Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Thu Jun 2 09:21:04 2005

>>> The left arm needs to blast off the chest during the pivot. Putting the towel under the left arm ansd swinging hard is a good way to break a rib. As VJ Singh did doing this sort of drill. <<<

I disagree. For pitches middle-in, the lead-arm should not “blast off the chest during the pivot” and unless the towel is rolled into a big hard knot, this drill could not cause a rib injury (VJ Singh included). Many of my students have performed this drill (using a heavy bag) with great success.

Mjb, there are countless clips of good rotational hitter’s lead-arms remaining across much of their chest during rotation on pitches middle-in. As with Ken Griffey Jr., http://www.youthbaseballcoaching.com/mpg/griffey_ken.mpeg , the towel would not fall until after contact.

Jack Mankin