Paticience at the plate

FiveFrameSwing said:

Why do you believe this is helpful?

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Seems like you already have an opinion. How about you offer it and maybe we dialogue, instead of you asking an ambush question?

Cowdogz said:

Seems like you already have an opinion. How about you offer it and maybe we dialogue, instead of you asking an ambush question?

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You are the one that made the recommendation. Only makes sense that you justify why you made the recommendation. I'm not here to guess what your logic is ... or lack thereof.

I've seen coaches use the tennis ball drill and I think we saw it at one or two college camps over the past couple years. Love to hear other people's thoughts. My DD was dong this drill over an off season maybe a year or so ago. Solid hitting in the cage. She went into high school and was still way out front. So I guess we didn't see much improvement. During her senior year she just tried letting the ball get as deep as possible forcing her to try and hit balls to opposite field. She did better but I can't say if this helped either way.

Fastpitch86 said:

I've seen coaches use the tennis ball drill and I think we saw it at one or two college camps over the past couple years. Love to hear other people's thoughts. My DD was dong this drill over an off season maybe a year or so ago. Solid hitting in the cage. She went into high school and was still way out front. So I guess we didn't see much improvement. During her senior year she just tried letting the ball get as deep as possible forcing her to try and hit balls to opposite field. She did better but I can't say if this helped either way.

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Smart idea ... let the ball get to your 'crush zone'.

Fastpitch86,

I like it as an outside-of-the-box tool. Occasionally, will apply it in certain scenarios. Training for hand/eye coordination, shorten/quicken reaction time and to stay on top of the high strike. A major caveat is the quality & consistency of the person who is bouncing the ball. So, if it's precise there can be benefits. If it's not, it's probably counter-productive.

It's a challenge for the kids & they're usually hesitant at first. Once you explain how it can apply to their goals, the buy in can be pretty quick.

You can also vary target size & bounce by using racquet balls, softies, etc.

In terms of the directional hitting drill that you mentioned, I'm not sure it's the best use for it simply because it's so hard to provide consistent bounce to different quadrants of the strike zone.

Chris