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Too many hitters are being taught to "stay tall on the backside through the swing." With a back shoulder/side that is forced up the whole swing, a hitter has to throw his hands out away from his body early and "chop" down through the plane of the pitch—leaving hardly any room for error in timing the pitch. Many fouled off pitches, weak fly balls to right and roll-overs to third (RH hitter) are the result.

Even though great hitters may not consciously think to “drop the back shoulder” when they go to attack the ball, this is in fact what happens as they start the swing because they have very little tension in their body. In this state, the opening of the hips and the firing of the bat cause the back shoulder to drop naturally as the back elbow fires down into the ‘slot’ above the back hip.

When I have seen a hitter struggle with this concept, I tell them to take all tension out of the upper body—particularly the back shoulder/arm and neck area. Also to level the shoulders out. Everything becomes more natural instantly. I have even gone as far to pitch slow-pitch softball pitches to these guys and tell them I want them to hit HR's to center field to get them on a correct level to slight uppercut swing through the hitting zone. They feel like they are swinging straight up, but on film they are finally level. Then I go to a baseball speed pitch again right after that and the flatter bat path through the zone results in many more line drives. From here, the hitter wants to make the change.