A few weeks back I had a hitting student who was having a little trouble getting her bat to the ball most effectively despite her best efforts. She wasn’t hitting badly, but I knew she had more in her.

So, I told her she needed to keep her swing toned and tight instead of letting it go flabby. While that may sound like a rather vague instruction she knew instantly what I meant, made the adjustment, and started hitting bombs.

I have since used it with several other students and it always produces the desired results. It’s a language the kids can understand. But what does it really mean?

Basically, it refers to being efficient. A flabby swing is one where there is a lot of extraneous movement either at certain points or throughout the swing.

One example of flabbiness in a swing is over-loading the body overall or even just the hands. Pushing back over the back leg, or lifting the hands way up and/or back before bringing them forward is inefficient.

Casting the hands out away from the body as you start to turn is another example. That movement will make the swing take too long to execute, and disconnecting the hands from the shoulders prematurely will cause a lot of the potential energy to leak out before it can be turned into kinetic energy at impact.

In a toned and tight swing, the body load will go into the back leg instead of over it. I refer to that as “bouncing off” the back leg.

That will be a quick, easy movement designed to break inertia instead of trying to make it a power generator. The power generation comes with the turn.

If the hands pull too far back up and/or back, you’ve created a longer path to the ball that will make it harder to be on-time. You’ve also made it more likely that you will try to generate too much of the power from the shoulders instead of letting the lower body drive the swing.

In a toned and tight swing, the hands will stay close to the back shoulder (I call it “in the bubble”) until the lower body has turned about 45 degrees. By that point you will have a better idea of where the ball will be when it enters the hitting zone AND you will have a shorter path to get there.

A toned and tight swing will also let the lower body/core provide the bulk of the power while the upper body rides that wave for most of the swing. That’s important, because when you try to generate too much power from the upper body you end up giving up control of the bat.

A lower body/core-driven swing makes it far easier to direct the bat where you want it to go. Why? Because you haven’t generated early momentum with the bat that is going to carry it to a particular area before you’re sure of what area you need to take the bat to.

Instead, you can use the largest muscles in the body, which incidentally can do little to nothing to influence where the bat goes, to create power, while letting the parts that are closest to the bat guide its path more fluidly – and directly.

The result is a more effortless swing that efficiently delivers power more precisely to where it needs to go, creating more and better hits that will help the hitter raise her batting average (BA), on-base percentage (OBP), slugging percentage (SLG), and on base plus slugging percentage(OPS).

Can you say all that without the toned and tight v flabby descriptor? Sure. I certainly have.

But all the technical talk may not resonate as well. If, however, you tell her what you want and then add the idea of making the swing toned and tight it seems to get through better. At least in my experience.

So if you have a hitter who is struggling a little to get her swing more efficient, give this one a try. It just might work for you too.

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