How do you teach tracking the ball?

[Hitter]

While looking forward before locking onto the ball on the tee is helpfull. Teaching them to see the exact spot you want to make contact with is very simple but extremely effective even with drops and rises. Make it as simple as possible and success will come more easily to the student.

To add to their and paying attention I will put forward and backward spin on the ball as I soft toss. Then I will spin it so the spin is off axis like a junk pitch will look by using my thumb.

I also like to vary the height of the ball however I never raise the ball above eye level as it is not what we would see in a game.

Thanks Howard

 

[PEPPERS]

HG

It is not just about hitting the ball on the tee, it is training them to track the ball to the tee while actually hitting it. They look through the net and I have a stereo system in the middle of my work bench and they load and look while focusing on the red light. Then as they get to toe touch they keep their eyes on the lights and turn their head, using the nose as an indicator and then their eyes track to the ball on the tee. I can see if it happens or not visually. We mark the balls on the tee in the middle of the ball between the two seam area using a V and fill it in with black magic marker, the point of the V is towards the pitcher to remind them the hands are staying inside the path of the ball. There is also a rag glued inside the tee so they will see it after the ball has been hit to remind them to keep their head down during contact.

Thanks Howard

When we do tee work I was shown the exact same way you described in this example, the towel glued to the tee is new info, but we will soon have that too. I'll put the kids in a bating cage, I stand outside behind the net, and I will go through a pitching motion and they will key from my motion. Load at the k, I try and do a good job hiding the ball as I go through the motion like a good pitcher. I have them picture the ball coming from the release point and track it to the tee, I don't throw the ball just go through the motion.

What about hitting smaller objects, we've hit plastic golf balls, we have a machine that pitches them a 55 mph, marsh mellows both the large and min, and back eyed peas. We go to an indoor baseball facility and the have a cage that the machine throws 70 MPH at 60 feet, my girl when she was 13 we measured 35 feet from the machine and she would hit the baseballs, she would miss one know and then, but is good at hitting most of them, it took a few times for her to get that good. The boys that complained about the speed to fast they would invite them to watch her hit at 35 feet.

My question is hitting smaller objects and objects that are faster than what you would see is beneficial?

 

[Hitter]

When we do tee work I was shown the exact same way you described in this example, the towel glued to the tee is new info, but we will soon have that too. I'll put the kids in a bating cage, I stand outside behind the net, and I will go through a pitching motion and they will key from my motion. Load at the k, I try and do a good job hiding the ball as I go through the motion like a good pitcher. I have them picture the ball coming from the release point and track it to the tee, I don't throw the ball just go through the motion.

What about hitting smaller objects, we've hit plastic golf balls, we have a machine that pitches them a 55 mph, marsh mellows both the large and min, and back eyed peas. We go to an indoor baseball facility and the have a cage that the machine throws 70 MPH at 60 feet, my girl when she was 13 we measured 35 feet from the machine and she would hit the baseballs, she would miss one know and then, but is good at hitting most of them, it took a few times for her to get that good. The boys that complained about the speed to fast they would invite them to watch her hit at 35 feet.

My question is hitting smaller objects and objects that are faster than what you would see is beneficial?

The towel is glued inside the tee and when they hit the ball we want their head to stay down during contact as we are stronger with our head down verses up.

I know of a college coach who requires her girls to hit beans from front toss...the girl doing the front toss was hit 2 inches below her eye and it put a welt on her face. If it were a business they would have called in the safety people and shut my business down and fined me! Some drills make no sense and can be dangerous.

I designed a one arm bat that is weighted with 3 ounces of number 9 bird shot. It is the same length as their bat and has a grip. There is a wooden plug 14.5 inches up from the handle and we pour the shot in over the top and cap it. When the hitter swings as the get to bat lag it starts to move a little and when they un hinge the wrist the shot moves. It works much better than a snap bat in our opinion. We like using these bat to show how each had contributes to the swing and identify which hand is the problem hand. We hit tennis balls or golf ball whiffle balls and then swing with both hands. I made an adapter for my tee so you can hit golf ball whiffle balls off the tee also.

I do not use pitching machines for batting practice. I use them for timing and rhythm by doing a drill termed the Barry Bonds drill. The hitter sets up beyond the catchers position and the machine is set up at 55 MPH. We work from low to high slow to fast and take a step forward after every successful hit and they continue moving as far forward as you can. If in a public cage you are limited as to how far you can safely move forward so be careful. Once you have reached your farthest point forward then reverse and work high to low and from fast to slow. You will find most hitters will struggle within 4 to 5 feet as this actually requires them to adjust. I laugh every time I see coaches try to move entire teams forward in the batters box during a game. The batters box is 84 inches long and that is 7 feet which is an adjustment most hitters can not make unless they have done this drill. we think it helps create a swing DNA of I have seen this speed and height of ball so I can adjust. Once we move up as far as it is safe then we start going backwards and that is one cycle. Then we move away for outside pitches and in toward the plate for inside pitches. Very important that if someone is feeding the machine to do it properly. Hold a ball in your left hand at the feeder tube and do an arm circle while holding another ball and at the K position the hitters load and then I feed the ball into the tube and I tell my hitter when they see the ball in the wheel to step. For me this gives them a better sense of timing and rhythm.

I also like to have a hitter using their bat hit a tennis ball very hard with the same effort they would hitting a regular soft ball. The sequence is tennis ball, hard ball, regular softball and then I use a 10.8 ounce weighted pitching practice ball and repeat. I like the resistance and the feeling of driving through the ball that each ball gives. I do not believe in the quick hands toss as the hitter abandons good mechanics to keep up with the person soft tossing and we do not swing in a game like that so why practice that way. Endurance drills using a bat is not a good habit for me. You want to get stronger use weights or something else. We want them swinging the bat as hard and accurately each time they swing in my opinion.

Thanks Howard

 

[PEPPERS]

Thanks so much for your reply, in the above post Hitter, I plan on changing some of our hitting routines due to your post on the forum.

Where my daughter takes pitching lessons, they teach hitting also, I don’t agree with everything they teach, but they do some good things. They place 2 Jugs Lite-Flight baseball size pitching machines side by side. They set one for a high pitch and one for a low pitch, or inside and outside. They also do the stepping closer to the machine drill, I like that they vary different pitch locations.

I recall reading an article some time back on keeping the head still in hitting, it was very eye opening to me. I’ve been trying to find the article to post a ling, so far no luck.

It explained how keeping the head still as possible was so important in the hitting sequence. It described how the ball moving, the eyes sees the ball and sends a signal to the brain, which processes the information, and has to predicts where the body has to have the bat head to the contact point of the ball. Excessive movement of the head/eyes added another complexity to the process, the brain has to predict the contact point with both the ball and head moving, which makes the process much more difficult for the brain to predict the point of contact.

Maybe someone can recall this article which I am referring to.

 

[Hitter]

Peppers

I put this together using my wife's medical book and Tom Verducci article from Sports Illustrated from March 2002 titled, Hitters Rule.

Eyes and tracking

HAP page 464; “Proprioceptors respond to stimuli in such deep body structures as joints, tendons, muscles, and the vestibular apparatus of the ear. They are involved with sensing where parts of the body are in relation to each other and the position of the body in space.”

When you turn your head quickly you see a blur and then the image catches up and you refocus again. In my opinion this is where we start having trouble tracking the ball and then everyone has an opinion on how to do it. Is the hitter using just their eyes, just their head or are they using both?

HAP page 474; “Hearing and equilibrium are considered in the same section (inner ear) because both sensations are received in the inner ear. The auditory apparatus, concerned with hearing, and the vestibular apparatus, concerned with posture and balance.”

HAP page 481; “The vestibular apparatus and equilibrium. The inner ear helps the body cope with changes in position and acceleration and deceleration. This vestibular apparatus signals changes in the motion of the head (dynamic equilibrium) and in the position of the head with respect to gravity (static equilibrium). The equilibrium system also receives input from the eyes and from some proprioceptors in the body, especially the joints. (Try standing on your toes with your eyes closed. Without your eyes to guide your body, you invariably begin to fall forward.)”

HAP page 496; “A set of six muscles moves the eyeball in its socket. The muscles are the four-rectus muscles and the superior and inferior oblique muscles. They are called extrinsic or extra ocular muscles because they are outside the eyeball. One end of each muscle is attached to a skull bone, and the other end is attached to the sclera of the eyeball. The extra ocular muscles are coordinated and synchronized so that both eyes move together in order to center on a single image. These movements are called the conjugate movements of the eye.” We feel the pencil drills helps this also and consider this weight lifting for the eyes.

Physiology of Vision

1. Refraction of light rays entering the eye.
2. Focusing of images on the retina by accommodation of the lens and convergence of the images.
3. Conversion of light waves by photochemical activity into neural impulses.
4. Processing of neural activity in the retina and transmission of coded impulses through the optic nerve.
5. Processing in the brain, culminating in perception-the object being seen.”

KYEOTB page 186; “To see the effects of this suppression look at the image of your right eye in a mirror. Now look at the image of your left eye. Did you see your eyes move? Probably not, because we have a process that turns off the visual system during saccadic eye movement. This is a comforting thing to do, because otherwise every time we made a saccadic eye movement, we would think that the world was flying around us. To prevent such confusion we suppress vision during saccade.”


Sports Illustrated, March 25, 2002 had a great article on hitting titled, Hitters Rule, by Tom Verducci. He covers what is called the contact hitter (Ichiro), the blended hitter (Giambi) and the power hitter (Thome). Remember I said I wouldn’t talk styles of hitting.

On page 69, “Says Delgado, “At times when I’m going good, I can see the bottom half of the ball on it’s way to the plate. That’s were I want to hit it.” And “Jeter is another hitter with extraordinary vision. He’s often able to see in the blur of the pitcher’s arm moving forward whether what’s coming at him is the bottom of the pitcher’s wrist (indicating a fastball) or the side of the wrist (indicating a breaking ball). “I’ve tried, but I can’t see it, “Yankees catcher Jorge Posada says. “I don’t know how he does it.” Rodriquez trains his eyes to focus quickly. While in the on deck-deck circle, he holds his bat a few inches from his face, the trademark facing him. He focuses on the trademark, and then quickly shifts his focus to the face of the centerfielder.”
Page 70, Martinez. “He performs eye exercises twice a day, for 45 minutes in the morning and then for five to 10 minutes about 30 minutes before game time. Martinez keeps a worn card, slightly larger than an index card that has a green circle to the left and a red circle to the right. Inside the perimeter of both circles are the words THESE LETTERS, though the R is missing from the green circle and the first T in LETTERS is missing from the red. When he stares at a spot between the two circles, because of a process optics experts call binocular fusion, a brown circle appears with all the letters of THESE LETTERS.” (Note you must stare at the center between the circles and yes it works!) The difficult letter for me is the (T) in the brown circle. I wear tri-focal glasses. “This exercise strengthens his eye muscles.” And “Attempting to improve his depth perception, Martinez will shift his focus from one of those letters to a spot on a distant wall with the same grid of letters, only larger, and then back again. Martinez also bunts against those high velocity tennis balls. (Other times, after slowing their speed, he tries to read the number on them as they whiz by.) “After tracking a smaller ball going 150 miles per hour,” Martinez says, “a baseball going 90 doesn’t seem so fast.”

The vestibular system sends signals primarily to the neural structures that control our eye movements, and to the muscles that keep us upright. The projections to the former provide the anatomical basis of the vestibulo-ocular reflex, which is required for clear vision; and the projections to the muscles that control our posture are necessary to keep us upright.
The vestibulo-ocular reflex. A rotation of the head is detected, which triggers an inhibitory signal to the extra ocular muscles on one side and an excitatory signal to the muscles on the other side. The result is a compensatory movement of the eyes.
Main article: Vestibulo-ocular reflex
The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) is a reflex eye movement that stabilizes images on the retina during head movement by producing an eye movement in the direction opposite to head movement, thus preserving the image on the center of the visual field. For example, when the head moves to the right, the eyes move to the left, and vice versa. Since slight head movements are present all the time, the VOR is very important for stabilizing vision: patients whose VOR is impaired find it difficult to read, because they cannot stabilize the eyes during small head tremors. The VOR reflex does not depend on visual input and works even in total darkness or when the eyes are closed.This is why we give our head a head start and use a blind fold to teach our head and body positions must be the same even if our eyes are closed and it build confidence.
This reflex, combined with the push-pull principle described above, forms the physiological basis of the Rapid head impulse test or Halmagyi-Curthoys-test, in which the head is rapidly and forcefully moved to the side, while controlling if the eyes keep looking in the same direction.

They used a professional baseball player named Brian Harper and two others however my interest centered on him since the others had no experience. He demonstrated traits I would expect a pro to use.

Of interest were the others in ability to track the ball like the pro. They give the direction of tracking the ball in degrees from the fovea of the eye. To gain an understanding of this he suggested using a 12-inch ruler and holding it in front of you at arm’s length. Look at the left end of the ruler and the right end is about 34 degrees off the fovea. While looking at the left end you won’t be able to read the numbers on the right side. Because the two other people were using just their eyes or just their head, they did not track it as well as the pro. Brian tracked the ball using head and eye movements, keeping his eye on the ball longer than the other persons did. He did not track the ball to the point of bat and ball collision.

KYEOTB page 177; “He was able to keep his position error below 2 degrees until the ball was within 5.5 ft. from the plate, at which point he began to fall behind. When the ball was 2 ft. in front of the plate the image of the ball was already 16 degrees off his fovea and was going 1,100 degrees per second. Thus, he was no longer tracking the ball.”

Again he did not track the ball to the point where he could see the ball and bat collide because it is not possible.

head a head start. In addition, he was better at suppressing the vestibulo-ocular reflex and making his head and eyes move in the same direction.
This allowed him to track the ball with equal-sized head and eye movements, whereas the other subjects usually tracked with either head or eye movements.”

“Together these three superiorities allowed the professional athlete to track the ball to 5.5 ft. in front of the plate compared to our students who fell behind at the 9 ft. mark.”

Note: He did not see the bat and the ball collide!

Thanks Howard

 

[PEPPERS]

Hitter I really appreciate you taking the time to post this much information!!!!!

I recall that Michigan had used the numbers on the tennis ball with their hitters the year they were champs (we saw them play Monica Abbott and Tenseness the year after in the Super Regional).

If you think about it; it’s amazing what it takes for a batter to be successful against a top pitcher. Bustos makes it look so easy; one thing that amazes me about her is the balls she hits out of the strike zone with solid contact and power. Of course the dedication and work it took to get to where she can hit like that had to be significant

I’ve read a lot of Mike Epstein stuff and he says the same thing that you don’t see the impact.

Thanks again for the great post.

 

[Hitter]

Hitter I really appreciate you taking the time to post this much information!!!!!

I recall that Michigan had used the numbers on the tennis ball with their hitters the year they were champs (we saw them play Monica Abbott and Tenseness the year after in the Super Regional).

If you think about it; it’s amazing what it takes for a batter to be successful against a top pitcher. Bustos makes it look so easy; one thing that amazes me about her is the balls she hits out of the strike zone with solid contact and power. Of course the dedication and work it took to get to where she can hit like that had to be significant

I’ve read a lot of Mike Epstein stuff and he says the same thing that you don’t see the impact.

Thanks again for the great post.

Hutch put cameras in her cage and a friend of mine Leon Woods helped her set the system up. UM does an excellent job of putting camps on also and several of my parents have taken the kids there and got something out of it. It makes you proud as an instructor when she points out a swing of a kid and ask who your instructor is!

Crystl spent a lot of her time hitting out of zone because they would not pitch to her anymore. We do a drill where we stand holding the ball in our lead hand and the bat in the top hand and just drop the ball, do not throw it to bounce harder, simply drop it and the ball bounces and we try to hit it into a zone which has two ropes interlaced into the net at 51 and 39 inches. We are about 4.5 feet from the net. Each ball will bounced differently due to age of the ball etc. They must get the bat head down and the lead elbow moving forward and up in order to hit the ball. Then we soft toss starting from below the knee, at the knee, thigh, waist, belly button and then just under the elbows so they have to adjust their bat angle and not use their body and or bending the legs. We peat for inside, down the middle and away.

We took a concrete patio stone and drilled holes in it and attached a rope as a handle and take it to the field and use it as a station to bounce balls knowing their is not a surface on the field to bounce them off of. Note: do not use a concrete block as you may very well ruin a $300 dollar bat! We find it interesting to see the girls challenge them self as to how to hit a low pitch and they see the flight of the ball and we think it helps them when hitting in a game as to how to get the ball over the defenses head or through the hole.

I hope you enjoyed the article.

Thanks Howard

 

[StacieM]

Just a quick note: even when we have the players working off a tee, we have them look out to where the pitcher would be and visualize a ball coming in to the contact point/tee, then hit. As a player I liked doing visualization drills (no ball, just you and your imagination and your bat and your swing). I don't know if they really helped or not, but I liked doing them. We'd go through the whole process of getting in the box, setting up, seeing the pitch, hitting, and seeing a solid hit coming off the bat. We'd visualize pitches to different parts of the zone and swing appropriately.

I also like the colored ball drill others have mentioned and have a few vision training exercises up at Learn about Fastpitch Vision Training

 

[Hitter]

Just a quick note: even when we have the players working off a tee, we have them look out to where the pitcher would be and visualize a ball coming in to the contact point/tee, then hit. As a player I liked doing visualization drills (no ball, just you and your imagination and your bat and your swing). I don't know if they really helped or not, but I liked doing them. We'd go through the whole process of getting in the box, setting up, seeing the pitch, hitting, and seeing a solid hit coming off the bat. We'd visualize pitches to different parts of the zone and swing appropriately.

I also like the colored ball drill others have mentioned and have a few vision training exercises up at Learn about Fastpitch Vision Training

We have found this useful and each drill gives an understanding of why and how to do it....From Outside Magazine October 2004

The drill is called rapid eye movement from Burton Worrell’s ocular drills. He recommends spending at least three minutes a day on doing the drills. That is very little time for what I believe will improve your ability to not only track the ball better but improve your balance and ability to field the ball while changing direction. He calls the drill “Walk the Plank”.

The challenge as he puts it is, “When you are multitasking at full tilt, balance is one of the first things to suffer. Forcing yourself to focus on a moving object throughout your line of sight-while you’re moving and keeping your balance-trains you to maintain your inner equilibrium.”

The Drill: Lay a two-by-four flat on the floor and stand on it with one foot in front of the other. Pick up a pen that has text printed on the side and with your arm fully extended; lift it (the pen) to eye level. Make a wide, sweeping figure eight pattern (in a horizontal path not vertical) with your arm and moving only your eyes (not your head) stay focused on the letters on the pen. Finally walk forward and backwards on the beam while continuing the figure eight pattern.”

The way I have found to use this is to first have them stand still and get the motion of the horizontal figure eight path first. Then walk a straight line next while doing the figure eight pattern. They will be unbalanced as they begin. Once they can do that then put them on the board. I’ve seen when they begin this drill the head trying to move in the pattern of the figure eight and that is when they get dizzy and start to stumble. Keep working on this as the kids say it improves not only their vision but also their balance. When a runner comes between the ball and the fielder their eyes will work to pick up the ball faster IF they do not move their head as much.

Another great drill he recommends is Ocular Acrobatics.

He goes on to say in another drill, “One of the trickiest aspects of most sports is staying focused when everything is moving around you. Think of a wide receiver in football: He has to concentrate on the ball while he and the other players around him are in motion-a situation that easily overtaxes the brain. Skiers face the same task when speeding down a line on a crowed slope.”

The Challenge: “You want to be able to identify objects instantly, says Worrell. If you’re kayaking and you can’t ID that gnarly rock on your right and then quickly shift to the waterfall straight ahead, your system (vision) becomes disoriented and you might miss the safest line through the Class V rapids.”

I think trying to watch a ground ball when a runner is passing in the line of your sight or sliding towards you is another example of why this drill is important.


The Drill: “From a deck of cards, pick out the ace through six of one suit. (I like using 10 cards) Tape the cards randomly on a wall close to eye level, spacing them about one foot apart, with the ace in the center. Memorize where each card is located. Standing seven feet from the wall, jump your eyes (move the eyes not your head) from card to card in sequential order (ace through six) as quickly as possible, starting with the ace. You want your eyes to land on the card without having to refocus, but you don’t want to move to the next card until you can clearly see the current card. If you loose focus return to the ace and start over.”

While doing this drill I put my hand on top of their head and usually in the beginning you can feel them want to move the head versus using just the eyes.

Another drill I think really works well to drive the point home on tracking the ball is called the pencil drill.

While at the Cleveland Clinic in March 2002, I was reading the Sports Illustrated March 2002 edition. An article called Hitters Rule by Tom Verducci, talked about vision training and how players exercised their eyes by focusing on objects up close and then looking at objects in the distance to improve what is termed accommodation. The hitter while in the on deck circle held his bat up close to his eyes looking at the trademark on the bat and then looked at the center fielders position. Go back to pages 6 and 7 and reread it again.

The Drill: Get two pens or pencils that having writing/ advertisements printed on it. Holding one pen in the left hand slowly move it at eye level toward your nose until you get it up close to your face and it is difficult to read. Your eyes are doing what is termed accommodation or moving closer together to focus on the object that is nearer your face. You will feel the strain on your eyes as you do this. Now holding the other pen in your right hand at arms length repeat this movement with the left hand and when you feel the strain switch your gaze to the pen/pencil in your outstretched right hand and your eyes will feel rested again. Doing these 6 to 30 minutes a day improves your ability to track a ball and hit it in my opinion.

The string drill is another great one to do. I’ve seen this drill recommended by Dr. Bill Harrison and Dr. Worrell for what is termed “Eye Teaming.”


“Thread a half-inch bead on a 6 foot cord. (I found small key chain softballs to use) Attach one end to a doorknob. Face the doorknob and hold the other end taut to the bridge of your nose, so you’re 16 inches away from the bead. (I put a leather patch at the end of the string that is placed by the bridge of the nose/ forehead) Look at the bead. You should see two strings, as if one is coming from each eye. The two strings should appear to meet at the bead, (baseball) forming an X. (If they form a Y or only one string, the information from one eye is being suppressed: blink your eyes rapidly to “turn on” both eyes. If you X is in front of the bead, your eyes are aiming closer than it really is. In baseball or tennis, that might cause you to swing too early for the ball. Practice deep breathing and “looking softly” to move the X into the bead. If your X is beyond the bead, your eyes are aiming further away than it is-hence, a late swing at the ball. Practice looking in front of the bead to slowly get the X to the bead. When you find it easy to see the X at the bead, move the bead further out, according to your sport. Then add more beads and shift so one appears as one and the rest as double. (I mark the cord every 16 inches and move the ball as I see the X on both sides of the bead/baseball.)

Thanks Howard

 

[gobucksnreddevils]

This a post one of my parents forwarded to me about AP talking about tracking and his swing from different views and angles.

A look at Albert Pujols' perfect swing - USATODAY.com


Thanks Howard

This link that Howard posted is very cool for someone learning the swing that Crystl and Howard teach. After hitting the play arrow, one can go back with the mouse cursor and pull on the rectangular slider box that has the <> on it and you can position Pujols' swing at any point. A few quick points to note is that his elbows are in sync and he leads with his elbows then knob and then releases his hands. His head is down on the point of impact and remains that way through the end of the swing. His focus must be unbelievable plus as Howard teaches, having his head down helps give him so much power.