Thread: more drills please:)

Hi all. My DD seams to be getting into the habit of putting too much weight over her front foot...sometimes loosing her balance. I'm not sure when this started, but she has been pulling all of the balls down 3rd lately. Any good drills to stop this? We had been working on sequence a lot this year and I think it started when she was trying to get more "movement" and started going forward when "un-coiling". I thought maybe just have her hitting off a tee with it back a little deeper in the zone so she gets out of the habit of hitting in front of the plate????
Thanks!

My DD "lunges" at times on slower pitches.When ask why the lunge she tells me she was going out to get the ball.What I do is face the tee to the back of a back stop.I then have my DD hit the ball first straight up the middle.We are lucky our back stop is set up that has a middle a rt and a left side.Fence post mark this out for us.You could hang a rope in the fence to show middle.(search Straightleg or Hitter they have exact measuremente of how far out the tee should be and how high) Now you can see where your DD is hitting the ball.In my DD case if the ball goes to the left of the backstop I see her pulling her frt shoulder and head out to soon.Your DD will see where the ball would go and most times are able to figure out how to make the ball go straighter.You can move the tee around for inside or outside pitches.Where it goes into the backstop you can figure out what was right about the swing or wrong.Also you don't have to chase the balls to far.

Thanks for the help. I'll take her out tonight and try some of the drills. It's too bad it's going to be one of the hottest days of the year. I'll have to keep it short since she has 4 games tomorrow.
Someone actually suggested she try a heavier bat. She's currently using a CF5 33/23 but wants to move to her Freak 33/23 in the fall because it actually is a bit heavier and she likes the feel of it better. Plus, she'll be doing shot put in winter track and will probably be getting stronger. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm a learning like you.DD does the same type of lunging.Tell DD head must be between the legs or even with back leg.Look at her back leg when she is hitting does it straighting? My DD sometimes when swinging her back leg will be straight, which causes her to come forward.Does this on missed balls more.DD needs to have a bend in back leg.Needs to lock out frt leg and push back a little on frt leg when swinging and ''sit'' on the back leg.Good luck and remember sometimes you take a step back to go forward and I'm sure as she works through this she still is alot further along then she was before we started learning.

Thanks Rdbass. I read everything about your journey. It sure is hard work, but my DD and I have never been closer because of the time being spent together. You are correct about 2 steps forward, one step back for sure!

Originally Posted by softballphreak

That will certainly help.

Also, live pitching or front toss, have her do a LOT of hitting to right field. When working with a player the other evening I had her do one burpee for each hit that didn't go to right field. That puts a little more desire into hitting it to the opposite field. If your whole batting practice was opposite field hitting you haven't hurt a thing. Then if she's a little early it will be more toward the left center gap.

Tell her to focus on letting the ball get deep in the hitting zone.

Some have mentioned using a heavier bat "to slow the hands down". Don't even think about that.

PS: She will HATE opposite field batting practice. So be ready for the groaning.

So as an update...we've been hitting at least 100 balls a day since this post. She's been doing great hitting to right field (and hasn't complained In fact, we've been doing long tee drills and she's been placing the ball pretty much wherever I put the net now.
We've noticed that even though she's letting the ball get deep and placing the hits well, she seems to get over her front foot still. I guess this is an issue with not having tilt...?? Should I bring this up to her or just have her do low tee also with a high finish. I took a video of her swing during live pitching last night. We were both frustrated when we looked at the video because it looked like she didn't do anything we worked on in the last few months. Very little load, mostly arm swing. The wierd thing was two went over 200 feet but the swing looked nothing like when we were practicing. I didn't say much to her but "we'll work on it in practice."

Transferring the 'tee' swing over to 'live' is another step of progression. It would really help if you could do some tee swings, then front toss, tee swings, front toss....working on duplicating movements with a moving ball.

I've never thought of mixing them up like that. So simple, but a good idea. She usually wants to go straight to front toss but starts off with the tee. Thanks.

I sent you the bucket drill that might help. One thing that might help is practice going to toe touch bare foot, FFS talks about this in his posts. You can see what is going on better. Make sure she is landing and keeping the weight on the large toes or inside the pyramid. This is a drill I like them doing inside during the winter in front of a mirror. When the land they think they can wave the little toe and say this is for you to the pitcher.