pattern and force better movement starting with taking away the stride and anchoring the front foot. I slow the movement down to the point where they can create good movement. Then work up from there. I suggest studying Siggy's site to make sure we are talking about the same thing. I suppose RVP would have you use video comparison and the awareness that creates to work on the problem. Surely they have more drills to deal with it than that rock skipping thing? Want to end a conversation with Slaught ask him about the criticisms of his rock skipping cue. If RVP can't do it for you my recommendation is Englishbey.

Analysis

Mark

I have known Don for several years as I am sure you know Steve and if that is the only issue with RVP you are pretty close or they may be pretty close. I have never read any of Steve's material. The only thing I ever got from it was exactly what he said, it is the initial movement of the elbow coming down as IF you were to begin to skip a rock. We point out when teaching the elbow lowers and as we transition to connection the elbow is down and the hand is directly over the elbow and we term it as staying strong on the backside through connection and going into bat lag with the knob of the bat is leading the elbows as we turn and rotate as needed based on the location of the pitch. I never took it as the actual skipping of a rock since I knew how to skip a rock and pretty well I may add. However I could see where some people may misunderstand what was said verses implied. I do like the ball in the hand drill where he uses both hands to throw the ball as that is a really fast way to stop the bug squish in my opinion as I stand next to them with my foot against their outside edge foot.

I laughed when BM did the rock skipping scenario several months ago.....

Thanks Howard

Hitter · Feb 15, 2010

RichK said:
Cranker, I'm in a very similar spot as you. Have a young 12U team, we early on identified a lot of bat drag, started working with RVP (not the analysis software, just the videos) and am now spending a lot of time absorbing what's on this site. We've worked a ton of dry/matrix swings, keys being to start with proper grip and 45 degree bat angle. Without starting properly there, the hand path ends up adjusting into a drag later. Next, really focus on firing hips first, shoulders follow, hands and barrel follow last to bat lag. That will create the leverage they need without the drag. Cue on leading the front elbow up the ramp as Howard says and the hand path tool shows. Check the wrist hinge and battle angle in bat lag position. Chances are, their wrists went weak sometime between set-up and initiating post-load causing drag-- often because they never fire their hips and thus flatten hands/drag bat to generate leverage. Also, tee up HIGH down the middle pitches. That forces them to solve some problems. I like to have them hit over a back obstacle, typically another tee, once they start getting fixed for negative feedback when they revert.

We've been able to "cure" about 7 or 8 of 12 of our girls any remnants of bat lag off a full tee swing in about six weeks. The other 4 we're still working with. More of them probably still drag against front-toss and live pitch where they fall back to what's comfortable, it will take more repetitions but it's a process -- hopefully they're on the right path and much better off than if they hadn't gotten started.

I agree with MTS that tee/drill work can be mentally challenging (to player AND coach when it isn't going well) though I'm hoping a positive attitude can push through it.

Good luck!

Richk

In combination with what you are doing as to the matrix drill....also tell them it is OK to rock a little as they flip the ball into the net as getting momentum is difficult at that position which is why we do it so the body IS more aware of what we are programming it to do. Then next thing we do in sequence is the hand over drill so they will feel probably for the first time is extension. Listen when they first start it and you will hear them hitting the ball harder with their lead hand verses both. Then after about 10 swings have them use both and they usually get that big smile. Now work in the face the fire drill and it usually puts it all together for them. It is a progression of getting them to feel something many have never experienced for the first time and that is momentum and extension or as some say, "I am hitting the ball harder now coach!"

I am glad to read you are finding improvements and the kids are having fun.

Thanks Howard

Mark H · Feb 15, 2010

I know he doesn't intend it that way. I listened to him explain that at the Ronald McDonald one year. But it's a poor cue ripe for misunderstanding. I like his ML swing catalog and comparison software. His stuff is a huge step forward compared to Mike's previous material. I appreciate that.

How to fix elbows leading the hands at connection?

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