Hitting

Hitting homeruns or rocket shots ain't easy.

However, curiously, if you ask any hitter who just hit one out of the park to describe what she was thinking about right before she hit the ball and how her swing felt - you will find that most  hitters will give you pretty similar answers.

If you ask a hitter to describe how she felt just before she swung  the ball over the fence, she will probably tell you something like "I was not thinking. I just saw the ball and hit it. I  was not even trying to hit it out of the park."

And if you ask her how her swing felt, she will say something like "It was easy. It was effortless. I didn't even try to swing hard."

What these hitters are describing is a state of flow.

Here is the official definition of flow.

Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully  immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus,  full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.

They say that…

..the day you stop learning you die.

..coaches who stop going to clinics and courses and always seeking better ways of doing things should retire.

…all the most successful people in society are lifelong learners and never stop learning.

Well, since I am not anywhere close to dying or retiring and that I want to be successful, I decided to spend the weekend learning more about softball hitting and pitching with some of the greatest minds of our sport.

I am currently attending the NFCA Coaches College 402 Course on advanced hitting and pitching in Portland, Oregon.

The instructors are Kirk Walker, Head Coach at Oregon State, Margie Wright, Head Coach at Fresno State, and Don Slaught, former MLB catcher, world-renowned hitting instructor, and owner of RighViewPro, the innovative hitting and pitching analysis software used extensively at the college level.

Today, they talked about numerous principles, concepts and techniques.

However, what struck me most was that both Kirk Walker and Don Slaught have a teaching philosophy similar to mine.

I am not talking about their hitting or pitching philosophy but rather how they like to instruct it.

Today, I was talking to the coach of a 14U team who is struggling at the plate.

They haven't been hitting well this year at all.

After asking him several questions, it became pretty clear what the problem might be.

You see - according to him, they work a lot on hitting.

I told him that they work a lot on softball hitting fundamentals but no so much on hitting.

He was puzzled and confused.

You see, hitting is a lot more than a sweet swing.

Hitting is…

1) Reading cues and tracking the ball well
2) Making decisions (pitch selection)
3) Ajusting to various locations and moving pitches
4) Hitting according to the situation
5) The approach to the plate and the mental part of hitting

You see, if you only work on the swing, you are missing a bit part of the equation.

You have to integrate all of those other elements into  your training in order to develop high-level hitting.

Having a "sweet swing" is a good start but you also have to see the ball, recognize what pitch it is and where it is going, decide if you will swing or not, make adjustments, and more.

The best hitters in the world (those with great batting averages) have extremely good bat control.

They may not have the most power but they basically can do what they want with a bat.

This is a common characteristics of elite hitters - they control their bat.

Working on bat control is certainly not as "fun" or "cool" as working on power but it will definitely help you become a much better hitter.

Working on bat control is about learning to control what you do with your body. The body controls the bat. If you  control your body, you will control your bat.

You have to increase your body awareness (what you do with it) and your overall hand-eye coordination.

You know you've developped very good bat control when…

- You can make quick adjustment to hit a ball thrown to  any location.

- You can hit the ball pretty much anywhere in the field almost at will.

- You can control how hard you hit the ball.

Coaches usually have extremely good bat control in a controlled environment (they aren't facing moving pitches thrown at them)  because they spend all their time doing hitting balls to different  players all over the field -basically doing fungo.

It's the off-season.

It's time to:

1) Rest and recover from last season.

2) Heal injuries.

3) Do conditioning to get faster, stronger, more powerful, and
prevent injuries.

4) Work on fundamentals.

In other words, it's time to get better for next season!

Often, people wonder - what should I do more of?

In an ideal world - everything!

In reality, there is just not enough time.

Fundamentals is the most important as softball is a highly technical sport that requires you to master a variety of complex skills.

Within fundamentals, should you more defense (throwing, fielding) or offense(hitting, bunting, etc.)?

My answer is: offense.

Especially if you are in an indoor environment for part of the year because of the winter.

Why?

Because hitting is like golf, it takes A LOT of time to learn, refine, and master. It's even harder than golf because you're hitting a moving object.

Because it's like pitching - you need to work on it for hours to improve a little at a time. To get your mechanics and your timing right.

Yesterday, i was doing a hitting session with my team.

I was teaching the "inside-out" concept. It's a bit technical without being that complicated.

After the "theory" and "dry swing" part of practice, we  got into a circuit with stations.

One of the stations was a tee station.

And as I do usually, I walk around and help players who struggle with certain stations or need more individual attention.

One of my athletes was practicing at that tee station and was obviously not getting it.

The problem was that she was swinging at full speed trying to get it right.

That can't work!

when you are trying to learn something new or change your mechanics - you've got to slow down to get it right!

The body CAN'T learn something new at full speed. It needs time to learn the new movement and figure out how to do it.

If you are old enough to drive, think about the first time you learn how to drive a car. Did you go at 80 mph right away?

Obviously not. You were going very slowly to get the hang of it.

Today, I was in NY State with my good friend Sean Cotter. Sean is the Head Softball Coach at Plattsburgh State University,  one of the best NCAA Division III softball program in the country.

Sean is very well-known for driving his opponents crazy with a very aggressive style of play. And I mean really aggressive.

He uses just about every ways he can find to "manufacture runs" and "make things happen".

I know. I used to play him in exhibition games a few years ago with my 23U team and he would drive my players crazy.

Of course, they do the basic. They steal. They slap. They drag. They squeeze. They hit and run or run and hit.

But, they can be quite unconventional. They often take two bases on a sacrifice bunt, they're running to home from 3rd on anything that is hit on the ground ("angle down" ball), they always suicide squeeze (very rarely use the safety), they leave slightly early,  they slap from the right side, and the list goes on.

Some people would call that crazy or too aggressive but guess what? They are very successful. And they do drive their opponents crazy and they get in their head big time.

In this podcast, Marc Dagenais discusses the various performance factors in three major categories (technical training, physical training, and head training) that you should be working on during the off-season. He explains why it's important not to underestimate some key performance factors in the physical and head training categories while also discussing what to emphasize more in the technical training categorie.

 

 Podcast #13 - The Key Performance Factors to Train [22:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

When things are not going well at the plate, the first place we look is in the mechanics of the swing. The next thing we look at is the mental part (which is often the #1 problem). If things are still not working, then we look at other things. One of those things should be the vision.

That might sound like common sense but most athletes don't get their eyes checked or don't train their "eye muscles" to track the ball properly. These are two things you definitely want to do. Watch this video for more details on how to do it.

We are in season right now and  now and everybody is looking for ways to improve their hitting effectiveness. At this time of the year, you don't as many of the basic softball hitting drills to work on the fundamentals but you spent more time on timing, rythm, pitch recognition, hitting various pitches, making adjustments at the plate, and so on.

I have for you two excellent, somewhat advanced live pitching drills that works on those elements of timing, adjustments, etc. They are live pitching drills but they can also be done with just front toss from a shorter distance.  if you have nobody that can pitch to them. I've done it successfully many times with pretty good results. You just set-up a screen 20-25 feet from homeplate and just front toss the ball underhead to the batter. It works great.

Here are the two drills:

Full Count Game

This is a great game simulation drill that teaches hitters to be aggressive and to hit under pressure. Two teams face off in a 7 inning game with each batter coming into the box with a full count. Action is quick and players must be alert both offensively and defensively. The count may also be changed to 2-2 and each team can be given one out to start the inning.

Have you heard of rotational hitting? I certainly do.

You almost have to have lived in a cave not to have heard of the debate between rotational and linear hitting that is  going on in the softball circles (and baseball too).

Don't worry - I'm not getting started on that topic.

However, I just want to mention that those interested in the  debate should definitely check out the softball hitting section of my softball discussion forum.

At the present moment - the thread about Rotational Hitting has more than 174 replies!!! It's definitely something that people are interested in.

For those who are not familiar with http://www.discussfastpitch.com - it's a new discussion froum that was launched 6 weeks ago to promote intelligent and interesting discussions about the game of fastpitch softball.

You're invited to come over and check it out.

On another note, many people contacted us earlier this week to see if they could buy our Bonus Audio CD on successful hitting.

Because of all the requests, we've made it available.  The softball hitting audio program is an interview with Michael Bastian,  International Clinician and Consultant with  Women's Chinese  Olympic Softball Team.

In this podcast, Marc Dagenais,  discusses how to develop a winning hitting philosophy to make you successful at the plate. He discusses philosophies and principles of hitting that many of the best players and coaches in the world use to achieve extraordinary hitting performances on a regular basis.

 

 Podcast #7 - Hitting Philosophy [18:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (126)

Last week, I shared with you Cindy Bristow's top 10 observations of the Women's College World Series. She made a key point about the  fact that "Bunting Matters" and I also commented about it also.

Following this message, I got an interesting reply from one of our our loyal readers. I thought I would share it with you:

"I am 65 years old and have been pitching fast pitch for 46 years and still do today. There are no grips on the ball or any pitch that anyone can come up with that I haven't tried or cannot throw.

About bunting, I was at one time an excellent bunter with an average of over 500 against some of the best pitchers around because of it.

I was very successful because I never and I repeat have never bunted to sacrifice anyone. I have always bunted for  a hit and then there were two on base instead of one unless he scored for several different reasons. I was able to put it down no matter where the ball was pitched as long as my bat could reach it.

Don't do that! It's too wrong…

Check this video about swing training…

What's wrong with this exact training technique?

1) Impact on the small joints - the wrists and elbows are at a great risk of getting injured. The reason is there is no real absorption and the joints absorbs most of the impact. The impact is too great. It's like you are throwing your body into a wall without a protective mat. The type of injuries you get by doing this repetitively are tendonitis and bursitis - two overuse injuries that don't go away easily.

2) Way too much resistance to overcome - it defeats the purpose of training for strength and power. It's counter-productive.

3) Teaches bad mechanics - Whether fastpitch or slowpitch (slowpitch example in this case), because there is no room to go forward or through the tire,  you can see that the guy is forced to open up to get the bat through. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! It's reinforcing bad mechanics…

Let`s summarize… you`re likely to get injured, you develop poorer mechanics, and you don`t even get more power out of it!

So, is this a bad drill?  Perform this way, definitely.

That was exactly 10 years ago. I was coaching a competitive 16U and it was probably one of the best offensive teams I've ever coached.

It was a well-balanced team with the unique characteristic of having the same number of lefties and righties.

At the beginning of the season, the team was composed of 9 girls that could hit (contributing offensively) and 3 girls who were  struggling to put the ball in play.

These 3 girls were very frustrated and didn't feel they were contributing to the success of the team. Their confidence and self-esteem were low.

One thing I learned very early as a coach is that confidence and "the feeling at the plate" are everything when it comes to softball hitting.

I made it my goal to have all 12 of my players being an offensive  threat by the end of the summer.

So, I went to work. I started to spend a lot of extra time with  these 3 girls doing individual practices.

This morning I received this great list from Cindy Bristow of Softball Excellence through her great newsletter Softball Excellence Insiders. I thought I would share it with you.  Cindy is an internationally recognized softball clinician.  You should definitely check her great resources.

Here's Cindy's top 10 things she learned watching the Women's College World Series:

1.     Outfielders Matter - There were quite a lot of key plays in the outfield that weren't necessarily hard, but that were vital to the outcome of many of the games.

2.     When Your Turn Comes, Be Ready - Megan Gibson, the pitcher from Texas A & M was living proof that when your turn comes you better be ready as she went from sharing pitching duties early in the year to pitching with a record of 41-4, and getting her team all the way to the National Championship game.

3.     Find Your Role and Fill It - Amanda Scarborough from Texas A & M went from being their marquee pitcher in January to being injured and out for the year. And instead of pouting about being injured and isolating herself from the team Amanda found a new role and a new way to help her team win by doing everything possible to help the remaining pitcher, Megan Gibson, be as successful as possible! That takes a very team-oriented and unselfish player!

In this video, I describe why staying loose at the plate is  important and how it can increase your hitting power. This is a complement to my previous post  How Staying Loose Can Increase Your Hitting Power .

Hitting is difficult emotionally because the rate of failure is so high.

No one likes to fail, and many children (and many adults as well) are not ready to deal with it rationally. Consequently, they become so conscious of failing it affects performance.

Different hitters are afraid to fail for different reasons. They may be afraid because they don't want to look bad in front of people. They may not want to let their teammates down or their parents/coaches down.

Worst of all, they may be afraid of being scolded by an over-zealous parent or coach. That's a sad situation, but it's also very real.

Fear of failure is real and it really slows people down. Because they are scared of failing, they don't take chances. They play too conservative because they don't want to fail.

What causes fear of failure?

- Lack of understanding of what it takes to be successful

- Being unable to tolerate the emotions associated with failure

- Fear of making mistakes (often rooted in lack of self-confidence)

How to deal with fear of failure?

- Take calculated risks