Hitting Opinions and Absolutes

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I would like to see what coaches and hitting experts teach when it comes to hitting.

Grip - Do you teach a staggered or aligned knocking knuckes grip? How do you think the knuckles should be aligned at contact?

Stance - Do you teach a neutral, open, or closed stance. How wide do you like to see the stance? How do you think the weight should be distributed in the stance?

Load - Do you teach a load (negative move)?

Stride - How far do you like to see the stride? Does the load or negative move occur at the same time as the stride? Do you even teach a stride? If you teach a stride, do you want the toes to touch the ground first or do you want the entire foot planting into the ground at the same time?

Rotation - When do you believe rotation should start? Do you even teach rotation or do you teach a push swing or gate swing? Do you teach a squish the bug approach?

Contact - How should the shoulders, arms, hands, bat barrel, head, and other parts of the body be positioned at contact?

Finish - Do you stop the swing at contact? Do you teach an immediate wrist roll or full extension? Do you want both hands staying on the bat or is releasing the top hand okay?


Feel free to add anything you consider important in a swing considering I did not post all parts necessary to produce a swing. Answer the entire post or just pick and choose a part of the post.

Len

 

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I will say one thing about grip is not to have the bat buried back in the hands but across the pads just below the fingers.

 

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I will touch grip, since the way we taught this has changed in the last Year, since a scientic test was conducted on the West coast that proves we gain 3 to 5 on BSI doing the following. We no longer teach lineing up the door Knuckles, We teach the top hand door knuckles line up with the bottom hand face knuckles and the top hand must rotate in the swing to line back up> We teach to grip only with the bottom three fingers, not the thump and fore finger. If you grip your forearm and move your three fingers you can feel your forearm move. Now do the same with your thump and forefinger do the same test. You can feel the difference. If you have a BSI meter you can preform this test yourself. Take you top hand and put a sock on it, so that it slids when you swing the bat and see the difference. Just one change in our teaching in the last year.

 

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Finish - Do you stop the swing at contact? Do you teach an immediate wrist roll or full extension? Do you want both hands staying on the bat or is releasing the top hand okay?

Full extension and its a Style thing on releasing the top hand. wrist roll or back slapping is bad. Take a bat to Extension. Stop it against someones hand. See if they can push it back, Do the same thing by rolling the wrist and see which is stronger. Do the same thing by chocking up on a bat and see which method is stronger. After you do it, you will throw away all the handle attachments .

 

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Stance - Do you teach a neutral, open, or closed stance. How wide do you like to see the stance? How do you think the weight should be distributed in the stance? Neutral. Width 1 1/2 times the shoulder blades -2 or +2 inches. Weight must be on the big toe. I will let Howard Carrier go into the difference why you must teach a female athlete different than a male, since he has many studies and has worked with sports therapists at hospitals on why females are more injury prone in the knee area. We have them bend at the waist and soften the knees.

 

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Grip - Aligned knocking knuckles and all 10 fingers should be pointing toward the pitcher at extension. If your hands cross at the grip there is a chance the knuckles will not align as you swing, that will cause some problems.

Stance – This is style for the most part. The feet a shoulders width apart or slightly wider. An athletic position works best, soft knees and a slight bend in the waist. Knees inside your feet head between knees. Weight balanced in your stance 50/50.

Load – You have to load! You load against your back foot not on it.

Stride – Short stride with a soft landing or toe touch. I like the player to load as they get to toe touch, dance with the pitcher. Toe touch happens then heel plant. Remember hands back and wrists cocked

Rotation – I like hip rotation to start at toe touch, could happen at heel plant too.

Contact - Elbow leads, head down, hips through and a firm front leg. You need to have flexion in the arms, do not extend at contact. Your front side should stay in.
Do not roll wrists, think palm up, palm down until you finish. Elbow above hands, hands above the bat barrel. The barrel of your bat should be pointing toward the pitcher of outfield. Your front side should stay in

Finish – Wrists roll after extension and a top hand release is ok after extension.

 

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One thing I do worry about concerning grip. If a hitter is wearing batting gloves on both hands, a staggered grip could pose problems. With todays "tacky-mac" style grips on the bats, the combination of the glove on the top hand plus the tackiness of the grip might not let the top hand turn to align the knocking knuckles during the swing. Also, at the younger ages many kids tend to choke the bat, not letting the top hand slide towards alignment.

That being said, I personally have a staggered grip which rotates to knuckle alignment at impact but teach my kids (12U) to align the door knocking knuckles so the knuckles are already at alignment at impact. Do as I say, don't do as I do!.......LOL

 

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I will say one thing about grip is not to have the bat buried back in the hands but across the pads just below the fingers.

I like the handle of the bat to be between the palm pads and the first knuckle at the end of the fingers....basically that means the bat handle should be in curled fingers.

 

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Grip......6 fingered grip in the 3rd set of knuckles in the hand, not in the palm, outer knuckles at load are off set and will be alligned at the knocker knuckle at contact
Stance.. good athletic stance, little wider than your shoulders, we teach a nuetral stance and to stay on the power line or straight forward movement, weight is evenly distruibited between the feet, bending at the waist and softening the knees. bat is set angled from pony tail to preset bat angle, bottom hand number high top hand no higher than the top of shoulder,
Load..... while staying on the inside of your feet knees flexed we begin to transfer the weight forward, the back knee does not go back over the back foot ,
stride or toe touch........... the tranference of the load to the front foot when the pitcher in in her 12 o clock poistion on her pitch we step forward slightly with front knee flexed and land on the side of the front foot at the big toe area, the other 4 toes are off the ground giving us a raised heel (heel does not have to raised alot)
Front elbow drive....... this is where all the arguments come in, all the movements all most fire at once but for the sake of argument I wil list them as i think they happen
Front elbow fires, dropping the heel wich in trun brings the back elbow thru the slot
and begins the rotation wich takes us to contact
contact.. back elbow in the slot, back arm and back leg have a distingishable power V or L or what ever your favorite terminoligy are, proper bat angle has been set so at this time the knob is above the hands, hands above the barrell, barrell above the ball, knuckles are ligned head is down thru contact
Finish swing thru the ball and finish high,wrists rolls, bat rolls up and over the front shoulder one hand or two hand release is a personal prefrence,
If i have forgotten something i am sure I will be reminded of it very shortly lol

Tim

 

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I agree with both you last posts Len. I see many with Rocket Tech's chocking up and not using the grip to take advantage of the small knob. Plus I shake my head when I see a kid with this bat with the rubber grip attachment. I starting telling my younger kids to not wear a glove on the top hand and to rub dust on the hand before they go to bat . This helps correct what you posted.

 

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Grip - Aligned knocking knuckles and all 10 fingers should be pointing toward the pitcher at extension. If your hands cross at the grip there is a chance the knuckles will not align as you swing, that will cause some problems.

Stance ? This is style for the most part. The feet a shoulders width apart or slightly wider. An athletic position works best, soft knees and a slight bend in the waist. Knees inside your feet head between knees. Weight balanced in your stance 50/50.

Load ? You have to load! You load against your back foot not on it.

Stride ? Short stride with a soft landing or toe touch. I like the player to load as they get to toe touch, dance with the pitcher. Toe touch happens then heel plant. Remember hands back and wrists cocked

Rotation ? I like hip rotation to start at heel plant, could happen at toe touch too.

Contact - Elbow leads, head down, hips through and a firm front leg. You need to have flexion in the arms, do not extend at contact. Your front side should stay in.
Do not roll wrists, think palm up, palm down until you finish. Elbow above hands, hands above the bat barrel. The barrel of your bat should be pointing toward the pitcher of outfield. Your front side should stay in

Finish ? Wrists roll after extension and a top hand release is ok after extension.

Chip..
Great info and very well written

 

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That knob was patented to fit in the palm of the hand, if a girl has to choke up on a R/T its to heavy, to long or both, again find an instructor get the proper mechanics and use the right sized bat, cant stress those last 2 things enough

 

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Grip......6 fingered grip in the 3rd set of knuckles in the hand, not in the palm, outer knuckles at load are off set and will be alligned at the knocker knuckle at contact
Stance.. good athletic stance, little wider than your shoulders, we teach a nuetral stance and to stay on the power line or straight forward movement, weight is evenly distruibited between the feet, bending at the waist and softening the knees. bat is set angled from pony tail to preset bat angle, bottom hand number high top hand no higher than the top of shoulder,
Load..... while staying on the inside of your feet knees flexed we begin to transfer the weight forward, the back knee does not go back over the back foot ,
stride or toe touch........... the tranference of the load to the front foot when the pitcher in in her 12 o clock poistion on her pitch we step forward slightly with front knee flexed and land on the side of the front foot at the big toe area, the other 4 toes are off the ground giving us a raised heel (heel does not have to raised alot)
Front elbow drive....... this is where all the arguments come in, all the movements all most fire at once but for the sake of argument I wil list them as i think they happen
Front elbow fires, dropping the heel wich in trun brings the back elbow thru the slot
and begins the rotation wich takes us to contact
contact.. back elbow in the slot, back arm and back leg have a distingishable power V or L or what ever your favorite terminoligy are, proper bat angle has been set so at this time the knob is above the hands, hands above the barrell, barrell above the ball, knuckles are ligned head is down thru contact
Finish swing thru the ball and finish high,wrists rolls, bat rolls up and over the front shoulder one hand or two hand release is a personal prefrence,
If i have forgotten something i am sure I will be reminded of it very shortly lol

Tim

Great explaination Tim...good stuff! Do you find that RVP beginners struggle with knuckle re-alignement through the swing?

Sonny

 

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Since we all agree on extension and finish. Here is a good drill to help a student that doesn't finish and slaps the back. I like doing this on on knee, but you take the top hand and reverse it on the bat. Palm down! Now when they swing they must release that hand which forces them to finish correctly.

 

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No once they have been set the swing will bring the the knuckles naturaly to where they need to be, one of the biggest reasons for the offset knuckle in my opinion is it forces the batter not to have a death grip on the bat.As SBFamily explained, if theres is a death grip using the thumb and forefinger wrapped around the bat the wrists cannot break and the bat canot roll out at the end

 

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Where we disagree is heel plant and rotation.We are at toe touch at the top of the K. We do not go to heel plant till release, Change up, that is why we have all our kids on deck in attack mode and trying to dance with the pitcher. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong on where the test was preformed., but why we went to the bucket drill at toe touch was to cause imbalance to keep rotation from happening to soon. This is NEW! At UCLA Sue Enquist and Don Slaught tested this under computer enhancements and measureing the impact of holding rotation. The study was very interesting in the extra power you generate using this approach. Again this is new and isn't even out in RVP yet.

 

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Re: Hitting Opinions and Absolutes.

Grip...off set grip bottom hand bat is laid were the fingers join at the palm of the hand. Top hand is set about 1/ 2 inch into the palm of the hand. Index and thumb are off the bat...have them hold a piece of paper between the thumb an d index fingers to make the point. Try driving a nail holding a hammer too tightly and you will bend the nail. If you look at AP with the Cardinals he lines up the finger knuckles however he also raises the back shoulder to increase the force down ward with the back elbow...we do not teach the extremeness in what we teach as they are not elite MLB or NPF athletes yet.

Stance...we let the hitter choose their stance based on vision or getting a good two eyed look. We teach to bend at the waist first and then soften the knees in that sequence or sequential core loading. They measure off from the plate using the length of their bat and place the lead foot at the knob of the bat. Usually the width of the stance is 1.5 the width of the shoulder plus or minus 2 inches. They look into a mirror and try to see the white of the lead eye on the outside corner of the eye. While attempting this we asked if there is any tension in the neck or shoulder areas....if there is we ask them to move their back foot towards home plate in two inch increments (this is about a 5 degree offset) and they repeat looking into the mirror and we ask if that feels better or worse? In most cases it takes the uncomfortableness away. Some use even or slightly open or closed however it is based on vision and being able to see the ball in a comfortable position. The only kids who have used a closed stance have all had lazy left eye surgery.

At the stance while standing in front of the mirror we also go over top of the hands to the top of the shoulder and bat angle by tapping the back of the helmet where the pony tail would be if it came out at the back of the head. We want them to be able to see their hands separated about the width of a hand from the shoulders or the width of a hand plus their thumb.

Load...Again in front of a mirror we have the hitter think in terms of their legs being in the shape of a pyramid...lead leg front of the pyramid and back leg rear of the pyramid. We do a simple turn of the foot inward or what is termed eversion or the weight being shifted to the inside area around the big toe and the fleshy area behind the big toe. This puts the weight inside the hitters back leg. To get them to feel it we stand in front of them and say load to see if the back leg/ hip moves. Now we hold their shoulders and support them and ask them to pick up their lead foot leg and we either assume their weight or they are leaning backwards. We will get behind them while they are looking into the mirror and they can see my foot and leg move inward without the back side moving. This technique is especially helpful when working with kids that are LD.

More later lessons now..

 

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What is everyones thoughts on the position of the head? Should the head down or level, or tilted. Should the chin be tucked? Any thoughts on this would be welcomed!

Mike

 

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Stride...We say slow to load and soft to step on a flexed front knee and have them step to a 5 gallon bucket filled about half way with concrete. I have not found a plastic that is slicker than what the buckets are made of. We step towards the bucket so the edge of our foot and baby toe are slightly off the ground and on the bucket. We are looking for the knee to be flexed and for our weight to have went from a 30 70 or 40 60 weight shift at load and back to a 50 50 weight transfer. Because we are flexed on the front knee our hip structure will move somewhat linear and the weight moves more inside the back leg. We do not want our hitters stepping open or the front foot pointing towards the pitcher. The foot is not a result of the opening as it can only be moved or articulated so far...it is the leg moving inside the hip socket and we use the knee as an indicator of how far we are opening the front side. As a right handed hitter we feel the knee opening anymore than where the second basemen is playing normally would be too far and causes more issues as pulling off the ball. The bucket helps us make that point so the hitter sees it, feels it and fixes it.

As we stride to toe touch we want them to think toe to toe and keep the foot close to the ground and land on the edge of the foot, not flat footed so there is instability in the hip and it will move linear. Landing flat footed usually will cause the front side to open and rotation to start too soon. We want them to load on the pitchers up swing of the ball hand and be at toe touch when the pitcher is in the K position and we term this as dancing with the pitcher.

We want them to separate their hands rearward slightly keeping the hands at least shoulder level high however we are not teaching hands above the head or the back elbow being higher than the shoulder and we want that separation to happen as we stride and the toe touch is felt. How far we stride is up to the hitters feel as to weight transfer being 50 50 at toe touch. Not enough forward movement less power, too much and you could wind up being over your front leg as the head and chest are not back and somewhat centered and everything is over your front leg.

We freeze them in this position and term it the attack mode. we then ask the hitter to swing and look for any additional movements what so ever as there should not be any if they are in the correct position.

Connection...Happens when the hands start to pass in front of the back shoulder and usually can be observed as the back elbow lowers or slots or begins to close the gap as the lead elbow is making a good first move forward of about 2 to 4 inches and up at a slight angle. It is very important to think in terms of the elbows working together as a unit as staying connected. We want the hitter to think in terms of pulling the bat from behind their head or whipping it...with the elbow, hand and bat head and the hands are above the plane of the pitch. Our hands are inside the path of the ball and we never take the knob of the bat to the ball. We rotate our hips as needed and use our belly button as an indication of where we are trying to drive the ball. This is why we teach hitting up the middle first and then how to hit an outside pitch next as we feel anyone can pull a ball however do you have the timing and rhythm to hit the ball where it is pitched. Again we want the hands to be above the plane of the pitch at a slight angle and this will depend on the height of the pitch, less angle on a rise ball and more angle on a drop ball. We do not want the elbows straightened out at contact however we want the back elbow to be in a bent L position and the lead elbow to have some flex or bend and think to the ball and through the ball to extension.

This action is initiated when the hitter recognizes spin, speed and release and as the elbow begins to lower, simultaneously the heel begins to plant based on your instincts of speed. If the pitch is slower your heel plant will be adjusted and if faster the heel plant will happen much faster as the linear phase of the hips moving forward will begin rotation.

Extension...For me extension happens as we are driving the ball off the bat and your extension direction will depend on if you are hitting the ball up the middle, outside or inside as to where the bat head is pointing. We are looking for both arms to be extended or a power V. We do not promote the power V at contact. If extended you will normally see the bat finish over the shoulder.

There is a lot more to our method of instruction as we teach throwing mechanics first to promote flex in the front knee so the weight will shift properly. We put a lot of emphasis on this to prevent ACL injuries from happening as the female anatomy and firing of the knee is much different than the males. I have never seen a poor female hitter be a good thrower in 20 years however I have seen it in boys as they pitch well and have poor hitting mechanics.

We demonstrate these techniques at all of our clinics and consider it our foundation for hitting and preventing ACL injuries from happening.

 

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I have never heard of an ACL injury from hitting, how often does it happen, a player suffering an ACL injury from swinging a bat ?