The trick to the machine is getting the foot down early and the hands back and not trying to time the ball being fed. Approach it like it is a 2-strike swing. The good thing is the machine has so much live spin and velo that you don’t have to put a lot behind the swing to really drive it, just gotta barrel it up.DD’s new team uses one and she hates it. She struggles with timing. The HC simulates an arm circle which helps. But she still doesn’t like it.
Get her in front toss or live pitching and she’s a different hitter.
The trick to the machine is getting the foot down early and the hands back and not trying to time the ball being fed. Approach it like it is a 2-strike swing. The good thing is the machine has so much live spin and velo that you don’t have to put a lot behind the swing to really drive it, just gotta barrel it up.
The one wheel machines are even tougher because they throw pure backspin. Essentially a riseball. Most kids are underneath and because of this you really have to attack the top of the ball.
I do not advocate actually hitting like what I have described above is a normal approach to hitting, but I found success off the machine approaching it this way.
I grew up with my dads BP and got really spoiled. He threw great BP. My college coach loved the machine. Once I started approaching it with the mindset that it was a challenge and I was going to “figure it out” I had much more success off it. I don’t think it necessarily translated to games due to the different timing, but hitting it well in practice helped keep me in the lineup for games.I appreciate this. They use a one wheel machine. As you described she’s always just underneath it. She’ll adjust but is never comfortable. I’ll suggest what you’ve mentioned.
I also use pitching machine for pop flies when they are in 12u.
This is correct. Front toss can train girls to miss under on live pitching due to gravity. Fly balls in front toss would be a swing and miss under in a live game. Focus on front toss needs to be low line drives.Keep in mind that getting closer simulates the reaction time from release to contact of faster pitching, but a front toss pitch is in the hitting zone for longer and is affected by gravity more than true velocity. That said, it's still very valuable work when true velocity is not available, and it's often the best we can do with what we have.
I think it is easier to focus on getting the front foot “up” on time instead of down on time. If it gets up on time it most likely will get down on timeThe trick to the machine is getting the foot down early and the hands back and not trying to time the ball being fed. Approach it like it is a 2-strike swing. The good thing is the machine has so much live spin and velo that you don’t have to put a lot behind the swing to really drive it, just gotta barrel it up.
The one wheel machines are even tougher because they throw pure backspin. Essentially a riseball. Most kids are underneath and because of this you really have to attack the top of the ball.
I do not advocate actually hitting like what I have described above is a normal approach to hitting, but I found success off the machine approaching it this way.