Category Archives: Hitting
More clues on getting rid of bat drag
I know it seems like an obsession, and perhaps it is. But I am bound and determined to rid the fastpitch softball world of the scourge of bat drag. It has been an iterative process but I think we’re getting closer to an answer.
After watching a number of videos in slow and step motion, both with and without bat drag, two items seem to stand out above the others. The first is the shoulders starting rotation before the hips. Standard hitting canon says the hips start before the hands, or the shoulders. But to some hitters that is counter-intuitive. The bat is in the hands, so they think they should start the swing with the part of the body that’s holding the bat.
The problem is they also have been told to keep the hands back at the launch of the swing. There are even expensive hitting devices to help them learn that. So what winds up happening is that the shoulders turn and the elbow pulls down while the hips hesitate, then follow. So the elbow winds up getting in front of the hands and voila! You have bat drag.
Another problem comes with the hands themselves. During the load or negative move phase, the hands get pushed back too far. The symptom you will see is barring out or straightening of the front arm. Many coaches know that barring out is bad, as it can lead to casting the hands out. But it’s also bad even if there’s no casting, because once again that elbow will pull down and start moving forward, even while the hands are moving (or staying) back. Once again the result is bat drag — the elbow leading the hands and the bat coming through the hitting zone late.
The cure for the first condition is obvious, though not always easy to execute. The hitter must learn to start the hips rotating ahead of the hands as well as the shoulders. A lower body, or more accurately center of the body first movement will get things working in the right order. At that point, the hands should stay tied to the back shoulder until it’s time to start making contact.
The cure for the second condition is to cut the negative move way down. A slight push back of the hands is all that is needed to overcome inertia and prepare for the swing. A big windup will simply cause problems. Again, keeping the hands tied to the back shoulder is the key.
Much of this is best learned on a tee. Taking ball movement out of the picture allows the hitter to focus on the mechanics. Once they have the general idea, it’s time to apply movement, either with side toss, machine hitting, or live pitching. That doesn’t mean the tee work is over, though. It takes many good repetitions to overcome old habits, and the tee is the best place for it. The other stuff is merely the level check to see if it’s taking.
One last thought. A lot of this is difficult to see, even if you’re used to looking for it. If you’re not, it gets even harder. Invest in a good video camera and analysis software such as MotionView or V1 Home(or RightView Pro if you have more money than you need) and you’ll make it easier to make corrections for both yourself and your players.
Bat drag update
I promised to keep you up to date on developments in the bat drag department. Here’s the latest.
Our experiment with taking the front shoulder down at toe touch is working pretty well. But it’s still possible to get that back elbow ahead even if you get to that position. I was hoping for a silver bullet but it hasn’t quite turned out that way. There are two causes I’m seeing.
One is just flat out dropping the back shoulder again after toe touch. If the first movement of the shoulder is to go down, the elbow can get ahead. You haven’t really cured it in that case, you’ve just delayed it.
The second is more interesting. I just spotted it watching some video. If the shoulders begin turning before the hips, it’s possible to get that elbow out ahead of the hands, especially if the hands are staying back . The experiment now, with one player in particular, is to make sure the hips start first, then the shoulders. It’s a momentary difference but I think an important one.
We’ll be working this weekend on it, and I should have a better idea in a couple of weeks whether it will be another piece of the puzzle. The other things we’ve done have helped other players, but it seems like there’s always one more thing to try. Even the girl we’re working with on the hips/shoulders thing, though, has shown a lot of improvement in her swing overall. Lots better batspeed, and lots better contact to all fields.
One thing that is challenging in trying to figure all this out is the difference in flexibility between a fat old coach and a young female athlete. Things I try that work for me don’t always work for them. Their flexibility allows them to do things (or contort themselves) in ways I can’t. It’s an interesting dilemma, but one we will solve.
Shake, rattle and find another bat
Here’s another subtle rule change every player and coach should be aware of for 2008. During pre-game equipment inspections, if your bat rattles when shaken you will no longer be allowed to use it. Click on this link and then click on the 2008 playing rules with comments link to read it in its original form. It’s the second rule listed.
I don’t have a problem with the rule. I’m all for safety. But it’s never been something to be concerned about before. You’ll definitely want to give your bat a shake from time to time to see if it makes a noise, and you’ll definitely want to do that before you buy a new bat. If you hear anything, don’t buy it (if it’s new), and don’t plan on using it (if it’s old).
Getting a quality at-bat
America is a country that tends to be very results-oriented. We like winners, and we like to define success based on the outcome of whatever we’re doing.
For a hitter, focusing on results can be a problem — especially when she’s in a bit of a down period.
Hitting is all about the process –what your plan is going to the plate and whether you’re executing it. Even a strikeout can be a success if you’ve approched the at bat correctly.
Sound crazy? Not really. Let’s say the hitter has been getting out ahead of the pitch, causing her bat to slow down at contact. As a result, she has been grounding out a lot to the shortstop, and not hitting the ball very hard when she does. So she goes to the plate with the intention of maintaining bat speed, and accelerating through the hittings zone.
On the first pitch she’s ahead again, but instead of slowing down to make contact she accelerates. It’s a swing and a miss, but a good one. On the next pitch she adjusts somewhat and pulls the ball foul down the third base line. On the last pitch she again takes an aggressive swing, but gets fooled on a changeup. It’s a strikeout in the book, but her general approach to her at-bat has improved. She’s on her way to success, assuming she maintains that approach.
The key is focusing on the process rather than the outcome. The outcome is temporary, and depends on a lot of factors outside your control. But the process is long-term, and entirely within your control. Manage the process and the outcomes will take care of themselves.
Progress report on lowering the front shoulder
A couple of posts ago I talked about an experiment we’re running to try to get rid of a chronic bat drag problem with a number of our hitters. The concept is to lower the front shoulder when the hitter gets to toe touch. By doing so, it seems like it would be very difficult if not impossible to get the back elbow in front of the hands.
It’s been a couple of weeks now, and so far the results have been very good. Our hitters haven’t quite made it natural yet, but when the do get into the proper position they are coming through the ball much quicker and more powerfully, which is the point of eliminating bat drag.
Bat drag does seem to be a common problem among female fastpitch softball hitters. I’m not sure why, although it’s probably one of two things: a lack of upper body strength or the fact that a female’s shoulders are narrower than her hips. That’s just my guess, not a proven theory. Then again, I haven’t looked at that much tape of males so they may have the problem as often.
Whatever the story, it is a fact that needs to be dealt with. I think we’re on to something.
Getting rid of bat drag
A while back I wrote about a condition called bat drag. It’s a problem caused by the back elbow getting ahead of the hands during the swing. This causes the hitter to have to literally drag the bat (usually late) through the hitting zone. It creates a very weak hitting position, robbing the hitter of power.
I see this a lot with female hitters for some reason. What I haven’t seen much of is a way to fix it. At least nothing that has been very effective. It’s something that has been on my mind for a while.
I think I may have the cure. I say I think because I’ve just started experimenting with it. So far so good, but you never know until you’ve had a chance to try it on a variety of hitters. But here’s where I am so far.
One of the key points that’s often listed in discussions of hitting mechanics is having the front shoulder lower than the back shoulder at toe touch. It’s something you’ll see in all good hitters. I got to wondering why, and decided to try moving into that position. That’s when it occured to me — I wonder if it has an effect on bat drag.
It does. If you lower your front shoulder, and keep it there, it is pretty much impossible to get your back elbow ahead of your hands. Even if you can, you have to work so hard at it that you’re unlikely to do it.
After toe touch, if you drop your heel and launch from that position the bat will come from the top and you will come through in a powerful position.
We are still experimenting with it, but it seems to be working. I’ll keep you posted, and will try to post a couple of photos to help illustrate things better.
Keeping your head in
A common statement coaches will make to hitters is “you’re pulling your head out.” This statement is usually made after the hitter swings and misses. What the coach sees is that head did not stay pointed in the direction of the hitting zone, but rather wound up looking out toward the pitcher, or perhaps even at the shortstop (for a right handed batter). The conclusion that’s drawn is because the eyes moved away the hitter didn’t see the ball well enough, which causes the miss.
It seems logicial. I know I used to say that to hitters as well. But if you talk to or read the research of the vision experts, they’ll all tell you that early recognition is the key to success in endeavors such as hitting. Most will also say that hitters don’t see the ball in the last 10 feet of travel either — certainly not unless they have followed a vision training program specifically designed to improve the ability to track the ball. So if the typical good hitter isn’t able to see the ball in the last 10 feet of its travel to the plate, what difference does keeping your head in on it make?
The answer is, it doesn’t make any difference at all as far as seeing the pitch. But that doesn’t mean the head coming out isn’t a valuable cue. It’s just not the one we tend to think. Instead, it’s a symptom of something else going on — the front shoulder pulling off the ball early instead of being “knocked” out of the way by the back shoulder driving through.
Try it. Getting in a batting stance and start going through a slow-motion swing. Let your front shoulder pull out on its own as soon as you start to swing. Now look where your head is. It followed right along. The symptom is the head pulling out, but the cause is the front shoulder, probably driven by an arm swing when it occurs in real time.
Now try that same slow motion swing, but keep the front side in until the back shoulder forces it out of the way. Your head will stay “in” longer, and you’ll more than likely wind up looking at the ground in front of or close to you. Odds are you wouldn’t see the ball any better. But you’re now in a better position to attack the ball. And when you’re in a better position to attack the ball you’re much more likely to hit it.
The next time you see a hitter pulling her head out, forget about the eyes. Look instead at what the upper body is doing to see whether the arms, shoulders, and head are working together as a unit, and if that unit is working with the lower body to create great swing mechanics. You’ll be much more likely to be treating the disease rather than the symptom.
Finding your hits with both hands
If you’re using all bottom hand, the result is often hitting weakly to the opposite field — sort of like a golf slice. The bat head never gets delivered powerfully into the hitting zone, and the swing tends to come up short. You can also wind up being a “back slapper.”
On the other hand, going almost all top hand tends to make you push the bat into the hitting zone. You can pull the ball, but you don’t develop the kind of power you ought to have. You’ll also have a tendency to hit “around” the ball, pulling outside pitches that should be going to the opposite field.
The best hitters use both hands in a combination pull-push action. As the body rotates and the back shoulder begins coming around, start pulling the bottom hand in an arc. (Forget taking the knob of the bat to the ball. You don’t want to hit the ball with the knob; you want to hit it with the fat part.) This gets the bat accelerating into the hitting zone.
As the ball approaches, the top hand starts moving the head of the bat toward the ball. It fires through the hitting zone, going all the way through extension, and then finishes.
A good drill to learn to use the bottom hand is to fungo by holding the ball in the top hand, tossing it up, and then executing the swing. Starting the bat in the bottom hand tends to force more use of that hand, especially as the top hand usually struggles just to get onto the handle before the swing.
For the top hand/extension, take an old bat to an empty field. Then go through the swing, being sure to pull with the bottom hand first. As you bring the top hand through, try to throw it through the (imaginary) pitcher as far and as hard as you can. A few attempts at that and you’ll get the feeling for using the top hand.
Using the two hands in combination, and the proper sequence, will help those weak fly balls turn into fence busters, and those ground balls get through the infield instead of to it.
Expert, textpert, keep it simple
It is amazing to me how complicated some people make hitting, pitching, and other athletic movements. They get all caught up in the most minute details, pointing out every little movement they see (or think they see) made by top-level players. For the sake of this post we’ll refer to hitting since that’s what Ken and I discussed, but it applies elsewhere as well.
What you see a lot of is scientific or pseudo-scientific jargon that I suppose is meant to make the person saying or typing it sound smarter than everyone else. I suppose if you’re doing a scientific treatment breaking down all the elements of hitting it makes sense. But if your purpose is to learn how to teach someone how to hit, it’s very possible that all that extraneous information will just get in the way.
One of my favorites is the focus on “scapula loading.” It is often touted as an essential element of having a high-level swing. I find that amusing. I’ve taught a lot of hitters to be successful (within their willingness to work hard) and have never once used the term or concerned myself with scapula loading. To be honest, every time I try to think it through I have to look up where the scapula even is.
Hitters, especially youth players, have enough trouble just grasping the basic concepts of what you want them to do. The more complex you make it, the more difficult you make it to achieve the results you want. Ken and I agree that there are certain basic things you teach, and there are a whole lot of other things that just happen as a result of doing those basic things correctly and enthusiastically.
I use a basic three-step instruction to teach hitting: step-turn-swing. Those are the most core elements to a good swing. Do them in the right order and you’ll be well on your way to success. Within each of those steps there are other instructions, of course. For example, just prior to taking the step it helps to make a negative movement backwards. Once a student has the core ideas down, we add the negative movement in there as an enhancement. If I understand correctly, that’s when scapula loading would occur. But if they make a good negative movement — one that is designed to help them move into rotation faster and more powerfully — they’re going to load the scapula as a result of trying to make a quicker, more powerful movement.
Coaches who really want to help their players improve should make an effort to separate the necessary from the superfluous. The further you get from the concept of swinging the bat in a manner that allows it to make hard contact with the ball — and in language that simple — the more difficult you make it for your players to execute the skill under pressure.
In his book The Science of Hitting, Ted Williams provided a very practical method of talking about hitting. He didn’t get caught up in a lot of biological jargon or equations. He simply said “make these movements.” And Ted knew as much about hitting, even back then, as anyone ever has. We would all be wise to learn from his example, and keep it simple.
Strong position for hitting
To get us started, I thought we’d go right into hitting. Here’s a photo of Stephanie, one of the girls I coach, as captured by Mike Zupec, with whose permission I am using this photo.
There are a number of things going right here. Looking from the ground up, the front leg is pretty firm and the back foot is heel up, toe down. Her back hip has some around to replace her front hip and her weight has shifted forward into her front leg. The shoulders have come around, the hands are palm up/palm down at contact, they are slightly above the bat head, and she is leaned into the plate. About the only problem I see from this picture is she is a bit late to the ball. I’d like to see the contact a little more out-front. This particular stroke, however, went for a double to the fence in left-center so that’s a quibble.
If you have one, compare a photo of your position at contact to this one. This is pretty much where you want to be.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 