Twinsdad it starts way before the game or the on deck circle.
When working off the tee make sure they are looking through the net as this allows proper tracking techniques to be practiced. You would be surprised that many coaches say nothing about this and allow the hitter to just look at balls on a tee and never track the ball to the tee and then when they are in a game situation they have no timing or rhythm as to game time usage. However you probably already know this.
A couple of the drills we use are the timing drop drill. We start at eye level and hold the ball over the plate starting with a pitch up the middle then away and then inside. We tell the hitter to start their load as we lower the ball by flexing our wrist and they see this action out of their peripheral vision while looking through the net at the pitchers window of release. I do not believe in dropping balls from a ladder or a 5 gallon bucket as the hitter never sees a pitch like this so why practice something that never happens in an actual game.
Then we start to lower the ball and drop it to simulate a slow pitch to a faster pitch as we lower the balls drop height. Once this is mastered we drop one just above the knees and then repeat at the shoulder or eye level and they start to get the idea of how to adjust.
This is where the loading comes in and many mistakes can be made however I am sure you know that. The flex in the front leg allows the hips to keep moving while the hitter is making the decision to swing and lancing ton the inside edge of the lead foot or what is termed eversion allows that weight shift to continue. Landing on all 5 fives will usually cause something on the front side to open too soon and then the upper body opens too fast and they pull everything.
Once they begin to sense the differences in timing as to weight shift they know when to start heel plant and adjust as to faster and slower as we believe the swing starts bottom up or from the ground up. While Crystl was working on the movie with Reese Witherspoon, Coach Enquist and CB had a lot of time to talk technique and Coach termed the heel planting and the back foot lifting as the Elvis move, so we adopted it. Then we added that Elvis drives the shoulders as when done correctly the shoulders will move slightly at heel plant and the back foot heel lifting and the swing started from the ground up!
The next drill is done with a ball on the tee and I have a parent get involved by standing at least 5 feet away from the net on the other side. They do an arm circle like the pitcher and at the K position the hitter loads and at the window of release they step and as the ball hits the net we hit the ball on the tee.
Warning: Do not use a softball while throwing in the net as you may occasionally pitch the ball where they hit the ball and you will get hurt. Use a whiffle ball or tennis only or even a pair of socks!
This gives the hitter a much better sense of timing and rhythm in my opinion.
Then to mix up the timing drop drill I will hold the ball on the inside edge corner and the hitter is told to look inside and adjust away. I rock forward to hold the ball inside and then rock away and drop it by angling towards the outside back corner of the plate. Sometimes I just drop it on the inside corner without moving to keep them honest.
Another very good drill for creating a swing DNA is the Barry Bonds drill and it is the coaches corner.
To help the hitter get in time with their body we have taught them to say EEEEEEEEEE, R and this is Chinese for one, two. I used this in China because of the language barrier. During the loading phase into the back hip we turn into the back hip by twisting from the belly button down while keeping the weight focused on the big toe and toe next to it so we do not rock back on the heel. It is a basic martial arts move to thrust before rotation and gives us a little extra. I do not like the weight over the back leg weight shift or slide as it effects momentum and timing in my opinion.
Les and Kavin and their teams understand this technique and seemed to be able to teach it and got some pretty good results using it. Les was the guinea pig test case or like a mouse that is used at P&G, so after we got him trained we tried it on Kavin :lmao:
