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Barry Bonds: Hitting Training To Get More Power For Baseball & Softball | How To Swing Plane Barrel Turn Vs. Hands Tipping Drill

Barry Bonds: Hitting Training To Get More Power For Baseball & Softball | How To Swing Plane Barrel Turn Vs. Hands Tipping Drill

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Check out this Barry Bonds swing training to get more power video for baseball and softball hitters.  Learn how to use swing plane barrel turn versus hands tipping* drill.

Baseball Hitting Tips Video: #1 Long Ball Secret

 

 

…we’re going over how

  • To use the body – not the hands – to get “on-plane” with the pitch,
  • Barry Bonds makes hitting the long ball look easy, and
  • Most young hitters get the #1 long ball secret wrong (and how to correct it).

A few weeks ago I worked with a 12-U Little League team from Bakersfield California called the Sliders.  They recently came to Fresno for a tournament and DOMINATED.

One of the moms Sheri – her son is Alex in the above video – emailed me a testimonial:

“The boys won first place! Ben, Paul and Dylan hit their first home runs ever! They went undefeated for entire tourney! We’re going to round table pizza to treat all the boys!”

The three young men who hit their first home-runs had worked with me for the first time, a week before the tournament.  Now, this wasn’t all me, but wasn’t a coincidence either.  Before I worked with them, all three boys naturally had a little forward momentum working for them.  And, Sliders Coach Justin Karr has been working the baseball hitting tips system with his team for over a year now.

In the baseball hitting tips video, Barry Bonds gets on plane with the pitch very well by lowering his body.  He does this by creating an “L” with his back leg to and through contact.  Whereas the moment Alex’s front heel hits the ground, he ‘stands up’ causing ball flight to be low.  Alex would have to get “on-plane” with his hands, which is very inconsistent.

SCIENCE-BASED TRAINING:

Improve your hitting strategy dramatically by applying human movement principles.

Learn not only how and what to train but also the science behind the methods.

Right Course For You? Take Quiz Now

Snapping Towel (Lean) Drill Setup:

  • NEED: light exercise band with handles, AND decent sized carabiner,
  • Loop exercise band handles to carabiner, then to chain link fence, OR
  • Parent/Coach holds exercise band handles, and finally
  • Have hitter loop band under armpits.

In the baseball hitting tips video above, I mentioned breaking the swing apart into two steps:

  1. To the Fight Position (landing), and
  2. The Final Turn.

You’ll see Olympic Hammer Throwers lower their backside as well.  This enables the release of the hammer at an optimal forty-five degree angle.  CLICK HERE to watch a World Record holding Hammer Thrower lower his backside while rotating.

*On the hands tip drill…  As my dad always told me growing up to not jump for the bells and whistles of a new car because it’s another thing to go broke and you have to fix it.  Just the bare essentials.  Consider this AthleticsNation.com post titled: “Josh Donaldson: Changes in approach and mechanics”, where they compare his 2013 to 2014 seasons.  The conclusion as to why his 2014 numbers were down versus 2013 was because of the barrel tip (over-emphasized in 2014).

Sure the hands barrel tip can get momentum going, but I have yet to be convinced that the risk is worth the reward.

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Hitting Training For Baseball & Softball Swing Trainers | Hitting Performance Lab

Softball Hitting Tips Video: Bat Speed Killer!

In This Softball Hitting Tips Video,

 

Softball Hitting Tips Video: Bat Speed Killer!

These softball hitting tips work for baseball too.

…We’ll be talking about softball hitting tips that work well for baseball too. What happens when a hitter doesn’t optimally use the Conserving Angular Momentum to fit a softball or baseball swing outcome:

  • Problems and compensations, and
  • What you can do to fix it.

This video compares a…

…Two-week swing period from one of my ten-year-old baseball hitters, Mikey.  It doesn’t matter whether we talk baseball or softball hitting tips, it’s human movement principles we should be concerned with.  It’s just amazing how one small change can have such a profound effect on bat speed.

 

Clarification on the front arm barring out…

  • ARM Barring Bad: when it happens up to the Fight Position and/or during bat lag or drag.
  • ARM Barring Okay: when we get to contact.  You see Big Leaguers do this when they’re adjusting to reach pitches lower in the zone or towards the outside part.

Please realize that a hitter swinging with an early arm bar will cause them to rotate slower, leaving them susceptible to fastballs up or inside the strike zone.

I’m not talking about the shape of the front arm at impact, which if straighter will increase Ball Exit Speed.  I teach my hitters to start bent, then let the pitch location dictate whether that front arm gets to bent or not at impact.

See, hitters don’t know what pitch type, speed, or location beforehand.  So our softball or baseball swing must build in that margin for error.

 

How-to Fix:

  1. Break the swing apart into two steps: 1) To the Fight Position (Landing), 2) Go into the Final Turn.
  2. NO extra movement with the hands going back is allowed before hitter proceeds to step-two above.
  3. Once they get to the Fight Position, tell the hitter to move the upper body as “one piece” to get into the Final Turn.
  4. Doing this while hitting a heavy bag would be great because it allows the hitter to go into the Final Turn at game speed, and gives instant feedback to the contact position

 

Resources:

CLICK HERE for short video on Conserving Angular Momentum from the Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) on Circus Physics.

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