Posted by: Torque (roscoethewestie@comcast.net) on Tue Mar 24 20:40:32 2009

> I went out and got a Heavy Bag, Now what?
>
> 1) How do I set up my players in relation to the heavy bag?
>
> 2) What am I exactly looking for to judge success or failure?
>
> 3) Anything else that might help

Set bag deep in the stance with encouragement to generate as much speed as possible. Rear elbow slotted in L. Lead elbow with very little bend at contact with the bag. Rear hand with palm up to sky at contact with the bag. CHP and THT. Swing hard and hit bag hard. Bat square with bag. Chin and eyes down to contact point with the bag. Front toe/foot slightly closed to closed at contact. Make sure rear foot doesn't over rotate when squishing the bug (rear hip loses power if rear foot over rotated). Work from ground up when working on the swing and communicating so hitter gets used to the order/consistency. They also tend to focus on generating rotation from ground up which is where power comes from and they understand from an early age power doesn't primarily come from the upper body. The hands and the bat are just along for the ride generated from lower body, chp, and rear elbow L slot. There is no failure as it is a slow/persistent work to perfection. Success takes a while and if you can get them to understand what you are talking about with rotation they will have a great knowledge base to take with them because most probably won't perfect it during your time with them. Get their parents on board too so they understand what you are teaching and refer them to this web site so they have a knowledge base for their future. Give the kids homework to go to this web site and watch the hitting clip and ask the parents to watch it too. That is great you have chosen to teach them rotational hitting.