5 Keys To Successful Hitting

    I know, I know... yet another opinion on successful hitting and swing mechanics. While pitching is the most critical position on defense (along with a good catchers ability to frame, block and field), hitting is probably one of, if not THE most important facet of the offensive game. 

   There are some coaches that may argue this point, though. Many teams utilize, successfully, short-game and speed, but that is a topic for another post.

   In short, here are my 5 keys: Be on time, Gather, Back Elbow to the ball, Head in, Finish high. Of course there are more details, such as stance, grip, toe-touch, heel plant, hip rotation, front elbow, shoulders, ad nauseam (figurative eye roll here). These are keys, not every point. There was a time when I could talk about grip for 10 minutes, stance for 5 minutes, stride for another 4, etc. The problem is that some of this is philosophy and may seem like a conflict to young players who have been taught different or antiquated information, like squishing bugs. The other problem with this is that when you spend 10 minutes, talking about grip, your average 12 year old, and even your average 17 year old,  tuned you out 9 minutes earlier. If there is one thing that I have learned, it's to keep it simple.

   Einstein once said: If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough, so here goes:

1) BE ON TIME. Referencing University of Arizona head softball coach,  Mike Candrea here. Mike has studied hitting like no one I have ever encountered and was head softball coach in two Olympics (one silver, one gold), as well as leading 8 national championships at Arizona. To say the least he is a great hitting coach. Mike said that 80% of hitting issues are timing. So how do you teach timing? Remember that you don't want to change your swing sequence, which often happens because hitters are sometimes taught to swing faster or slower. The key to timing is learning how a pitcher releases, and how the hitters sequence matches up to that. Here's what I mean. How fast is the pitch from the pitchers release point. As she reaches the hip, what should the hitter be doing? That depends on the pitchers speed. If she is a flame-thrower, then the hitters stride, if she takes one, needs to be earlier, so the she does not need to rush her swing. If the pitcher is slow, then stride late, but don't change the swing velocity. The speed at which the bat-head is released to the ball is the same no matter what the pitchers speed. The only thing that changes is when the sequence begins. One technique I learned many years ago, is to eliminate the stride and to simply start with a post-stride stance. Raise the front heal to push the hitter straight back toward catcher, shifting the weight back (Called the gather). Make sure they stay in front of the back knee though, then heel plant, while getting the elbow to connection point at the hip. By eliminating the stride, there are less moving parts and, in my opinion, is much easier to be "on time" to the ball. No stride, that I am aware of, ever created more velocity on the barrel release. Stride or no stride, being on time is critical and can only be learned using ball out of hand drills (like front toss, or live pitchers). Tees don't help for this, neither does side-toss. Pitching machines really don't simulate this timing either. Each player is different when it comes to this, so teach them how to evaluate their own timing with as many pitchers as they can see. 

2) GATHER. The gather is a simple movement. If the hitter is a "strider," the gather is complete at toe touch. If the hitter does not stride, then it is a simple raising the front heal which results in pushing the hitter straight towards the catcher. It is important that the gather does NOT push the batters body-weight beyond the back knee. They must stay between the knees for all phases of he swing. During this phase, the rest of the body (head, arms, etc) need to stay quiet. No twisting or bobbing. The beauty of this movement is that it can be done slowly and when the batter has decided to initiate contact point the gather can stop. The gather stops once the decision is made to heal plant and initiate back elbow drive. This allows for multiple speed differential of pitches, including the dreaded change-up

Good Gather position

3) BACK ELBOW TO THE BALL. Years ago, when I was coaching in Tucson, I noticed my players having all kinds of timing issues on the bat head release. Some way too early, some were really far behind. About this time, I attended a coaches clinic put on by Mike Candrea. Something I noticed was what he and Don Slaught each demonstrated. The back elbow was on plane with the pitch and lead the way to generate good bat lag and allowed for timely bat head release. I started to apply this observation to my team and guess what happened? They started hitting the ball... HARD, on time and up the middle. We doubled our line drives in games (anecdotally), and started scoring a bunch of runs. If my players have heard me say any ONE thing over and over it's "drive your back elbow to the ball." One of the aspects of this that I find so powerful is the simplicity... there's that word again. It is a simple and easy way to address swing plane and timing! Let's discuss the mechanics of this. Once the hitter gathers, the back elbow is somewhere between 5 and 3 o'clock. Not higher or lower. When the elbow triggers towards connection and the heal plants, the hitter should take their back elbow to the plane of the pitch. Note that if the ball is outside or way inside, I don't have them drive their elbow out or in... just get it on the plane of the ball and try to stay inside the pitch. This creates a great deal of bat lag without thinking about it and they can release their bat-head on time and explosively. It may sound overly simple but every time my hitters did this they started driving balls more up the middle, and HARD. If you only apply one piece of advice from this article, it's this one.

Notice how the back elbow leads the way creating bat-lag

4) HEAD IN. Have you ever heard a coach tell the batter to watch the ball hit the bat? This is impossible to actually do, but the attempt to do so accomplishes a very important aspect of successful hitting. Keeping your head quiet and down at contact point not only increases the hitters ability to make solid contact but this is a position of strength anatomically. I have tested this out with hundreds of batters. Try it yourself. Have a batter who loves to fly their front shoulder and pull their head out early, get their bat to contact position and tell them to hold that position. Ask them to hold strong and resist as you push the bat head backwards (like a ball would). Then ask them to do the same thing but keep their front shoulder in and their head and eyes down at contact point. If you use a Newton spring scale, you would clearly see that their resistance is greater with their eyes and head down on the ball. Kids can feel the difference as well.

Head is locked in at the contact point

5) FINISH HIGH. This is simple in the concept but not so much in practice. Finishing high means hands up by the front shoulder. The reason is simple: A hitter can have good timing and initiate a good plane of swing but lose that by finishing with their hands by their front elbow or half way up the humerus. This can cause the swing path to change to under the ball even a little bit which may cause a popup. Finishing high keeps the swing path on the proper plane throughout the swing.

high finish

Techniques and drills to accomplish this
Timing: The only technique I know is seeing ball out of hand, so front toss and live arm pitching is your go-to
Gather: Tee. Have hitter address a Tee. Have them gather back slowly, then go back to the beginning. Have them do it a second time, but this time, they swing at the ball off the Tee
Back elbow to ball: Tee work such as Insider bat (tm). This is probably the best tool I have used to get students to use drive the back elbow. Be sure that the ball is going straight off the Tee. One hand bats will work too but it is easier to trick yourself into thinking that you are doing it right
Head in: A good ole fashioned full length mirror with a Tee is great for this. There is also a tool called Swivel Vision (tm) goggles. I have not used these extensively in the short time I have used them they have been pretty effective.
Finish high: Tee and dry swings with a mirror is probably best for this.

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