hitting off the front foot

[indianacrushers]

Does anybody know any good drills to help keep my daughter from hitting off her front foot ?

 

[CoogansBluff]

Most of the weight should be on the front foot, so you might need to tell more about what she's doing or even post a video. What you don't want is to lunge, or to have the hitter's weight 'over' the front foot.

 

[indianacrushers]

yea thats what im talking about. she lunges after the ball. she does better on faster pitching.

 

[jbooth]

yea thats what im talking about. she lunges after the ball. she does better on faster pitching.

She needs to focus on keeping the head centered between the feet, and that is done by feeling a sensation of pushing back immediately, when the front foot gets weighted. The front leg is what is used to stop forward momentum and turn it into rotation.

 

[CoyoteCoach]

Generally, I find that a longer stride cures the lunging. Lunging is really just your daughter transferring her weight out over and past her front foot, so her lead knee flexes to lower her center of gravity to keep from toppling over.

If she focuses on a longer stride and keeping her lead leg mostly straight, that will set an axis for her weight to spin around rather than past, keeping her balanced.

 

[straightleg]

Sometime you can use a walk up hitting drill off of a tee to feel the front foot being weighted. Hard to lunge on a walk up drill, if you do you will really feel it.


SL

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Indianacrushers, a lunging issue can often be traced back to the rear leg usage. Check for signs of rear leg extension during the unloading of the rear leg ... i.e., the rear leg getting longer.

Very often, a hitter that lunges will have a poor load. Coiling the rear hip, as the hips are carried forward (Forward-by-Coiling) ... a feeling of loading the rear leg, in a semi-rotational sense, is often an area that can be enhanced to correct the issue. If you put a feel sensor in the inside portion of the upper rear leg, you will have a feel of 'staying back', while 'going forward' ... going back, yet forward ... loading while moving forward. In addition ... having the hands load rearward, while the hips are brought forward, is the sequence that needs to be married to this to help prevent lunging. One cue that may help is to "stay within your legs" ... a feeling of loading the "inside" of the rear leg and unloading into the "inside" of the front leg. It can also be described as having a goal to remain 'balanced'. Again ... the fix to a lunging issue can often be traced back to an inferior loading of the rear leg and not synchronizing the loading of the hands with that action.

 

[indianacrushers]

thanks for all the replies. we will work on this.

 

[Mike]

If you put a feel sensor in the inside portion of the upper rear leg,

Where can I buy one of these? And does it need to be surgically implanted?

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Where can I buy one of these? And does it need to be surgically implanted?

Simply place a focus on that area of your body. With practice you'll learn to capture the sensation and feel of certain under-the-hood movements/actions. If you aren't performing such under-the-hood tests, then you are missing out on a big segment of learning/teaching ... IMO anyway.