Hitting and Hitters Discussion Move up on the ball? Destroy a swing.

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Roto148, very good points throughout your post!

 

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Hitter
If a batter can not adjust to the actual time difference (tiny) between up in the box or back in the box then what chance does she have against a kid that throws a 60MPH fastball, 48MPH change-up, and then a nasty breaking ball? My point is that if she &/or the coach blames the loss of her formerly magical swing on simply moving around in the box that this problem has likely gone to her head and taken root.

We talk about the mental side of softball yet never do anything about it. This is a prime example. All of the advice on this thread concerns her physical swing. You need to get her in a mental state that she might allow herself to be successful. Then perhaps some of the physical instruction will be useful in the meantime she will continue a downward spiral.

 

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Hitter
If a batter can not adjust to the actual time difference (tiny) between up in the box or back in the box then what chance does she have against a kid that throws a 60MPH fastball, 48MPH change-up, and then a nasty breaking ball? My point is that if she &/or the coach blames the loss of her formerly magical swing on simply moving around in the box that this problem has likely gone to her head and taken root.

We talk about the mental side of softball yet never do anything about it. This is a prime example. All of the advice on this thread concerns her physical swing. You need to get her in a mental state that she might allow herself to be successful. Then perhaps some of the physical instruction will be useful in the meantime she will continue a downward spiral.

Being able to adjust is the point and unless you are teaching or practicing to make these adjustments you are no more than guessing the movement will work for that particular situation in my opinion.

Try it with one of your hitters. Simply start at the back of the batters box and have her move forward 1 foot at a time after each swing and see what happens. Tell me how many feet did it take her to miss one and remember you have 7 feet to work with. Then at the front of the box reverse your direction and see what happens.

Blinking your eyes twice as fast as you takes about .500 hundredths of a second. Why do you think change ups work for most pitchers? Because the hitter can not adjust or has poor timing and weight shift. In most cases I do not see any balance before the swing or during the swing.

Why do you think most hitters complain that the pitcher is too slow and I like the faster pitchers? They have not been taught how to adjust.

Most kids I have worked with were taught how to lean backwards and do not load or coil into the hip/ leg and are usually poor throwers because they were not taught how the angle of the front foot and landing on the ball of the foot allows the weight to shift forward smoothly or efficiently. We use a half empty bottle of water to get them to understand the flowing movement of the water inside the bottle as they can feel it in their hand.

From a mental side of the game, I tell my kids you do not have a strike zone! We have a hitting zone and it is 9 balls high and 9 balls wide and I show it to them and then have them hit balls in our hitting zone. Most did not understand they could do it. I explain the only thing I want the umpire to do is call safe or out and the hitter determines what they can hit.

Our hitters hold a bat in their top hand and drop a ball with their left hand from shoulder level and grab the bat while the ball is rebounding and hit it. Each ball because of age rebounds differently so it presents a challenge however they learn to adjust and gain confidence in their abilities.

I soft toss low and high and then do a timing drop drill where I hold the ball eye level or below and they must adjust their timing in order to hit the ball.

I have them swing off the tee blind folded so their body can adjust to being balanced. You would be amazed that if they do not track the ball the same while blind folded they swing over the ball however when done the same they hit the ball.

We do not go to the plate thinking IF we are going to hit the ball. We want them to say where am I going to hit the ball!

If they have to move up WE have not trained them properly in my opinion. The trained ones, the ones who practice their skills on their own make the adjustments on their own and hit.

I call EEEEEEE, R.

Howard

 

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Hitter
Excellent suggestions. I love the hitting zone mentality.

We do a similar thing with pitchers throwing a pitch and then moving back a step and throwing again until they are at second (the advanced pitchers move into the outfield grass) This not only helps their mechanics but mentally I can remind them that they can throw the ball anywhere they want from second, how hard can it be from 43'?

When you do the release and bounce drill do you use a tennis ball?

 

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No this is a regular sofball. Each ball will bounce different based on age of the ball and how it hits the seams. Great drill for a kid to do by themself. This is off concrete like in the driveway or garage floor. I did make a portable concrete platform so we can do this drill on a gym floor or off dirt. I used a concrete walk slab. Drilled holes in it for a rope to make it portable. On the bottom side I glued some old carpet so it would not mark up a gym floor.

 

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Trying to understand what is taught verses what is meant.

We teach from the start how to throw and then how to hit.

Then we teach how to hit up the middle to establish bat control and once we can hit the ball up the middle we go to the ladder drill and soft toss the ball from below the knee, at the knee, mid thigh, waist, belly button and at the elbows.

This demonstrates bat angle adjustment and turn and tilt.

Then outside and lastly inside.

In my opinion when you teach a hitter to hit the ball where it is pitched it allows the hitter to visually see where the ball is and execute to hit the ball powerfully to the opposite field.

Most female hitters in my opinion are over their front leg (inability to shift their weight) and the front side is opening too soon thus not allowing them to power through the ball efficiently.

This is why I use a window to hit in, so they get an idea how far back they can hit a ball fairly and how far forward they can hit an inside pitch fairly.

If we hit a foul ball out of the park who cares....next pitch.

Howard