Baseball hitting instructions made easy
Baseball hitting instructions can be as scientific, detailed and confusing as the coach wants to make it. I prefer to keep hitting a baseball as simple as possible for my clients. 3 H's of Hitting 1. Hips 2. Hands 3. Head Using the 3 H's of hitting will organize your thoughts as a coach and give your players structure in their training. I have found that players acquire skills much faster if there is an outline of 2 and no more than three items that they can focus on during a training session.
Hips When teaching baseball hitting mechanics it is important to start with the "hips". The hips incorporate the lower body in the swing. Turning or rotating the hips is the primary goal of this part of the swing. You may come across coaches that are "rotational" hitting instructors and follow a Mike Schmidt or Dusty Baker model of hitting. Or you may find hitting instructors that teach a "linear" transfer Charlie Lau or Walt Hriniak style. You see how confusing this already is? Let's get back to simple the hips rotate to transfer the weight forward into the front leg.
Hands The bat path is another discussion that you may find yourself in regarding baseball hitting instructions...Should a hitter swing down? Should a hitter swing up? or should a hitter swing level? The answer is yes to all three. It's pretty simple when you look at the entire swing instead of only one portion. The bat pat starts down into the hitting zone, levels out through contact and finishes high. It does not need to be more confusing that down, through and finish
Head You can't hit what you can't see. Keeping the head in the proper place through the swing is crucial to excelling at hitting. There are some great drills and techniques to keeping the head still and your eye on the ball. Vision training is something that comes with mixed reviews. However, I can speak from experience as a player that has worn glasses since the age of two that vision training helped me tremendously. When I was with the A's we would do vision training as a part of our stretching routine. I could see a vast improvement with my eyes during the season that I lost in the off season.
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