Teaching Hitting and the HIP COIL

Wellphyt said:

One of the biggest revelations I've had over the past 24 months is that a lot of the actions that get taught happen naturally. IMO one of the actions that happens naturally is the opening of the front side. Two years ago at one practice I made sure to watch each girl on our travel team as they warmed up throwing overhand. To my surprise, the front thigh of every one of them rolled over prior to their front foot landing; just as Hodge describes in his video. That was enough to convince me that if the girls are taught to hit using the overhand throw as a model, the front side will open correctly automatically.

Click to expand...

Ah, I see. I remember that from the Hodge segment posted on the other site.

College coaches do tamper with, tinker with and totally fubar swings. I wish I had an insight as to why. If you recruit a kid for their swing and their production why on earth once you see they are successful at the college level would you even begin to tinker. If they cannot hit college level pitching then by all means your the coach do your job and do what you have to do. But good grief to make a total change for the sake of change? Come on coaches use common sense. Oops I forgot its college. Common sense and Academia are polar opposites.


Tim

Bouldersdad said:

College coaches do tamper with, tinker with and totally fubar swings. I wish I had an insight as to why. If you recruit a kid for their swing and their production why on earth once you see they are successful at the college level would you even begin to tinker. If they cannot hit college level pitching then by all means your the coach do your job and do what you have to do. But good grief to make a total change for the sake of change? Come on coaches use common sense. Oops I forgot its college. Common sense and Academia are polar opposites.


Tim

Click to expand...

We agree!? College coaches tamper with swings for a very simple reason, IMO. Most of them (not all, I think Lotief, Enquist, Candrea, and Pat Murphy have at least a vague idea) haven't the slightest idea how to make small modifications to anything that even slightly resembles a good swing in order to get a player "in the pattern/sequence". So what do they do? They teach something that they KNOW how to modify. And quite simply, that something is the "knob to the ball, push through contact" linear.

So they teach it. And then they complain when their hitters can't hit.

Wow!! I thought it was just HS parents that knew so much more than the coaches!! Wonder why more parents aren't recruited by universities to handle the teams? Geez!!!!!

Bouldersdad said:

College coaches do tamper with, tinker with and totally fubar swings. I wish I had an insight as to why. If you recruit a kid for their swing and their production why on earth once you see they are successful at the college level would you even begin to tinker. If they cannot hit college level pitching then by all means your the coach do your job and do what you have to do. But good grief to make a total change for the sake of change? Come on coaches use common sense. Oops I forgot its college. Common sense and Academia are polar opposites.


Tim

Click to expand...

Some of the kids that I work with from college tell me that the hitting instruction is really bad. Some of the drills they show me, that they are required to do, make me wonder. Would be interesting if anyone did a study of various colleges in which batting stats where tracked from freshman year through senior year ... wonder what percentage of programs end up having kids perform worse over the years?

pstein said:

We agree!? College coaches tamper with swings for a very simple reason, IMO. Most of them (not all, I think Lotief, Enquist, Candrea, and Pat Murphy have at least a vague idea) haven't the slightest idea how to make small modifications to anything that even slightly resembles a good swing in order to get a player "in the pattern/sequence". So what do they do? They teach something that they KNOW how to modify. And quite simply, that something is the "knob to the ball, push through contact" linear.

So they teach it. And then they complain when their hitters can't hit.

Click to expand...

Some colleges actually teach arms first. One kid told me that their college coach didn't want 'stretch' in their swing ... she was instructed to resist bringing her hands back as she brought her hips forward. Coaches made her do a ton of drills to get her to stop loading her hands rearward .... then she wanted me to show her how to hit with that limitation.

pstein said:

We agree!? College coaches tamper with swings for a very simple reason, IMO. Most of them (not all, I think Lotief, Enquist, Candrea, and Pat Murphy have at least a vague idea) haven't the slightest idea how to make small modifications to anything that even slightly resembles a good swing in order to get a player "in the pattern/sequence". So what do they do? They teach something that they KNOW how to modify. And quite simply, that something is the "knob to the ball, push through contact" linear.

So they teach it. And then they complain when their hitters can't hit.

Click to expand...

The linear weight shift was removed and rotational mechanics put in its place. Some kids that are taught to hit that way hits great, each to their own. Mine wasnt taught that, never swung that way and struggled with it.

Wellphyt said:

One of the biggest revelations I've had over the past 24 months is that a lot of the actions that get taught happen naturally. IMO one of the actions that happens naturally is the opening of the front side. Two years ago at one practice I made sure to watch each girl on our travel team as they warmed up throwing overhand. To my surprise, the front thigh of every one of them rolled over prior to their front foot landing; just as Hodge describes in his video. That was enough to convince me that if the girls are taught to hit using the overhand throw as a model, the front side will open correctly automatically.

Click to expand...

I'm hearing a circular argument here! I'm an advocate of the learn to throw to hit model, but if they haven't been taught to throw properly, which many haven't, then there's nothing automatic about the front side opening correctly when they hit. IMO, its a teach, but its a teach during throwing that carries over to hitting, rather than a hitting teach.

Greenmonsters said:

I'm hearing a circular argument here! I'm an advocate of the learn to throw to hit model, but if they haven't been taught to throw properly, which many haven't, then there's nothing automatic about the front side opening correctly when they hit. IMO, its a teach, but its a teach during throwing that carries over to hitting, rather than a hitting teach.

Click to expand...

None of the girls on my travel team other than my DD had been taught by me to throw overhand. Yet the front thigh on all them rolled over when it was suppose to. Most still didn't throw correctly, because they had been taught to take the ball out of their glove and go right to the "L" position, putting their arm out of sync with their lower body. If you take my DD out of the mix, I had ten girls who had never been taught anything about their front thigh rolling over, all roll over their front thigh right before their front foot landed. Not one of the girls knew they did it.

I have found I do not have to teach kids how or when to roll over the front thigh. Instead what I focus on is how to sync up their upper body actions with the front thigh roll over. I have found that many hitting issues are sync related. When talking hitting, sync related issues IMO are best described in terms of loading. Saying that kids are out of sync when they hit, is the same to me as saying that they don't load correctly.

If the kids use the palm down hand break action to load the hands; they will continue to load when their front thigh rolls over and their back elbow works underneath their hands on their way to throwing the barrel. So the teachable action that I start with is loading of the hands during the stride using the palm down hand break action, while keeping the front side closed.

The phrase "what loads, unloads" is more than just a catchy phrase IMO.

SBFAMILY said:

Don't bring up Valpo to Tim. You are correct MESS UP! I have worked with Slaught and I know exactly why he doesn't like Mike. There are good and bad coaches in every sport. Just like those that read a book or watch RVP or a DVD think they understand what that person is saying, then they think they are an expert! I have found it is better to talk to the person to understand what they are trying to say, like I have found that the smart coaches know who to help them teach hitting. Interesting you bring up Alabama, I do know who they call! Here the OSU coach got fired, and had no clue how to teach. I worked with one of her players this weekend, and it was sad how bad it was. Coaches pick up a phone and know who to call. Even Don Slaught has those he calls for advice.

Click to expand...

We live in an information age where information is readily available. Slaught's videos are well done and self explanatory. The way Slaught relates the overhand throw to hitting is outstanding IMO. Additionally, Hodge's overhand throw material that I have, happens to be done in a manner that makes it very easy to translate to hitting.

Williams' material is also self explanatory. If more fastpitch players did what Ted taught, we would have more hitters like Katie Cochran.

What many hitting instructors fail to do, is swing a bat. I find swinging a bat to be very helpful in understanding what and how to teach. Understanding how to throw overhand and how to translate throwing to hitting is also very helpful. I would go so far as to say that using that approach borders on being idiot proof.

There was a video clip posted on here a while back of an Alabama hitting camp, where the kids were being taught to get their weight back by shifting weight onto their back foot. The Alabama hitters that I have clips of get their weight back by coiling their hips. Some kids do it right despite what gets taught.