We discuss the BEST baseball, fast-pitch softball, and slow-pitch softball batting timing drills. Revealed are our favorite youth beginner rhythm hitting drills and swing tips. We’re based out of Fresno, California.
Take a guess at one of the biggest hitting frustrations is, according to my readers? Timing! Probably not a shocker because your hitters probably struggle with this as well. Mine do, especially at the start of the season.
This batting timing drills for hitting a baseball and softball video guide will also have information useful to anybody facing the challenge of fixing a hitter with a late swing, getting a kid to swing earlier or sooner, and when to start front foot swing timing.
I always tell my hitters, the most effective mechanics in the world don’t mean a thing, if a hitter CANNOT get “on-time”. In a survey, my readers asked if I use any batting timing drills with my hitters – that work?
Funny, because…
Last week, I was on a call with one of my online lesson dads from Southern California. He said the difference in his son hitting the ball harder, with more consistency, has been because of how we cue one of the batting timing drills I’m about to share with you.
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Before we get started…
I want you to note that the following two batting timing drills are validated by empirical studies in the science of successful learning. They follow the Principle of Variance (CLICK HERE for a post that explains that).
In this post, I want to share the:
Watch this Carlos Pena video on how a hitter’s reaction time changes with pitch location…
Basically, a “float” is a slight pause before falling forward. Make sure you’re cuing “load slow and early”. This is what helped my SoCal hitter from above. CLICK HERE for this post referencing how Jose Bautista turned his swing around with the same cue.
We want the hitter to pick the stride foot up and shift their weight back. Which means the back knee will have to track over the back toe – and not inside. How far the back knee tracks depends on whether the hitters has a:
The higher the leg kick, the more the back knee tends to track over the ankle. The knee shifts inside the toe during the fall. And this should be a natural move. It’s difficult for hitters to get “on-time” by just picking up the stride foot and falling forward.
And this is what would happen if the hitter focused solely on keeping the back knee inside the toe pre-stride foot lift. Don’t believe me? Check out this rant post I did on this.
If you still don’t believe me, then do an experiment with the drill, and have your hitters note the difference in their quality of contact and control swinging the bat. This also requires a strengthening of the leg abductors and adductors. Here’s the movement prescription to do that…
Side Band Walks (http://gohpl.com/1G1FlS5)
Do once daily. Increase band resistance if necessary. Also, the above video demonstrates a semi-leg kick for the drill, this is necessary. The hitter can use any stride tip with the ‘float’. CLICK HERE for a post on different stride types. When to lift the stride foot to start the “float”, will get fleshed out in the next batting timing drill…
In the past, part of my timing training, was to tell my hitters to lift their stride foot at a specified point in the pitcher’s delivery.
Which is okay.
But now, my batting timing drills put more emphasis on trial-by-fire. Let me put my hitter through an environment where they have to learn to calibrate their own timing. I’m trying to melt them down mentally. And they’re trying to keep me from melting them down.
In a game, the same thing happens. To help hitters transfer grooved cage swings into games, we have to train with “random” versus “massed” practice. It has to do with the process of “Read, Plan, Do”.
In other words, this batting timing drill “takes care of business”, in a natural way.
Please post any other batting timing drills – like these – that are working for your hitters in the “Leave a Reply” section below (or share your testing on the drills I included)…
Andy, great question. I don’t force my hitters to keep the back knee inside the back toe. For some, this can cause undue stress to the ligaments in the knee. I prefer to have them create torque in the back hip by turning the back toe slightly in towards the pitcher and feel like they’re screwing their ankle into their foot – clockwise for a righty, and counter-clockwise for a lefty. The back knee will most likely track the toes doing this, but the backside will be in a better more stable position.
Joe, it happens because I’m creating torque in the back hip. Experiment with it yourself. Williams was probably doing the same thing. I’ve even seen Matt Kemp do this, even with him “trying” to keep his back knee inside his toes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mtj8bMLqZk
Joe, I know Williams turned his pelvis inward toward the catcher to “load”, but it isn’t a necessary motion. Science says the way you load the front/back Functional Lines (Thomas Myers in his book Anatomy Trains) is to take the front shoulder in and down towards the back hip. If the hitter inwardly rotates the pelvis towards the catcher too, then the Front Fascial Line never gets fully charged. I say to keep the pelvis in neutral (or parallel to the plate), and focus on taking the front shoulder in and down. The point is that the hitter charges the connective tissue pre-turn and gets the front leg open at landing…anything in-between is fine.
Andy R
Great post ! I have one point to make and wondering what your thought is on letting the back knee go over the back toe.
I think the float works a lot better when the back knee stays inside the toe. With that being said, I agree lift and going forward is harder to time than going back first; makes timing easier. However, I want best of both worlds by letting my hitter
to shift weight back BUT still keep knee inside back toe. Almost like pressing into the ground with back foot enables you to have that slight pause. You want that natural move forward, but back knee over the toe makes it harder to control and can affect head/vision problems. I learn so much from your material. Thanks Joey!