No Stride, Wide Stance

julray said:

Just curious, why don't more younger kids adopt the no stride wide stance hitting style. We always talk about separation, walking the hands from the front foot. Well for simplicity sake, wide stance and no stride already takes care of this, load the hands, front heel is already planted, there's your separation. It seems like most kids biggest problem is keeping their hands back as their front foot moves forward, no stride would resolve this.

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Well, they did in my area. Big proponents of this in my league at the time, Pujols fanboys if you will. I think there have been some great replies already. But yeah, it can simplify and produce results at the young ages. The problem is as you get older the results will go away unless you've build in the sorts of mechanics that are present in rdbass's clip.

Depending on what level you play, as soon as 12 or 14u for sure, if you can't generate power you are mostly out. Ground balls = outs, weakly hit balls = outs.

I literally saw kids trained this way have diminishing returns because in order to use this style you probably need to be pretty strong and coordinated like Pujols to generate power. A lot of the smaller thinner girls cannot generate a lot of power with this style. And as some of the old timers have remarked before, guess what when you've coached movement and athleticism out of a swing sometimes it's hard to get back, or impossible.

I disagree about having to be strong. DD started hitting to the fence as a 90lb kid using the no stride method. She also used a Rocketech which I credit a lot.

One size dfinitely doesn't fit all.

on a similar note, a 15 yo player on our U18 team has a no stride/no load swing. just starts with the bat back, pointing over the umpires head, and swings forward. Served her well thru U14. she had the lowest bat speed on our team but she did hit the ball pretty well given her unorthodox style. always batted in the top half of the order. she is a strong kid and is basically just putting the bat on the ball and it carries. does better with slower pitching, tho as you might suspect, her best hits were against faster pitching. just not as many hits.

The stride it's self is just for timing. I've seen a ton of successful no stride hitters. The biggest problem is you have to sell out and stick with it and keep other "coaches" away from her.

625ender said:

The stride it's self is just for timing. I've seen a ton of successful no stride hitters. The biggest problem is you have to sell out and stick with it and keep other "coaches" away from her.

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I agree 100%, no stride doesn't mean the batter is generating less power if they are using their hips properly, but that's the same thing with striding as well. I've always been taught that the stride is a timing mechanism. I see way to many kids starting their hands forward before their front foot is planted, that's a huge power leak, and no stride simplifies that aspect.

That's the most frustrating thing of all, my 11 yr old can hit over 200 ft. The coaches see this, and the first thing they do is screw around with her swing("close your stance", "take a step", etc) because they don't understand the no stride approach. Until this year she got a chance to breathe a sigh of relief. Her head coach noticed how much bat speed she has, and how hard she was hitting the ball. He told the other assistant coaches to lay off. Best year she had hitting yet because she wasn't stressed and could concentrate on other areas.

results will very, if the no stride batter doesn't get any coil then it also is a huge loss of power. Yes it might be stupid simple, but it just comes down to what the batters abilities are. I like a stride just because to me it is a slow fluid movement. I don't like the body to be too static.

nanotech14 said:

results will very, if the no stride batter doesn't get any coil then it also is a huge loss of power. Yes it might be stupid simple, but it just comes down to what the batters abilities are. I like a stride just because to me it is a slow fluid movement. I don't like the body to be too static.

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Agreed regarding the coil, same goes for those hitters that do stride, and I am not being argumentative, but the body shouldn't be static with no stride either.

Cheers

who's arguing? Really in all reality, most all batters have a stride, it is plain an simple fact. But if not having a stride works for your dd, then more power to her.

So cheers to you also.

InsidePitch said:

I disagree about having to be strong. DD started hitting to the fence as a 90lb kid using the no stride method. She also used a Rocketech which I credit a lot.

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So did she lift her foot up and put it down or literally not pick it up at all?

Just without good instruction it can lead to a very all arms and upper half type approach.

No stride approach is a great way to teach / feel proper rear hip coil. This coil starts at release of the ball. The pressure of the coil is felt in the rear foot wanting to turn clockwise (RH hitter) Having the front toe (ball of foot) on the ground creates more leverage to learn this.