Training Aids

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I would strongly recommend not hitting basketballs or tires....this puts a tremendous amount of stress on the wrists, elbows and shoulders. I have seen the results from doing this and when I met Crystl in 2002 we stopped doing it and have had no difficultly teaching them how to drive to the ball and through the ball.

We do use the weighted pitching balls which are 9.8 ounces and soft toss them and it provides resistance and they will power through the ball. We start by using a tennis ball, then a hard ball, then a softball, then the weighted ball and then repeat in that order.

As to the beans....there is a local coach who does this and has the players stand in front of them while they toss the beans...one of my college players had a welt under her right eye from doing this. If this were a business OHSA would have fined us for not making her wear safety glasses. They were hitting beans using a ball bat. If you can not hit a bean with a ball bat at that level you need to take up the sport where you kick the ball and bounce it off your head. The players were right in front of the hitters and this becomes a safety issue with me especially at the college level!

At least get off to the side and use a broom stick if you want to make it a challenge but not head on from the front.

Hope this helps....Howard

 

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When you first started out, way back when, when not every girl had an expensive bat, and just fundraising enough to cover tournament fees was hard, what training aids did you use?

The orignal thread was for little girls, and what you could use for training cheap.

 

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"The original thread was for little girls, and what you could use for training cheap. "

I am not sure exactly what you mean...however 77 finishing nails 1.5 inches long driven into the seams of a softball with 6 layers of duct tape work pretty well and is not that expensive.

Howard

 

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have seen this technique of using the 2x4 being used at clinics in this area and without the heel being planted on the lead foot however how could you block the front hip and acheive rotation properly. This is promoting squishing the bug. This is as bad as promoting to swing level or down on the ball. No one I know of at the ISF or NPF level promote this and no one on TEAM USA uses or promotes this technique but we do in this area of the country. ?

For those of you that stated Squish the Bug . ?We have not taught this for several years and if you read some of the baseball and softball sites, you will find ?none of the good hitting ?coaches teach this. ? ?This was a cut and paste from a prior post.

I can give you more specifits, but Dave Paetkau that works with the CN team and Howard Carrier who works with some of the best in the US both are against this.
?There are some pictures ?posted on some other web sites, that I can send to you that show why we do not teach squish the bug. ? Watch Bustos and others that play on team USA and watch the back foot!

Visit the site baseball 101. Many discussions on this topic with pictures~!


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I used to be guilty of the Lima beans as a drill, but as Howard posted you better have someone with glasses on or you can get hurt. The other problem, they are a pain to throw in wind and you cannot throw them very fast.
Here is what I now use at no cost. Not my idea, I watched someone pay money for some devices just like it.

Lids: You can get them off small coffee cans or Microwave soup. You can throw them very fast and they move up and down or side to side, depending on how you throw or spin them.. Wind is not an issue. They last a long time and I carry a bucket of them to warm up batters . Plus they don't hurt when they hit you or do they go very far, since they compact at contact.. Beats the heck out of whiffle balls or Lima beans, since I have used both over the years.

 

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The best training aid is to spend a lot of time, I never used anything but a glove, bat , bucket of balls and a tee. One tip, have a great time it will be over before you know it.