Need help with daughter swing, either lunging or hitting all ground balls

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Jul 29, 2013
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Easy to fix. She swings on a downward plane.
Place an empty tee 12 inches behind the tee with the ball and 1 inch below the bottom of the ball. Have her clip the back tee on the way to the ball. This will flatten her swing plane and she'll hit the ball in the air. All the rest will fix itself.
Make sure she drops the head of the bat to get on plane and not her hands. The hands must stay above the ball! The bat head should make the shape of the Nike swoosh.
When she starts hitting the ball deep in the outfield, drop the rear tee to 2" below the ball and the ball will start going over the fence.
This swing will get her on plane early and she'll be able to hit high velocity fastballs and be less vulnerable to off speed pitches.
All the other commentors have good ideas, but in the end, she'll be paralyzed. The problem is that she's hitting down on the top of the ball and that makes the ball go down on the ground. The fix is to hit on a flat or slightly upward swing plane and hit the ball one inch low of center to create backspin....and it will certainly go in the air.
 
Last edited:
Aug 20, 2017
1,474
113
Easy to fix. She swings on a downward plane.
Place an empty tee 12 inches behind the tee with the ball and 1 inch below the bottom of the ball. Have her clip the back tee on the way to the ball. This will flatten her swing plane and she'll hit the ball in the air. All the rest will fix itself.
Make sure she drops the head of the bat to get on plane and not her hands. The hands must stay above the ball! The bat head should make the shape of the Nike swoosh.
When she starts hitting the ball deep in the outfield, drop the rear tee to 2" below the ball and the ball will start going over the fence.
This swing will get her on plane early and she'll be able to hit high velocity fastballs and be less vulnerable to off speed pitches.
All the other commentors have good ideas, but in the end, she'll be paralyzed. The problem is that she's hitting down on the top of the ball and that makes the ball go down on the ground. The fix is to hit on a flat or slightly upward swing plane and hit the ball one inch low of center to create backspin....and it will certainly go in the air.
Bobby, what others are teaching is what actually gets the barrel on plane by teaching the body to work in proper sequence. If she swings firing her hips while continuing to resist with the upper body (lower body rotating, hands staying back) she will swing from the correct launch position and the barrel will likely have a slight uppercut. When a player powers the swing with arms/shoulders, they have all kinds of issues (downward swing plane, cutting the swing off at front hip, pushing the barrel etc) that are fixed by getting the player in the proper swing sequence. Your tee drill could cause the barrel to dump early and drag if she does it using only the upper body
 
Jul 29, 2013
1,199
63
Bobby, what others are teaching is what actually gets the barrel on plane by teaching the body to work in proper sequence. If she swings firing her hips while continuing to resist with the upper body (lower body rotating, hands staying back) she will swing from the correct launch position and the barrel will likely have a slight uppercut. When a player powers the swing with arms/shoulders, they have all kinds of issues (downward swing plane, cutting the swing off at front hip, pushing the barrel etc) that are fixed by getting the player in the proper swing sequence. Your tee drill could cause the barrel to dump early and drag if she does it using only the upper body
In the interest of keeping it simple, I'd start with the tee drill and then fix any further issues when or if they pop up. If the hands are kept at the back shoulder height, the body has to move first.
My main point is that if the goal is to hit the ball in the air, getting in the proper plane is of utmost importance, yet that was getting left out of all of the explanations of how to fix the ground ball problem.
 

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