Load
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We like to see 2 or 3 inches back toward the catchers mask. Some call it walking away from the hands. The problem we encounter is when they take them to far back and turn the shoulders. Why Howard talks about the swimming pool noddle we use. They must take the hands straight back and hit the elbow on the noodle.
So is it safe to say get as far back as possible without turning shoulders?
IMO the amount of distance the hands go back during the load is style and will vary.
When I instruct here is what I emphasize:
1. I prefer that the hands and arms go back as a unit and that the angles in the elbows are maintained. Often times young hitters will bar their lead arm during the load trapping the barrel behind their head.
2. As the hands load I look for the front shoulder to turn down and in, in response. DOWN AND IN not BACK AND AROUND on a horizontal axis.
3. I constantly remind the kids that they always need to know where the barrel is during the load. Even though they can't physically see the barrel, they need to have an awareness of what the barrel is doing based on what their hands and arms are doing.
4. Both eyes need to face the pitcher at all times. No peaking out of the corner of the eyes.
5. I prefer hands stay close to armpit height.
When I instruct here is what I emphasize:
1. I prefer that the hands and arms go back as a unit and that the angles in the elbows are maintained. Often times young hitters will bar their lead arm during the load trapping the barrel behind their head.
2. As the hands load I look for the front shoulder to turn down and in, in response. DOWN AND IN not BACK AND AROUND on a horizontal axis.
3. I constantly remind the kids that they always need to know where the barrel is during the load. Even though they can't physically see the barrel, they need to have an awareness of what the barrel is doing based on what their hands and arms are doing.
4. Both eyes need to face the pitcher at all times. No peaking out of the corner of the eyes.
5. I prefer hands stay close to armpit height.
agree, but I like the hands at about shoulder height when loaded. What about bat angle i like the bat head to point a bit forward aross helmet (ponytail) hole with the wrist cocked?
Dragoncoach: I agree, way back when I took baseball hitting lessons, they called it the slot position. We tell the kids top hand top of the shoulder. Tap Tap the back of the helmet where the pony tail slot is.
We use to keep the top of hands at the top of the shoulders and have found it easier to adjust if the hands are higher especially in the fast pitch world verses baseball.
In our opinion the strike zone is called higher in fast pitch because of the rise or upward angle the ball travels and for baseball it is lower...just my opinion so do it your way and use your own logic.
So we have the hands positioned bottom hand is at or above the top of the shoulder.
The hitter gets balanced and gets a good two eyed look.
This took a little research to come up with what is a good two eyed look? Some will say do not roll the shoulder in any more than 12 degrees or will say do not roll the shoulder in so much that it turns the head so much that your right eye would pull off the ball if you are a right handed hitter. So what is 12 degrees?
One of our kids father works with ergonomics and loaded in the distance we use to measure off the plate so he ran it at 31 through 34 inches and put the pitching distance in and the shoulder rolling in was calculated to be 3.65 inches would be too much of a turning in and would cause the right eye to turn away from the pitcher.
To get the hitter to see this we clip a 1/4 inch dowel rod to their shoulders (has two clips attached) and I think it is about 40 inches long. They face the mirror and load up and can see them self either turning or not turning as they load.
Then we point out can they see the white around the left eye? We place a hand on their head and gently turn their head enough so they can see it and then ask if it feels comfortable?
Usually it does not so we point out where are your feet positioned as to even, parallel, closed or open?
Unless they have had lazy left eye surgery all of our kids are even or slightly open. So we ask if they have any shoulder or neck discomfort with their head in that position and have them move their right foot towards home plate and inch at a time until the discomfort goes away. This usually is between 2 to 4 inches and 2 inches is a 5 degree open stance and 4 inches is 10 degrees.
Some of you may feel this makes no difference however seeing the ball out of the pitchers window of release is important to us.
They tap the back of the helmet where the pony tail comes out at the back of their head and we feel this sets the bat at about 45 degrees and they have a relationship to where their hands are to load. We think slow to load and soft to step and separate our hands rearward slightly at toe touch.
Crystl walks away from her hands in most situations and in our opinion this takes more athleticism to do and is style.
We want the elbow to come straight back and not turn around the corner as we term it, which is why we have them bump the swimming pool noodle with their elbow.
We point out separation is limited because the lead hand will not allow it to go back any further unless they force it. This is explained by me as feeling tension in the lead arm in front of the shoulder and that tension is good and that is far enough. Simply put your finger there and feel it as you move your hands back or rearward.
We do not encourage keeping the elbow up even or above the back shoulder however we do say the elbow should be away and not down as the slotting of the back elbow can not happen if the elbow is already down. So find a position that feels powerful to you, so we just say keep it away to allow it to come down.
As to the shoulders we say level to slightly down and never allow the lead shoulder to angle up.
We say slow to load, transferring the weight inside the back leg, soft to step, while separating our hands rearward slightly while going to toe touch.
Thanks Howard
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From what starting point?
Maybe I'm confused. Loading is just transfering more weight to the back leg and the hand position stays the same. Striding is when we "walk away from the hands".
IME, on LOAD, the hands should be somewhere around at the rear shoulder. When striding, the hands depending on your interpretation, move back toward the catches mask 2 to 3 inches.
Mike
Mike. Read Howards post. Separation and toe touch happen at the same time. You are correct on the load. As Howard noted we have changed our hands to bottom hand, top of the shoulder due to the amount of rise balls and high pitches in softball.
