Baseball hitting Drills

When performing baseball hitting drills, You can pivot on your back foot or raise up onto your back toe, but creating good hip rotation is essential to creating the power to drive a baseball.

Watch carefully the best hitters in baseball and you’ll see each will drive their hips through the swing, which transfers the energy stored in their lower body into their swing. To feel what I’m talking about, Try hitting the ball only using your arms and upper body. You can hit the ball, but not with power. Here are a series of practice swing drills which will force your hip rotation into the swing process, which again, is imperative for creating power.

Baseball hitting Drills- This is Nothing Brand New

Creating Toe Point

1.    Using a tee, assume your normal batting stance at the plate;

2.    Moving only your back foot, pivot the foot until your toes face the pitcher;

3.    Be sure to keep your hands back and shoulders square to the plate, which is exactly the position they should be in while actually swinging, and concentrate on your lower body positioning;

4.    Take a normal swing at the baseball on the tee;

5.    If done correctly, you will feel your hips rotate which transfers weight and energy into the swing;

6.    Be sure to keep your shoulders closed, preventing your front shoulder from flying open, reducing power and pulling your head off the ball.

Baseball hitting Drills- See Rear Toe Direction

Swing Drill

This hitting drill, if broken down into three parts, will address the load, stride and swing.

1.    Assuming your normal hitting stance at the plate, shift your weight onto your back foot, use a starting mechanism to initiate this weight transfer;

2.    Take your stride and have a team mate yell “Swing” which is your cue to swing.

3.    Upon “Swing”, rotate your back foot until the front of the foot faces the pitcher, the toe point position.

4.    Complete your swing and hit the ball.

 Live Action

1.    Once you have practiced in slower motion and now know how the body should feel when performed correctly, take a series of swings at normal speed;

2.    Pay close attention to your hip rotation, transferring energy, and the results of hitting the ball as you finish your swing. There should be a noticeable difference of how the ball jumps off the bat.

Practice these mechanics until it becomes natural and not performing the actions correctly immediately are felt.

Baseball hitting Drills- Game Conditions

Practice

It’s a well-known fact in any phase of sports, or life for that matter, there is no substitution for practice. The repetitive physical actions which create muscle memory and instant response.

It’s also a well-known sports fact that hitting a baseball, thrown at high speed is among the most difficult feats in sports. There is precious little time to decide whether to swing at a ball which is traveling at more than 90 mph, and reaches home plate in 0.4 seconds. That’s no misprint. 0.4 seconds. Less than one-half of a second.

Hitting well requires concentration, great eyesight, lots of practice, and making educated guesses on the type of pitch the pitcher will throw and where the ball will arrive. Use these drills to improve form, concentration and eye to hand to ball coordination.

Practice these techniques to improve your form and concentration:

1.     Practice trying to hit the ball the other way. It forces you to wait a little longer before you swing and also helps your eyes and body quickly adjust and react to pitches.

2.     Work on situational hitting. Create scenarios such as moving a runner over, contact hitting or driving a long fly ball in order to score a runner from third base. Achieving an identified purpose when hitting improves bat and hand control.

3.     Utilize anything which builds your confidence. If perfecting bunting skills or hitting only up the middle builds confidence. Do it repeatedly.

Remembering this fact: Hitting a baseball is such a challenge and is so difficult, that even great players fail nearly 70% of the time. And that is considered success

Baseball hitting Drills to Teaching Hitting

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