Help with a Hitter at Foot Plant

Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch

Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.

Aug 20, 2017
1,474
113
Need a tip for keeping the barrel up at foot plant. Could be stride related but at foot plant this hitters bat lays almost flat behind her head. Causing an early slot of the elbow and a long swing around the ball. Any tips, gifs, or ques for upper body positioning at foot plant?
 
Feb 16, 2015
933
43
South East
The tip and rip drill may help. Try to get her to play around with tipping the barrel during her gather and launching it from that tipped position. You should also run a search on "DBSF" they have had some very good threads on the topic IMO (assuming DBSF is the issue you are referring to).
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
Need a tip for keeping the barrel up at foot plant. Could be stride related but at foot plant this hitters bat lays almost flat behind her head. Causing an early slot of the elbow and a long swing around the ball. Any tips, gifs, or ques for upper body positioning at foot plant?

Like this?


I've been trying to get my 9 YO DD out of this habit for the past 2 or 3 years. She is fine off the tee but once a moving ball is presented she supinates her wrist right before launch as you can see from the video. The problem is she cannot feel herself doing it so the simple queue of "keeping the barrel up" hasn't worked.
(Continued in next post)
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
Cano supinates as well but right before launch gets into a better barrel position as he continues to coil/pull back.



My DD has a better pull-back/hip coil off the tee, along with a better (slower) tempo (which, imo, allows for her to get better resistance e.g. better coil), so
getting the hitter to improve these parts of their swing (with a live ball) may help..although I can still see the possibility that
the hitter improves in these areas and still supinates right before launch. At the end of the day the hitter needs to be able
to feel themselves dropping the barrel and make a conscious effort to not do that.

I'll be interested in hearing other people's suggestions.
 
Last edited:
Aug 20, 2017
1,474
113
Similar to Patters vid. Bat is wrapped and nearly flat, top hand nearly palm up
 

Attachments

  • 0C6E250A-278C-4C95-9B31-9A47841447E1.jpg
    0C6E250A-278C-4C95-9B31-9A47841447E1.jpg
    10.2 KB · Views: 69
Jun 17, 2009
15,105
0
Portland, OR
Flatten-Then-Swing.gif



Flatten-Then-Swingx.gif



Flatten-then-swing can be thought of as a faulty leveling process (i.e., a faulty approach to getting the barrel on plane with an incoming pitch).

Regarding the comment above about the issue not showing up on tee work ... ... ... that is typical. It is during the 'reading of the pitch' that one 'levels' (i.e., gets on plane with the pitch). The absence of having a ball approach a hitter can have the hitter bypassing their leveling process. Don't expect to cure a leveling issue via pure tee work. IMO the leveling process is best worked on via front-toss.

Often the culprit is that the hands/arms are being used primarily for the leveling process. These hitters are unaware of their torso-engine. They tend to fail in arriving at a supportive swing launch orientation ... some performing a 'move out' with level shoulders, or worse, arriving at their swing launch orientation with the lead shoulder higher than the rear shoulder. As a result their primarily leveling mechanism is through the use of their hands/arms. They arrive at their swing launch orientation with considerable slack in their torso ... which is understandable, since they lack a sense of understanding of the role of their torso. This doesn't feel wrong to them ... because their feel of the swing has not matured to the point of including torso usage. To them, they hear coaches/parents/instructors preach the 'hips', but they don't truly get how the movement of the hips/torso impacts the movement of the barrel. Such hitters can be helped by learning about proper torso usage. When a player learns to use their torso, along with their hand/forearm-engine, for the leveling process (i.e., the alignment of their 'gun site' / upper lead-arm), they are in a much better position to avoid a Level-Then-Swing approach.
 
Oct 13, 2014
5,471
113
South Cali
For me it’s a matter of communication with the player about how the energy flows through the body. Once understood that the energy filters from the ground, through the core/hips/glutes into the arms and hands and eventually through the barrel can change a hitters focus of feeling the energy better which will give the right sequential resistance ‘to’ and ‘where’ and most importantly ‘when’ to apply and feel this created energy. I have had a few ‘early’ planers... it is a nasty habit...

If said instructor knows the sequential flow of energy, this shouldn’t be hard to communicate to a hitter. Imo. Meaning it’s more of a feel cue than a mechanical cue to fix this habit. Imo.

Hopefully that wasn’t too vague.
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
42,830
Messages
679,481
Members
21,445
Latest member
Bmac81802
Top