Posted by: Kajun Coach (bkamm17@bellsouth.net) on Thu Dec 4 11:59:40 2003

Regarding a previous post, here is my opinion from experience:

Every time I hear a coach telling the hitter to raise the back elbow up, I cringe. No one can explain the true benefit from raising the back elbow. If you ask a coach why he tells his batter to raise the back elbow, he CAN NOT honestly explain "why"; all he can say is that it will help him hit the ball better. The only benefit a high back elbow has is that it causes an uppercut for a better chance of hitting a homerun. This philosophy will ruin a hitter. The majority of the time that a batter has the back elbow up, he/she will either hit a pop-up or a week ground ball. I have watched many professional ball games and if you really notice, the majority of the professional hitters with a high back elbow has a batting average under .300. They are not worried about averages, they are worried about homeruns.

I have been giving private instruction for 5 years. If you watch a young hitter's video in slow motion, you will see that the first thing the back elbow does is drop to the hitters side. Along with that, the wrist follows causing the bat to drop. The young hitter is not strong enough to regain the bat angle. It causes the batter to swing under the ball causing either a pop-up or a weak ground ball. The professional hitter can get away with it because most of them can bench press 3-400 lbs. No one should ever copy what the professionals do; they are special athletes.