Monthly Archives: November 2019
The Benefits of Swinging in Slow Motion
Set these two clips up and try to mimic every move Springer and Guerrero make. Pay attention to every last detail, from your feet, all the way up to your head. My reasoning: These two clips are both taken from foot plant, through the finish. This is the portion of the swing that is really…
Alex Bregman: “I Never Use the Tee”
We very rarely use tee work with our hitters. Bregman provides us with a great explanation of why. It’s easy to create bad habits when the environment allows it. For instance, imagine we played with a mound that was 3 feet tall. The ball would arrive at home plate at a much steeper angle than…
How Can I Throw Harder?
What do I need to do to throw harder? This was one of the questions I received on my story the other day from several different athletes wondering how to gain velocity. While I could go through the “3 Mechanical Cues to Increase Your Velo by 5mph”, I just don’t want to. Instead: the most…
Exit Velocity and Hip Deceleration: Utilizing the Scissor
Two of our HS athletes going 428 and 427 and one of our 13u going 89 EV (recently up to 91.5) on our hittrax. What do they have in common? Check out the lower half: hip deceleration is a vital piece of transferring energy from the lower half through the upper half during our turn.…
Fighting the Hand Plunge Through Improved Barrel Path
Turning the barrel at shoulder level is one of the keys I look for in an effective swing. Here’s Correa demonstrating the feel he uses to get him there. This past week we had an athlete in the facility who was struggling with hitting too many popups. After taking some video, it was pretty easy…
Weighted Bat Protocol for Increased Adjustability
Line up whatever weighted/variably sized bats you have. Set a goal. Ours was a ball hit between 5 and 35 degrees, that also found barrel. Set a limit. Our hitters’ goal was to make it through all of our variably weighted and sized bats before failing the above guidelines 5 times. I like this protocol…
Front Leg Mechanics: Optimizing Weight Transfer
Here’s a drill we tried yesterday for one of our hitters that wasn’t quite getting everything he needed out of his front leg. He ended up hitting his furthest ball of the day from this drill. In order to fully transfer our energy into the baseball, our front leg needs to be stable. The less…
My Thought Process on Using Bands to Address Swing Flaws
Feed the mistake: my thought process when using bands to make positive swing changes for our hitters.
Med Ball Swing Stops and It’s Effect on Exit Velo: Case Study
If anyone is willing to offer themselves as a test subject for 250 med ball swing stops in an hour, let me know. The progression: -20 swings off our pitching machine tracking numbers w/hittrax -250 swing stops into a 16lb med ball -20 swings off pitching machine again tracking with hittrax The results: +2mph peak…
Understanding Task Difficulty: Preparing the Hitter for Competition
As @pitchingninja is fond of showing, hitting is one of the most difficult tasks in all of sports. Not only do we need to be able to hit a ball consistently 100+, but we also have to be able to do so off of various pitch speeds and sequences. Understanding this fact, cleaning up movement…