need help with DD's swing

[Rwilson]

need some help with how to get my daughter to swing better sorry about the quality of video

 

[straightleg]

She is dropping her hands.

I would start on a tee - High tee where ball is top of strike zone.
Have her try and drive balls off of that.
She will figure out how to keep her hands up



Straightleg

 

[marriard]

She is dropping her hands.

I would start on a tee - High tee where ball is top of strike zone.
Have her try and drive balls off of that.
She will figure out how to keep her hands up

Straightleg

If I would guess - an 8U player?

First the good: There is a decent weight transfer happening for a young player and she is finishing the swing. Also the hand-eye coordination looks solid.

Because a lot of coaches keep yelling out 'level swing', a lot of young players do just that. And the easiest way to do that is to drop the hands down and swing long and level. She starts her hands in reasonable position, but if you slow it down or simply leave your mouse on her hands as you play the video, you will see her first move is hands straight down instead of moving the end of the bat towards the ball/pitcher. Long and sweeping rather than short, explosive and compact.

Lots of drills out there on how to help with this.

[video]http://youtu.be/OMq1elCGHNQ[/video]


This is a pretty simplistic video but one that makes it's points pretty well.

She is also needs to get into a more athletic position with her knees bent and flexed. When she come forward onto the straight front leg she loses a lot of power and likely balance. See the video again of where and how the front foot moves through the swing.

Lastly - she is reaching for the ball. And she is likley doing this because the swing has to start early because of how long and sweeping it is, rather then explosive. We do a lot of timing drills in 10U - even on tees. A lot of 'READY, GO' type drills to get the swing moving and timing down for tees, side toss, front toss, live pitching, etc.

Even on tees we don't want the girls going up there and just swinging away - have them look out to a 'fake pitcher', get into there stance (READY) and then GO (Timed swing straight at ball).

Ok, there are lots of other things, but the above is already probably too much for her to work on in the next few practices.

 

[Rwilson]

shes 9 just started playing travel ball about 2 months ago she actually makes contact with the ball in the games but pulls foul toward 3rd base

 

[marriard]

shes 9 just started playing travel ball about 2 months ago she actually makes contact with the ball in the games but pulls foul toward 3rd base

Cool. I said 8U as it looked like a swing I see a lot from players I have coached who have been playing coach pitch and are moving onto kid pitch.

You'll find if she works on the the above this will help a lot with timing the ball which should reduce the tendency to foul the ball off to third.

You may have seen people doing the one hand drills for hitting - top hand hammer, bottom hand frisbee. These will help as well.

 

[Rwilson]

thanks alot, now should i have her work on a complete swing or break it down like work on not dropping the hands first etc.

 

[crystlemc]

Build it from the ground up. Start with how she should move her lower body and work up from there.

 

[marriard]

Definitely have to break it down in areas to work on. There is too many components of the swing to try and work on all of them at once. The secret is to keep the number of areas you are working on small and ignoring some things that may need to be worked on later.

We have had success this way with the hands and better swing plane:

Get about twenty balls and a net to throw into.

Hammer Drill: No bat. Get into batting stance. Now with her bottom hand arm (left), have her throw the balls into a net with a 'HAMMER' motion. Hammer STRAIGHT into the hitting zone from the stance. Don't let the hammer come flat - hand should come straight down. Use a hammer if you need to to show the motion.
Frisbee Drill: No Bat - same drill but with the top hand arm (right) frisbee the ball into the net (hand should be palm up on release)
Now same drill with both arms in the motion. Concentrating on the hammer should really help with dropping the hands issue
Now do the same drills with a light bat (like a tee-ball bat) or a half bat off a high tee
Then the do just the full swing two-hand drill with a real bat and a tee

I am sure others will kick in some other things to help.

Don't expect immediate changes - especially in games. Took my DD quite awhile at about the same age to make similar adjustments.When she is walking up to the plate you can see her concentrating on the direction she wants the first movement of her hands to be.

((Sorry about the several edits - had to make adjustments to what I wrote))

 

[Chris O'Leary]

She is dropping her hands.

I would start on a tee - High tee where ball is top of strike zone.
Have her try and drive balls off of that.
She will figure out how to keep her hands up

Straightleg

She is dropping her hands, but that won't help her because it won't teach her how to correctly adjust to balls down in the strike zone.

As someone else mentioned, you have to understand why she's dropping her hands. That may be due to a cue that she's following.

As I have said before, I was at the cages once and heard a presumably well-intentioned dad chastising his daughter for dropping her hands while simultaneously telling her to stand up straight when hitting balls down in the strike zone.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Build it from the ground up. Start with how she should move her lower body and work up from there.

Bingo!

Well, technically from the rear hip, down to the rear foot, and back up ... but I get the gist of what you mean. The kid's lower body mechanics, and overall sequence, are a mess ... very top-down oriented ... and starting with the fundamentals of a lower body running start is a good idea.