Fastpitch hitting: sometimes you just have to say huh?

**Ken Krause** · 06-19-2012, 10:50 PM

Last night I was doing a hitting tune-up with one of my students. She'd been hitting the ball pretty well, but over the weekend she struggled a little bit. She told me her coaches told her she was dropping her back shoulder and her hands.

I just sort of rolled my eyes because usually when people say that they don't know what they're looking at. But then, before she stepped up to the tee I discovered the cause of the problem. She quietly said to herself "Hands to the ball."

"Where did you get that?" I asked. "Did those knuckleheads tell you that?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Ok then riddle me this," I said. "If you take your hands to the ball, what are you going to do?"

She thought for about a second, went through the motion of doing it and the lightbulb came on.

"I'm going to drop my hands," she said.

And there you have it. Her coaches were telling her to do the exact thing they were saying was a problem. It's no wonder so many players have trouble hitting.

This is why you have to be careful about what you say as a coach. It also helps to actually know what you're doing instead of repeating the same bad advice that limited your own playing career.

Most importantly, when you're instructing a skill, listen to what you're saying. You just may find what you're saying, and the result you're trying to achieve, are at odds with each other.

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**Westwind** · 06-25-2012, 06:14 AM

Ken- I have been thinking about this very issue. Had a coach who loved this saying and I think it made life hard for more than one hitter.

What do you think of this instead: "Your front elbow is like GPS, it should take you to the ball". In other words you get on the plane of the pitch with the front elbow and the hands and bat head follow suit. What do you think?

BTW, this cue was stolen from an Il State camp. Their hitting program is pretty darn similar to the good advice I hear on DFP and made more sense to me than most of the hitting advice I hear elsewhere.

**Axe** · 06-25-2012, 04:22 PM

Building on what Westwind said I usually use "drive your elbow at the pitcher" when I see a hand dropper, especially for 10U and 8U Rec hitters (I'm not a professional hitting coach). Seems to get them on plane. Any other alternatives to "hands to the ball"

**Ken Krause** · 06-27-2012, 05:15 PM

Westwind, I probably wouldn't use that either, for the same reason (unless I'm misunderstanding, which is possible). The only thing I want the hitter thinking about taking to the ball is the bat head.

That's a big reason why I want the bat angled down instead of level to the ground, and want the hitter working from high to low unless the pitcher is know to not throw anything more than thigh-high.

One thing I will tell hitters is to take their nose toward the ball. In other words, if the pitch is high you don't bend at the waist. If it's down, you bend at the waist (forward, like taking a bow -- hard to explain in words), maintaining the same basic position with your hands and arms as if you didn't bend at all.

No, I'm not saying get your nose down to the level of the ball. That would be even worse than hands to the ball. But what I find is on lower pitches a lot of hitters still stand tall, then drop their hands down to go after the ball. I want them to move in toward the ball while still maintaining the connection between the hands and back shoulder. When they do that they can use their upper body muscles as well as the lower body to hit a low pitch, as opposed to standing tall and taking the chest, back and core out of it.

Hope that makes sense. Even as I write it it sounds confusing and contradictory. But if you keep the idea of taking the barrel/fat part of the bat to the ball as the first guide, I think the rest will make sense. I can show it in about two seconds with a bat, ball and tee, but I don't have any of those (or a camera) available.

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