Fresno, CA - elite kelltlebell strength and conditioning expert Pavel Tsatsouline says that the two best ways for a high level athlete to connect their mid section to the hands, is through mid section and grip strength training.

Not only is grip strength important, but how to hold onto something that you have to swing or throw is just as critical.

A commonly taught practice in baseball or softball hitting circles is to align the "door knocking knuckles" around the handle before you swing.

Well, Tyler Doerner of the Hitting Performance Lab did a baseball/softball swing experiment using the Zepp Baseball app to find out how effective using a "door knocking knuckle" aligned grip was.  He:

• Took 100 swings using a grip that aligned his "door knocking knuckles", and then
• Took another 100 swings using a grip (HPL calls this the "Gorilla Grip") where the handle of the bat was aligned in the middle of the hand (bottom of fingers, top meat of the hand).

The results showed Tyler, on average, increased his bat and hand speed by 2-mph each, and decreased his Time To Impact by .005 with the "Gorilla Grip".  And according to Joey Myers, founder of HittingPerformanceLab.com, "In the MLB, real money is made in tenths, hundreths, if not thousanths of a second."

In other words, every split second counts for a MLB hitter to decide whether to swing or not.