Baseball Coaching Digest Presents Jeff Forney & Arizona State Coach Pat Murphy Discuss The Seven Keys For Hitting Success

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Baseball Hitting Mechanics - Don't Settle For Sloppy

By KC Andrus

I Hit The Ball Pretty Well, Why Worry About Mechanics?

Everyone who has ever played baseball, knows that it is a game of failure. They have heard how it is a GOOD sign if you fail 70% of the time. These are just the cold, hard facts, the nature of the game that is our nation's greatest pastime. With so much of the game built on personal defeat, it is easy to get down in the dumps fast. One of the game's most famous quotes, and possibly one of sport's most famous quotes came from Yogi Berra, who said, "Baseball is 90% mental -- the other half is physical."

This is such a true statement that come from one of sport's most unique personalities. Baseball is such a mental game, there is so much thought process that goes into all facets of the game that it makes the game seem almost impossible at times, and the most mental part of the game is most certainly hitting. This is why it is so important to focus on proper hitting mechanics, because then you can focus on the mental aspect of the game and not have to worry about what you're doing with you're swing when you're actually in the batter's box. You can focus on what's really important when the pitcher is staring down at you, HITTING THE BALL!! Okay, so now that we have discovered why baseball mechanics are important, we can get to the good stuff, what the heck are the proper mechanics for hitting a baseball. It all starts with the basics, you have to get the basics down in order for your swing to evolve and become more complex.

What are the Mechanics?

- The Stance - There are many so-called hitting "buffs" that will stress the importance of a normal, balanced stance. There is some truth in this but it is more important to just find a comfort zone, this will allow you to relax in the box.

-The Load - The load is very important, and it is absolutely crucial to the timing of your swing. It is extremely important to get some slight backward movement with your swing before whipping the bat through the zone. Make sure you take a small step, this can be as simple as picking up your foot and putting it down or taking a full stride. When in doubt, my golden rule is to simplify, simplify, simplify. Also get some movement with your hands.

-The Swing - The best advice I can give about the actual swing is to "train your hips." Your hips are VERY important to your swing and are responsible for a lot of power withing your swing. Getting stronger in your "core" helps this tremendously.

- The Finish - I don't like to worry about the finish as much as most. Most people will tell you that you have to finish balanced and "squish the bug" with your back foot. Finishing balanced is a very good sign that your swing is smooth, but it is not essential to success within your swing, and that is what we are all looking for. Did you find these tips useful? Find out much more about these Baseball Hitting Mechanics and learn a lot of secrets that you need to know and I'm betting no one has told you yet: Baseball Hitting Mechanics

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Helping Baseball Players Get Out of a Hitting Slump

By Jack Perconte

Helping young players get out of hitting slumps can be difficult. Young baseball players do not have the high-tech video and expert coaches that the major league hitters utilize, and even major league hitters have difficulty breaking out of hitting slumps. Additionally, young ball players don't have long term contracts so a prolonged slump could easily ruin their average, season or worse, give them a nice seat on the bench. Often, kids have many well-wishing people who offer advice on hitting during these times. Soon, however, the "try this/try that" information overwhelms the young hitters and confusion follows. The number one thing coaches can do to help is to keep the players optimistic, letting them know that the hitting slump is temporary and the end of it is near. Some words of advice like the following can help:

1. Do not get yourself out by swinging at bad pitches.
2. You are only one swing away from putting it all together.
3. The results will be there if you stay focused on the fundamentals and timing in practice, and on the ball in games.
4. Your confidence may not be high, but never give up hope.
5. There will be times when no one thinks you will get a hit, but always believe in yourself.
6. Remember the good at-bats and forget the bad ones.
7. No one will remember if you make an out with the game on the line but everyone will remember if you get the game winning hit, so you have nothing to lose.
8. Remember, the pitcher is nervous too.

Of course, these positive words can help for a while but often, the player's mechanics need adjusting. Generally, in-season is not the time to make major swing changes because major changes need a great deal of repetition and time to become habits. Often, some small tweaks to the hitter's stance or setup can make the difference, especially for hitters who are making contact, but not solid contact. The coach and hitter should analyze the results of the hitters' at-bats to see what tendencies have developed. Usually, hitters who are slumping, will be hitting too many ground balls or too many pop ups. After figuring out these tendencies, the following are some quick fixes coaches can try to get the hitter back on track.

For the hitter who is hitting too many ground balls:
1. Lower the hitter's hands an inch or two.
2. Have the hitter widen their stance a few inches and bend knees a little more (Think Carlos Quentin Stance).
3. Place a batting tee at the hitter's knees and right down the middle - hitter hits until they can consistently hit line drives back through the middle. Do not let the hitter settle for ground balls, even if they are solid.
4. Make sure the hitter's rear leg has a good angle at contact - legs form a capital A at contact, not a V.

For hitters who are popping everything up, the opposite "quick fix" solutions can help:
1. Raise the hitter's hands an inch or two
2. Shorten the distance between the feet when the hitter is in their stance so they are standing taller with little knee bend (Think Ken Griffey Jr. Stance)
3. Set a batting tee at the hitters chest or slightly higher - hitter hits until there are no pop ups - ideally, hitting line drives the same height as the ball level.
4. Make sure the hitter is transferring their weight with their heel on their rear foot facing the sky at contact.

Bigger Problems

Obviously, hitters who are not making contact or are only hitting foul balls, have bigger fundamental issues. The first thing to do to help these hitters is to make sure it is not just a timing issue. If the hitter is always swinging late, challenge them with greater speeds in batting practice. Likewise, for hitters who are swinging too early, use slow pitches during batting practice. Generally, the hitters' timing will improve with these speed changes and they will start making consistent contact. If this doesn't help, major swing fundamental changes may be necessary and there is probably nothing to lose by starting those changes immediately.

Former major league baseball player, Jack Perconte gives baseball hitting tips and batting practice advice for ballplayers of all ages. His baseball hitting lessons advice can be found at http://www.baseballhittinglessons.com/baseball Jack Perconte is the author of two books: "The Making of a Hitter" and "Raising an Athlete"

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Baseball Swing Secrets to Learning the Right Mechanics Quickly!

www.QuickSwingTrainer.com

Baseball Swing Secrets to Learning the Right Mechanics Quickly!

By Joey Myers

The perfect baseball swing is like poetry in motion...watching Joe Mauer, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriquez, or Manny Ramirez hit leaves anyone with an awe that is indescribable. They've taken hundreds of thousands of cuts to create such a beautiful swing with such devastating impact on pitchers.

But, do you really have that kind of time with:


The new season coming up?
A big tournament being a week from now? or maybe you
Have to get ready for a big scouting showcase?

What you need is to SUPER-learn the baseball swing, like, yesterday!

Well, this article will go into what it's going to take to do just that. Doing the following will not make your swing perfect , it never will be, but you'll be able to take the information from the Smart Hitting Tips tab on the navigation bar, do what's prescribed here, and have a helluva showing.

Most of the following tips are hard rooted in research based on state-of-the-art Neuroscience and Exercise Science practice & theory...

This isn't a get hits quick scheme either, and will take A LOT of work, 2,000+ reps a week to be exact, but you'll train your brain and body to harmonize, building to successful baseball swing execution.

Ready?? Hold your horses...First,

You must create a time-line...when do you want to accomplish this? In a week (recommended, at least)? or 2? A month? Decide that first, then move on to the following Steps...

STEP 1: Make Small Circles

Start off slow with one concept, two at most, a day and breakdown each and every movement by going in extremely slow motion. You're brain is like a record...the more you do a movement, the more the needle wears the grooves on the surface of the vinyl... the more reps you do, the deeper and more solid the grooves.

Be careful because it can also work against you, by doing the movement wrong, so start off slow the right way, then speed up.

STEP 2: Balancing Act

Using the Balance & Reach Drill a foot or two off the ground will cause your brain to engage more muscles to stabilize the whole body, and the more you engage the Central Nervous System, the more muscles get recruited, and the faster your body picks up the technique.

Also, doing regular swings on an unstable surface, like on a narrow cushiony weight bench, diving board, exercise bose ball, or with eyes closed, the better off you'll be in record time.

STEP 3: Reps Before Bed

Studies have shown going through the motions before bedtime helps to burn them into your brain better. It has to do with the Four Stages of REM Sleep ...major repairs, both physically and cerebrally, go on in the 3rd and 4th Stages of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. If you don't get to the last two stages, then your body doesn't repair itself, which leads us to the next Step...

STEP 4: Set Alarm for 4.5 Hours

In order to speed up the learning process for developing an effective baseball swing, you have to take advantage of two sets of REM sleep. Do your swing repetitions before bed, set your alarm clock for 4.5 hours, wake up and do more reps, then finish off your sleep or the next REM cycle.

What this does is complete one cycle of REM (all 4 stages), then reset your body (by waking up) for another round, deepening those grooves in the brain. By doing this you're 50% more likely to make "stick" the desired technique.

All this can be possible if you...

STEP 5: Do NOT Eat Carbohydrates Past 6pm

Eating enough Carbs to spike your insulin, anytime past 6pm will keep you from getting to Stage 3 & 4 of REM sleep. Our natural occurring human growth hormones (HGH) get released in those stages of sleep ONLY, to repair the body. To allow that to happen, we have to chill out on the Carbs after hours.

And most importantly for your baseball swing, not only will you not repair and heal, but learning is dampened and your immune system crashes.

Last but not least,

STEP 6: Hyper-Computing for Cadence

Once we get a handle on all of the above baseball swing hyper-learning points, now we can speed up our micro processors. By doing this, we train the Central Nervous system by speeding up our motion to get the proper tempo or cadence.

Key point: do NOT attempt this until you have a solid handle on the proper form and movement first.

Speeding up the process of a particular part of the swing helps to deepen the specific movement groove in the brain, so when you engage the correct tempo, the movement is more natural.

You have to exaggerate a technique (in this case, speeding up the cadence), to get the right motion.

This is also great training for combating fast tempo pitchers, who when you step in the batter's box and look up, the pitch is already on its way.

The bottom line about HYPER-learning the baseball swing?

For these 6 Steps to be effective, you have to take between 1,200 to 2,000 repetitions a week...the RIGHT reps. Remember, wearing grooves in your brain can work for OR against you. Keep in mind, with that amount of swings in a small time-frame, you're going to develop blisters and sore muscles. Try and work through them, but if it comes to the sacrifice of good form, then stop, let them heal, and get back on the horse.

To Hyper-Heal sore muscles, do what the Soviet athletes did in the 80-90's, ice the sore spots for 5 minutes, then plunge into a hot bath or spa for 15 minutes, and repeat the process a couple times. This sequence also helps your body release melatonin, which will aid in putting you to sleep.

For blisters, drain them, but don't cut away the whole dead skin blister layer for a couple days...put antibiotic ointment between the dead and raw skin, and cover with a band-aid & athletic tape. They also have blister spray skin toughener, which you may want to look into...it burns like hell for a moment, but makes it so you can hit again with virtually no pain.

We hope you enjoyed this baseball swing article, remember we're always adding content, so please subscribe to the RSS feed, blog, and/or The Dugout Newsletter to stay up-to-date with the latest baseball hitting information.

My name is Joey Myers, and I played 18 total years of baseball finishing my career after my fourth year of college (2000-2003) as a Fresno State Bulldog (the 2008 College World Series Champions). I'm very grateful for the success I had at Bullard High School, and getting a scholarship to play at a Division I university, Fresno State, where I started 110 out of the 178 games I played, in the outfield. Now I devote most of my life to baseball swing coaching and personal fitness training. My websites are http://www.swing-smarter-baseball-hitting-drills.com/ and http://www.corecreationsonline.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joey_Myers

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