HItting a tire drill

I only recommend the smaller ball, The larger one is way to heavy for young girls. I have tested both and yes. You must complete your swing and drive thru the ball. It makes a great warm up tool. Plus it does give you instant feedback if you hit the center of the ball.

Miller, sorry I haven't answered sooner. My attention has been focused elsewhere on the hitting forum lately.

If I understand correctly, you're not trying to drive the tire, you're trying to make it spin. Those are two different things. If I understand the device correctly, you're not moving the mass of the tire. Perhaps just a small percentage of it. If it creates light resistance and the object is to spin the tire quickly I think it might be fun. And it might work. A slow bat won't spin the tire quickly, and trying to muscle it probably won't either. You'd have to hit it quickly in order to spin it quickly.

The key is light resistance. There is definitely a risk to the wrists of young girls in particular if there is too much mass to move. A good test for you would be to whack it with your hand. If you can do it without hurting yourself the resistance is probably light enough.

I used to use the basketballs but stopped years ago. I prefer a volleyball. It's a lot less mass to move. I've also used 16" softballs -- the kind we play with here in Chicago (although I personally hated the 16 inch game). Both demonstrate the need to drive aggressively into contact, and give hitters the feel of doing it.

Any chance of you posting a photo of video of the device so we can understand it better?

Please explain the logic of hitting 11.8 oz balls.

Howard found these balls being used in China when he coached there. They were not sold in the States so he brought some back and tried them out several years ago.

He uses a tennis ball, hard ball, soft ball and then the 10.8 ounce and then the 11.8 ounce and that is on cycle and then repeats. He wants them swinging equally as hard on every ball being hit off the tee or being soft tossed or doing the timing drop drill. He calls it the progression swing drill.

He had discovered that unless the girls were using the grip that Crystl uses they could not drive through the balls as well which were weighted.

He also saw gains of 2 MPH in bat speed using that grip over 40 students using the Swing Speed Radar Unit which measures from the sweet spot of the bat verses tip speed which can very 10 to 15 % more. The person that designed the unit lives in Cincinnati and helped him set it up.

Thank you for description SBF.

Would appreciate more information on Crystal's grip. From memory the knob would be positioned about mid-way in her bottom-hand. Is that correct? Can you describe the reasoning for that.

Bustos http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_b_YsagVNySI/Swo28CN7GxI/AAAAAAAABGk/gKtGx0Uw_KI/s1600/crystl_bustos_p1.jpg

Thanks Amy. FFS, Howard has posted the Grip reasons a few times on here, if you go back under his posts.

You have understood the device correctly. It does spin very freely. When the older girls hit the tire (14 and up) it spins one or two full turns and yes the key is light resistance. It saves having to chase a ball too. I will try to post a photo or video so you can see it.

My DD uses a Hit-a-Way softball (softball connected to two wires) suspended from an overhead support (old swing set with the swings removed) to practice her swing mechanics and bat speed. This works in a similar way to the tire, but goes up and over the swing set when hit. The resistance is no more than a regular softball, and the amount of power transferred to the ball is obvious by how fast the ball wraps around the upper support of the swing set. Her hitting improved dramatically after she started training with this. The only disadvantage is the ball has to be unwrapped after each hit.

Ken ,What about an old foam filled tackling dummy???? i have retired from coaching youth football to focus on my girls and coaching travel ball. I use the old bag. it has a good bit of give to it. and the girls seem to respond to the loud pop it makes the faster they swing.

Issue we have with hitting with the tackling dummy or a foam filled Punching bag. Most kids do not finish the swing correctly and we must work on extension with many of them. So why would we want to hit anything that won't allow them to finish the swing?