Hitting coaches' philosophy beyond hitting mechanics

[SBFAMILY]

Howard, Dana , and many hitting coaches take giving advice serious. They along with many I know have many students. None of us want to give advice that would lead to any kid getting hurt. We all spend many hours trying to better ourself and every student we work with is slightly different. I would be the first to tell you I learn something new every day and most from working with young kids, not the internet. kgertie, One of the main differences now we teach throwing before we teach hitting. I have lost count of the number of kids that have complained that they had arm issues. The many PM's I have responded to cover throwing as one of the first topics we cover. Yes, we have seen fewer injuries. I think the conditioning as FSS pointed out has improved, because parents were very concerned about this subject. I guess I was one of those parents when I went to Howard for the first time. I paid attention and learned. It has paid off for my dd. Currently I think she is still #2 in the country in lean body fat out of 3,000 kids that have been to a NFCA camp. She also plays soccer, which was another reason I spent more time researching injuries. Weight shift and how we taught it has progressed. I still like the bottle 1/2 full of water and having them feel the water move during load and toe touch. It helps them understand how the body flows or moves. They hold it level in front of them without a bat and feel the weight shift.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Tougher Army training doubles female injuries - Telegraph

Even the US Army now disagree with you, it's not the conditioning that we are arguing about. It is that women and men have differences that a hitting coach that works with females should be aware of. You are a very Knowledgeable in hitting and I read many of your posts on this and the other sites we visit. Where we disagree is how you explain things to a father to teach a young ( say 14 year old) what you are telling them , we think could cause stress, because they are not able to do it they way you post. How you teach your dd who plays in college would be different than a 14U old. I hope that makes sense.

ACL Injuries: Female Athletes At Increased Risk | MomsTeam

SBF ... so far you haven't given an example of swing mechanics being different for females versus males. You didn't seem to like the notion of seeking dynamic balance in the legs when in one's stance ... yet you have given virtually identical advice, but without the explanation of seeking dynamic balance. I followed up with a video clip showing how dynamic balance can be established ... do you feel it is harmful for females to establish dynamic balance in their batting stance ... or is it more the case that females should do this, and that they should also condition their bodies, which is what the studies have basically concluded.

 

[kgertie]

ifubuildit, thank you for your post. Again, what I was looking for in a reply. Do other coaches REGULARLY test their students or send them home with assignments. Love that concept; new to me.

 

[RayR]

The players that go home and practice the stuff that was done in a lesson always advance faster. Reality is that the majority don't and create a "Groundhog Day" situation whereas at the next lesson we have to duplicate the first lesson and never seem to advance....

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Love your description MTS. Had a hitter like this ... 3wks in a row with zero improvement. It had me a bit miffed ... and I was pretty blunt with the kid & dad in pointing out to them that they weren't practicing to my satisfaction. I explained how the kid wasn't advancing anywhere near to my expectations. The next week the kid turned it all around. The kid demonstrated mastering the information that we had covered for 3wks in a row. The kid went on to make some significant progress. All it took was some honest feedback and the setting of expectations.

 

[Ken Krause]

Getting back to the original question, I see different needs in different kids at different times of the year. So what I will do with them is different.

Take June and July. If someone contacts me during that timeframe there's a good chance their DD isn't hitting very well at all. I'm going to look for major mechanical flaws such as dropping the hands or chopping way down on the ball. My goal is to help her make solid contact with the ball. It may not be a great swing or an awesome hit, but at least something that will get her on base so she will feel successful and continue to enjoy the game. We'll work on the bat path first, then try to get more power by using her body. It's a practical approach.

If it's the off-season, the possibilities are usually wider. She may have a good swing that needs tweaking, she may have a poor swing that needs rebuilding or she may just be there because mom and/or dad don't know whether she has a good swing or not.

As a hitting coach I'm looking for certain movements in a certain sequence. If the hitter has those I will tell her and work with her to improve it. If she needs a lot of work we'll break it down completely.

For girls I've been working with for a while, I'm often asked to do a tune-up during the season. While they may have picked up a bad habit here or there that needs fixing, a lot of times I'm told that the big reason for it is that the hitter's confidence rises after one of those sessions. I remind them of what they're capable of doing and provide encouragement.

Think of it like a knife. You can cut with it even when it gets dull. But it will do better when it's sharpened regularly. I provide the sharpening.

One last thing. The mechanical part is relatively easy. What keeps people coming back is the work on strategies and the mental part of the game.

 

[Jim]

I've done over 5,000 private and/or small group lessons in my career and when I start with a new client, my goals are always and have to be the same as the hitter's goals.

All hitters have similar goals when it comes down to it, they all want to hit the ball as well as they can as often as they can. Communication is the biggest component to helping the hitter improve, and we start there. I may ask them what they feel they need to work on. I also might ask them what they feel that they do very well. This may take a little time but the initial conversation is key to getting on the same page from that moment forward. My feeling is that a hitting coaches ultimate job is to help the hitter get to a point where they feel as prepared and confident as possible. Help them trust themselves and have confidence in themselves in order to perform the most difficult task in sports.

The one thing that I make sure that the hitter knows is that I will not suggest one thing until I see them hit many many balls during the first lesson. It is not fair to them for me to start barking orders to them before I see them swing one time. I want the chance to really see where the root cause of some of there problems are at. It may be as simple as working on seeing and focusing on the ball better, or maybe timing. It's not always about angles and positions. Most of the time the eight different flaws that we see are caused by one little core fundamental being a tad off.

One thing a hitting instructor always needs to remember is that every hitter is different. They think differently, they learn differently, the were brought up differently, and on top of all that they feel their swing in different ways. Let the hitter ask questions and learn from the questions they are asking you. The goal is not to "teach a swing", the goal is to help the hitter "hit". One hitting cue may make perfect sense to one player but may totally wreck another player's swing. The key to knowing is communication. It's not about me and what I'm "teaching", it's about the hitter hitting the ball consistently.

Another thing for hitting coaches to remember is this... It's important to know what to say and when to say it, but sometimes it's more important to know when to not say anything at all. Know when to let the hitter feel what they are doing without your words clouding their development. Remember, it's all about them.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

One last thing. The mechanical part is relatively easy. What keeps people coming back is the work on strategies and the mental part of the game.

Please continue. If you would ... describe the strategies & mental parts of the game that you work on and how you go about it.

 

[PEPPERS]

There was a young lady that played 12 U baseball, she was 11 at the time, when the baseball team did not have a game she played on my SB team and made most practices we had. She hit with great power her baseball coach and I taught the same swing mechanics. She led the baseball team in homeruns and hit a few for the softball team. The baseball team played in a World Series tournament in Atlanta, she won the homerun derby at the WS she gained notoriety for doing this.

The middle school coach hears about her and talks parents to letting her work with her to get her ready for school ball, puts her on her dad’s summer team. She tells her swing must be changed squash bug, hands to the ball, level shoulders and to swing down at the ball to hit better pitching she will see in school ball. Her hitting gets worse and worse; MS coach changes her to left handed slapper. First year in HS batting average of 214.

Her old baseball coach and I have made suggestions to her parents, who refused to listen, MS coach tells parents we are the ones who messed up her hitting for SB. When my daughter would go to some of the hitting camps like Chattanooga State, University of Chattanooga at Tenseness, I offered to take her but parents say no. The kid I work with on that same HS highest batting average and made All Region as a sophomore.

I have a few kids I work with and I don’t charge, they see my daughter hit and ask for help. Her HS coach pretty much lets her teach hitting to the other kids on the team. I go to the hitting camps when she goes to and take notes, I soak up ever bit of information I can get from Howard Carrier and the people that work with him. We attended a Bustos clinic a little over a year ago held in Georgia.

I’m no Howard or Bustos, but I do care about the kids I try and help, not only that the kids have success on the ball field, but are as safe as possible in the mechanics they use.

SBFAMILY thanks for pointing out those articles some good information!!!!!

 

[SBFAMILY]

Good post Ken and Jim, couldn't have said it better. . If anyone has taken a hitting lesson from Howard Carrier, it lasts about 4 hours or longer. He spends a good part of that time with the mental part of the game. He not only works with the kid, but the parents.
Since someone asked, this is just our opinion working with hundred of kids all the way up to college players. The topic is coverded in the web sites I posted. "This is why many male coaches can not even teach a female how to throw because they do not understand that the female glutes do not fire the knee.
They land stiff legged and they can not teach them why or how to land on the ball of their foot with a flexed knee!" Quote.
We now spend the first hour in every clinic teaching throwing. I was reading the medical report from my dd's test at her PEP clinic. They discussed the glutes in detail and suggested a test that we have done in many clinics.
I will post one I did . I was in a gym ready to give a team lesson to a high school softball team. The baseball team was just finishing practice. I had all the baseball team jump and land as a group. I then had all the softball players do the same thing. Both coaches at the same time looked at me. The boys all landed on thier toes and very little noise. The girls, well do the test and find out. They did this same test at the pep clinic but it was done one on one and with a monitor to measure the sound. Interesting results.