Enlighten me on hitting

[tom.guerry]

Nit- This is a typical beginner arm swing where she drags the bat by getting weight forward and pulling from the front with the arms.

She needs to learn how to use the whole body in a different pattern that is easiest to learn first in throwing. learn to get sideways (stance), cok hips (neg move), stride (pos move), cock arm (keep back elbow up), use glove arm to avoid flying open,etc.

 

[SBFAMILY]

I agree with Tom. We teach throwing first and then relate it to hitting. We have never had a girl yet that throws bad and hits good. 4. Above is easy to teach and I'm guessing since I cannot see the Video she hits her back. Top hand on bat turn it over so , this forces it to release during the swing and will give her the feeling of releasing high. MountieSB has some good points. 3. I learned from Bastian. Cut 1/3 of the softball off. Now have her always think I can never hit the outer 1/3 of the softball. He had all of his Olympic girls carry 2/3 of a softball around with them. My dd has one hanging on her bat bag, to remind her every time she goes to bat. I actually took it a step further and had her hit 2/3 of a softball off the T. You have to do what MountieSb stated, or you have a wounded duck coming off the T. Instant feedback.

 

[Mark H]

Nit- This is a typical beginner arm swing where she drags the bat by getting weight forward and pulling from the front with the arms.

Ring the bell and mark the calendar. I agree with Tom for once. She needs to learn a totally different pattern in all areas. See if you recognize her arm usage in 21 to 25 of the link below. Tom and I will disagree on the cure. I suggest studying Englishbey. Yeager and Right View would be my second choices. Still good though. Register on Englishbey's free public side and read everything in the clip analysis section to start with. Reading anything on here that Boardmember or Ssarge wrote would be good.

Analysis

As to all that throwing teaches hitting stuff, that's going to be problematic for that kid who throws right and bats left.

 

[tom.guerry]

My "belief" is even if you turn the hitter around so the throwing arm is in the front, the body still learns from using the throw pattern. there is some research supporting this crossover type effect.

Hitting lefty is a pretty big advantage in fp, but even if you slap a lot lefty you should work on the power swing too.

theoretically speaking, SB brings up the look of the spinning bat type followthrough that used to be so pouplar lots of coaches were trying to get kids to slap themselves on the back of the shoulder with the bat. What happens here can be understood with mankin's swing model which separates the swing mechanically in to torque and chp components.

The CHP component is how the MLB hitter uses the body/addition to power the swing, establishing connection and staying connected until contact.

The torque component supplements and make the hands the site of control for the swing timing/trajectory.

Most kids do not connect well and are missing the CHP component, and instead they have to power their swing too much by hand torque, often to the point of the swing being a "torque only" swing which is what produces the spin around the hands/slap yopurself in the back followthrough.

When the swing is powered instead by an optimal blend of torrque and CHP, you get the power V/top hand release type "extension sequence" that candrea describes for example.

 

[NWITom]

Nit- This is a typical beginner arm swing where she drags the bat by getting weight forward and pulling from the front with the arms.

She needs to learn how to use the whole body in a different pattern that is easiest to learn first in throwing. learn to get sideways (stance), cok hips (neg move), stride (pos move), cock arm (keep back elbow up), use glove arm to avoid flying open,etc.

Okay.I can see the dragging effect.The throwing motion is what we have been working on the way Candria shows it,but just a little.

Question is ,how much of the throwing drill do I do?Does this solve the problem?Do I stay away from the tee? So what you are saying is her weight gets forward in front of her hands when it should be reversed,like the weight pushing the hands?Not sure if I have that right.

Does the whiphit help correct this problem?Or are they too young for something like that?

I seen the happy gilmore drill and I get the reason for it.I can do drills all day with them but I have to know what to do and why.

I would love to send my girls to an instructor early so I can learn as well as them but I cannot find anyone close by.If anyone knows of a good one in Valpo area let me know.

Funny,same DD has been pitching with an instructor for a few months and it seems hitting is same deal.Break it all down to steps and try to correct the bad tendencies.I appreciate the help.Keep educating me.

 

[tom.guerry]

I would do the throwing drills with backward and forward chaining and long toss and burn out and do the Candrea/Enquist swing drills and keep it fun.

It will take a couple of seasons to get a good throw sequence, then you can work more on explicitly carrying over the throw pattern to the swing.

 

[lhowser]

Here is something I have found useful on tee work. At least to get things heading in a good direction. Start her at the point of contact where she would actually make contact with the ball. Determine what this would look like by checking out some images of good hitters at the point of contact. Watch some of the college clips on this sight to understand the sequence of the hips, arms and shoulders. Then have her work backwards slowly to the launch position trying to model this sequence as you understand it. Have her pay attention to the sequence of how she gets to point of contact working backwards then forward in slo-mo. The pattern will be very different than the current swing and she'll love it as she gains quickness and success.

 

[MountieSB]

Here is something I have found useful on tee work. At least to get things heading in a good direction. Start her at the point of contact where she would actually make contact with the ball. Determine what this would look like by checking out some images of good hitters at the point of contact. Watch some of the college clips on this sight to understand the sequence of the hips, arms and shoulders. Then have her work backwards slowly to the launch position trying to model this sequence as you understand it. Have her pay attention to the sequence of how she gets to point of contact working backwards then forward in slo-mo. The pattern will be very different than the current swing and she'll love it as she gains quickness and success.

This is a technique that Patrick Murphy uses on his hitting videos. I really like it as well, especially for young hitters. Good post, lhowser!

 

[NWITom]

Sounds promising.Thanks ,we will try that.

I am wondering though.Is the whipit something that they can learn with?

It looks like it would force them to swing straight to the ball correctly or else.It seems the feedback might work.Any thoughts?

 

[Wellphyt]

NWITom:

When my DD was 9 years old I started teaching her rotational hitting using Epstein's "On Target" dvds. She is now 12 and I am very pleased with the results, especially considering how little my DD actually dedicates to doing his drills. I measure her results where it counts, which is in games against good pitching.

Tom is correct about your DD's bat lag. However if you freeze the video of your daughter at 7.75 to 8 seconds, you will see an amazingly close representation of the training position recommended by Epstein for younger kids. To get it exactly right she would just have to bring her lead forearm down closer to her body, while keeping the angles in her elbows exactly how she has them. The bat then rest against the side of her deltoid, which is very close to where she already has it at the 8 second mark.

From this position she simultaneously rotates and tilts her upper body as a unit, which is pretty much what she is already doing. In other words the move where her front elbow comes up while her back elbow drops (as she is rotating) is really good and is very close to how Ted Williams worked his upper body. Getting her palms flat quickly like she does is something TW felt was very important.

Some on here don't like the bat on the deltoid position because they believe it is constraining and doesn't teach proper loading of the upper body. What you will find out is that when a hitter turns in their front shoulder during their negative move the back elbow naturally wants to come up away from the body. Some of the greatest power hitters of all time including Ruth, Mantle and Williams positioned their hands in their stance very close to how your DD looks at the 8 second mark.

My DD at age 11 in All-Stars killed the ball hitting with the bat on her deltoid.
The coach of her team was the Varsity FB coach at one of the better FB highschool programs in my state and he asked me want she did to get so much power. I think you will find that if you focus on the lower body the power will always be there. The other reason she hit the ball so hard was because her timing was good. The reason her timing was good was because her negative move was simplified. If a hitter can't get to the proper launch position on time it doesn't matter how good their negative move is, they will never hit the ball square. At your DD's age the further away from the body her back elbow and hand gets, the less chance she has of getting then correctly repositioned as she launches her swing.

In my experience, the odds of a 9, 10, 11, 12 year old performing a ML level negative move and then getting the arms, hands and elbows properly positioned ontime to launch their swing to hit a pitch coming at them from 35 or 40 feet at 48 plus miles per hour is slim to none.

At the younger ages, keep it simple, keep it simple, keep it simple.