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Marc
Softball peak Performance Coach
www.softballperformance.com
Welcome to the Hitting Forum!
This forum is specifically dedicated to any hitting-related question. Feel to post your questions or thoughts about hitting here.
We will answer you!
Marc
Softball peak Performance Coach
www.softballperformance.com
Hitting
I have what you would call spinners. They open so quickly, that they are not able to utilize they're hips. We have been working on it all year and nothing seems to work. Also, they are just content with putting the bat on the ball to say "they didn't strike out". Iteach a wider stance, hands inside ball and to the pitcher (knob) and long follow through. Any suggestions on the spinning would be great. Thanks.
As a coach, find the most CONFIDENT stance for each batter at various levels of speed.Originally Posted by softballnut33
A wider stance is usually used for a "high speed pitcher". Meaning the upper body does most of the work. However, they can't lose sight of the "unwind from bottom to top -- Utilizing BOTH Rotational and Linear Methods, COMBINED, for the most effective hit. -- Not just one or the other, that's one of the biggest challenges a Batting Coach let the player determine the comfort level to be successful.
Perhaps the girls are not being faced with that level of pitching during practices/tournaments/scrimmages. The "wider" stance will only be effective if the pitcher you face is throwing at 'upper level high school-college' level speeds... Something to consider.... This is a game of React - Not - Expect.
Even with the advanced "high school" pitchers, the girls of today are being trained to "adapt" to the higher degree of speed. Meaning a slightly more closed stance then what is considered the "norm" at College Level.
Letting your batters find Their Own "comfortable/CONFIDENT" stance is what is important. They are all different as individual players, and what works for one batter may not work for another.
Hope that helps!
Spinners
Softball,
Take their stride away from them and make them internally rotate into the groin area with their hips. Right now I would guess they are externally rotating (Throwing the front foot wide open and allowing the hips to spin out. This will stop the front side from spinning out and will create tension in the core as the back side hip rotates forward.
Planting the stride foot is the very first thing I do with my students until they can learn to set up in the correct posture and rotate in and effective manner with the hips. Most kids suffer from rotational deficit.
Once you feel they are getting better then you can have them lift the front foot heal and just drop it back into the same closed position. This will allow them to get into vertical movement into rotation creating a more powerful swing and acceleration to the ball.
Good luck
Elliott.
Softball,
When you say they are spinners, do you mean they open their hips up before they get their hands through the zone, thereby relying entirely on their arms for power? If so, my daughter struggles with this from time to time as well. What we found that helped was a lot of work on the batting tee, focusing on getting the hands through the zone before opening up and following through. A tip that we were given was to have the batter point the thumb on their bottom hand toward their body and drag it across their chest as they started the swing. Because the focus was on this, the hands got through to impact and then the hips naturally followed. I don't know if that will help or not but it really helped my daughter.
Thunder
Not sure that I would use that advice. That will take the hands to the ball and will cause disconnection in the swing. Some refer to it as getting on the merry go round dependent on if the hitter pulls the hands inward as they are dragging that thumb across the chest. Then all of a sudden the hands have to adjust to the ball and solid contact is probably not going to happen.
While it may accomplish a way to correct one problem it will introduce a number of other problems that will affect your swing plane to the ball. We try to do everything possible to maintain the swing plane in a manner that will create the rising line drive into the outfield or in the best case scenario over the fence.
Elliott.
Over rotating
Elliott --
A local "hitting guru" is preaching to point (open) the front foot to allow the hips to clear and provide greater trunk rotation. I was (and will now remain) skeptical, but it didn't click as to why until I read your post above. Thanks, and Marc, this is a great place!
Tim
Elliott,
What you said about the thumb makes sense to me. Do you have a method you could share that promotes getting the hands through and the bat to contact prior to the front shoulder and hips opening up and releasing all the power potential? We have tried what you mentioned above with the wider stance and that did not do the trick. The shoulder and hips still opened up before the bat was anywhere near contact. It was still somewhere in the lag stages and by the time it got to contact, the only power left was in the arms. That resulted in nothing but week hits to the right side (right handed batter). Using the thumb drag method, the should stays in, the hips open later and she is driving line drives all over the place. While I have seen improvement using this method, I would be open to other methods which may not affect other areas of the swing as you mentioned above. I'm in no way a hitting guru so I rely on instructors and coaches for information and I welcome any advice you might have.
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