For those hitters whose back foot skips forward

julray said:

I think my DD's problem is, she shifting then swinging. She drives the inside of back knee toward front foot which causes her hips to slide and then swings. This is an older swing now.. but I am still seeing some of this happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx4IESU4Mag

Her weight is already off her back foot and her bat is still pointing back towards the catcher

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Yes, she's not driving/pushing forward into the ball, but rather is pushing up off of her rear foot.

As you can see, this becomes problematic as she's moving to swing, and altering her eye level to be the ball. Might do OK on the tee, but with a moving ball is giving the pitcher a big advantage as the ball basically "moves" w/o the pitcher having to do a thing to get it to do so.

Edit: IOWs, she's using/straightening the lead leg prematurely vs letting the swing off of the rear one direct the use of said lead leg (see the MLB hitters posted for reference). Thus the "out of sequence" comments that I believe others were referring to earlier. JMO naturally...

Mudders Brudder said:

Yes, she's not driving/pushing forward into the ball, but rather is pushing up off of her rear foot.

As you can see, this becomes problematic as she's moving to swing, and altering her eye level to be the ball. Might do OK on the tee, but with a moving ball is giving the pitcher a big advantage as the ball basically "moves" w/o the pitcher having to do a thing to get it to do so.

Edit: IOWs, she's using/straightening the lead leg prematurely vs letting the swing off of the rear one direct the use of said lead leg (see the MLB hitters posted for reference). Thus the "out of sequence" comments that I believe others were referring to earlier. JMO naturally...

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Thanks.. appreciate your response. Funny enough she is hitting very well right now.. but I am willing to bet her current game swing is not the same as what we see here. I still think she's losing a lot of power though and I believe it could be related to what you are saying about the lead leg... it almost looks like her rear leg just dangles there and turns

JUlray,

Are you teaching her to TTB with the hands? I ask because of the direction of the barrel and letting the hinge angle to weaken in the start of the swing. It looks like the barrel is vertical and the hands turn the barrel straight back, bopping the catcher in the head.

I thought I remembered you saying that TTB didn't work well with your DD.

julray said:

Thanks.. appreciate your response. Funny enough she is hitting very well right now.. but I am willing to bet her current game swing is not the same as what we see here. I still think she's losing a lot of power though and I believe it could be related to what you are saying about the lead leg... it almost looks like her rear leg just dangles there and turns

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If power is the concern then consider addressing the lead-arm and torso preparation. During the 'gather'/'walk-away-from-the-hands'/'moving-forward-with-the-torso-preparing-to-pull' portion of the swing, it is perfectly fine for the lead-arm not to remain in a rigid 90-degree angle. Consider a BUTT type action (Bottom-hand passing Under The Top-hand). Done correctly the shoulders will have more of an attack angle (downward slope from catcher-to-pitcher). Having a relaxed lead-arm that naturally extends (not purposefully pushing the lead-arm rearward) would help alleviate the 'stand-up' action to power the torso/hip-engine. There may also be some work needed relative to the rear leg ... starting with less 'bend' and allowing the 'bend' to take place during the 'gather forward'.

Shawn said:

JUlray,

Are you teaching her to TTB with the hands? I ask because of the direction of the barrel and letting the hinge angle to weaken in the start of the swing. It looks like the barrel is vertical and the hands turn the barrel straight back, bopping the catcher in the head.

I thought I remembered you saying that TTB didn't work well with your DD.

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We haven't spoken about TTB in about 12 months, . But we have talked about getting behind the ball early in the swing and trying stay through the ball as long as possible. What we've seen translated in game play is a much improved contact rate, line drives and batting average. But we've also seen a reduction in power. We had a college coach come in and help the girls. After seeing my DD's swing, he said she has really good bat speed and asked her how many HR's OTF she has this year. The answer to that is 0. He was surprised and said it's only a matter of time

late to the party here but the first thing I noticed is the change in eye level. She gets taller as she swings,come out of her posture. Also her front foot actually move backwards slightly. Kinda weird looking. One other thing too, she appears to have a death grip on the bat which is counter productive.

julray said:

We haven't spoken about TTB in about 12 months, . But we have talked about getting behind the ball early in the swing and trying stay through the ball as long as possible. What we've seen translated in game play is a much improved contact rate, line drives and batting average. But we've also seen a reduction in power. We had a college coach come in and help the girls. After seeing my DD's swing, he said she has really good bat speed and asked her how many HR's OTF she has this year. The answer to that is 0. He was surprised and said it's only a matter of time

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While the bold makes a huge difference in a hitter's progression (what I teach first typically), making sure the hips lead this barrel direction goal is a very close second on the list.

Getting the lower half in front of the top half will help getting the proper tilt into the swing, and thus help in getting the swing plane angle to assist in getting a better launch angle that should help in getting a launch angle that should elevate a hard hit ball OTF instead just a hard line drive that remains in the field somewhere. Just another thought w/o seeing her current swing....