Side Toss

So there's no timing element to side toss?

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Not what I said. I said:

Side Toss nor a ball on a tee can be used effectively as drills for timing.

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I said EFFECTIVELY. Yeah, you will build up timing. Timing a ball coming from the side. An EFFECTIVE drill should have the ball coming from the front. Coming from the front(front toss) will have a hitter learning to time a ball that will be close to what they might see in a game.

...and side toss is a great way to watch all sorts of stuff in the swing...things you can't see from front toss from behind a screen 20' away...things like lunging, not loading\false loading, too much movement in the frontal plane, etc.

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Fixing flaws created by side toss might not be the same flaws present during front toss.
I said:

I understand that's not always possible(front toss live pitching).

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I recognized that with limit space that front toss isn't always possible.
Thanks for stopping by and dropping some Poo Poo on my post.

Tossing the ball up and down, where the hitter loads on the down and swings when the ball reaches its height is good IMO. You do that while on the "side" so you can see and talk about and fix all the swing elements CS said. Throwing the ball *in* from the side, *toward* the hitter is bad IMO, and was what was shown in some of the videos. When do you ever hit a ball thrown at you from the side? Doing so would have to break down your swing, again IMO.

All that said, we only do side toss at all in pregames where there's less room and we need another station. If have room to do any sort of hitting into space, even with whiffles, we prefer balls coming AT hitters.

RichK said:

Tossing the ball up and down, where the hitter loads on the down and swings when the ball reaches its height is good IMO. You do that while on the "side" so you can see and talk about and fix all the swing elements CS said. Throwing the ball *in* from the side, *toward* the hitter is bad IMO, and was what was shown in some of the videos. When do you ever hit a ball thrown at you from the side? Doing so would have to break down your swing, again IMO.

All that said, we only do side toss at all in pregames where there's less room and we need another station. If have room to do any sort of hitting into space, even with whiffles, we prefer balls coming AT hitters.

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This was where I was confused. The bold above is what I refer to as "soft toss", and I use it much the same way RichK does. The underlined is what I refer to as "side toss". I don't use that at all. It seems that some people use different names for different drills. It may be a mistake on my part. The youtube video below is similiar to how I perform it.

https://youtu.be/mWLHieJx9Hg

mann said:

Yes, everyone has the right dislike and see the need for improvement with this 14u girl. Lets see what happens with her next lesson, as this was her first 3 minutes of the first lesson,lol.

Gm , she hits inside out very well, i will get some recorded with the change, and inside set her stance and work the front side. along with the head.

I see lots to work besides those things, but a beast in the making.

Powerless effort? side toss Shawn?

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I don't think it is a bad swing but she could turn better. Very flexible spine with side bend and extension gives her some turn but the hips seem to extend more than they turn.

To me it is more a hip extension an twisting and bending of the spine rather than a real turn. Hip extension and spine bending can help the turn but it shouldn't replace it.

The bat path does not look bad though.

chrispots said:

So there's no timing element to side toss? Bull...a moving object trying to hit a moving object requires the element of timing.

...and how about rather than just tossing it in there, you put some spin on the ball and have them identify the pitch...

...and how about using side toss to start to develop a players ambient vision? Hell, I use the tee to start to develop ambient vision when they are 9 years old.

...and side toss is a great way to watch all sorts of stuff in the swing...things you can't see from front toss from behind a screen 20' away...things like lunging, not loading\false loading, too much movement in the frontal plane, etc.

Side toss is not the be all end all...but to poo poo it's value is short sighted IMO...

Carry on...CP

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WHY learn to TIME side toss? Mechanics change with side toss, why try to fix something to make their side toss swing better?
what does side toss do better than front toss?
One thing i find , those that cannot throw front toss, side toss. It does warm up the swing muscles in a pinch. it does NOTHING for pitch recognition. Vision? what the heck? ambient vision, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK219039/

dominik said:

I don't think it is a bad swing but she could turn better. Very flexible spine with side bend and extension gives her some turn but the hips seem to extend more than they turn.

To me it is more a hip extension an twisting and bending of the spine rather than a real turn. Hip extension and spine bending can help the turn but it shouldn't replace it.

The bat path does not look bad though.

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interesting observation dominik. this is the first girl that has been raised on SNF, as opposed to turning the hips.
i have taught her, and is solely my fault that she extends her hip towards the ball. Extending the hips towards inside turns the hips more, outside the hips turn less.

mann said:

interesting observation dominik. this is the first girl that has been raised on SNF, as opposed to turning the hips.
i have taught her, and is solely my fault that she extends her hip towards the ball. Extending the hips towards inside turns the hips more, outside the hips turn less.

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I think hip extension is good but you first need to turn the hips (how much depends on the pitch location). The hips can turn better with bent hip joints. Just spin with bent joints won't yield much power either but you have to set the direction of the hip rotation first.

Look how bautista sits during his turn and extends in the end. Your kid is basically always extending the hips towards home plate and not toward the hit location. Works good on outside pitches ,but not so much on inside pitches.

She still gets to inside pitches using her spine, hip and even ankle flexibility but you can see that it is not her normal motion. In the SNF drill she doesn't have the problem because the hips/femurs are facing the field.

Basically the front hip needs to get out of the way so that the rear hip can extend toward the ball. Once the front hip extends it basically locks out. Keep it bent until it is out of the way.