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

Inverted Baseball Or Softball Professional Batting Tee: Best Hitting Trainer Drills To Hit Line Drives Instead Of Ground Balls | Review & Coupon Code

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Discover this inverted baseball, fastpitch, or slow pitch softball professional batting tee.  Learn about the best hitting tee trainer drills to hit more line drives instead of ground balls.  Check out this batting tee review and grab a 10% OFF coupon code…

Baseball Batting Mechanics Risk Hiding In Your Batting Tee

 

 

This is Part-1 of a 3-part baseball batting mechanics video series coming straight out of the Pitch-Plane Dominator online video mini-course…

Pitch Plane Dominator Online Video Course

Sick of struggling to reduce your hitters ground balls, swing and miss strikeouts, and non-productive weak fly balls?  This simple 4-Step online video mini-course (7-modules total) will help hitters weighing less than 100-pounds, barrel the ball more consistently.  Dramatically decrease ground balls, strikeouts, and weak fly balls (no matter the pitch location or speed) by applying human movement rules validated by science.

If you haven’t already, then CLICK the Link below to…

Get Access to The Pitch Plane Dominator Online Video Mini-Course

 

In the baseball batting mechanics video, Backspin Batting Tee inventors, Taylor & Jarrett Gardner are going to dive into…

  • Anatomy of ‘on path bottom half’
  • Why are pitchers taught to keep the ball down in the zone? And,
  • How to train hitting the bottom half…

CLICK HERE for an interview post I did with Taylor Gardner in 2015.

Anatomy of ‘On Path Bottom Half’

Baseball Batting Mechanics: 'On Path Bottom Half'

Should the barrel be level to the ground during the swing?  Should it be down to the ball?  Should it be up to the ball?

Baseball pitchers stand on a mound (if regulation) set up to 10-inches.  If we have a 6-foot pitcher with an overhand release, let’s say his arm adds another foot-in-a-half, then we have about a 8.5 foot above flat ground release point.  In addition to the target being a squatting catcher between 45-60 feet away.

The imaginary line connecting the pitcher’s release point to the catcher’s glove is what I like to call the Pitch-Plane, or plane of the pitch.

In fastpitch softball, the Pitch-Plane isn’t quite so drastic, but because of Gravitational Forces, the ball has to travel in an arc nevertheless.

Our objective as coaches is to get baseball batting mechanics to match the plane of the incoming pitch with the barrel.

You can also see from the eFastball.com graphic that line drives and productive balls in the air are hit using the bottom half of the ball.

 

Why are Pitcher’s Taught to Keep the Ball Down in the Zone?

Baseball Batting Mechanics: Backspin Tee

This baseball batting mechanics chart illustrates the importance of backspin on a batted ball. The higher the degree, the more backspin being created. Photo courtesy: BackSpinTee.com

Pitchers keep the ball down in the zone to get hitters striking the top half of the ball.  And to create an element of deception.

Pitchers know that ground balls are outs 95% of the time in High School.  In college and professional baseball, ground balls are outs 98-99% of the time.

The reality is, a 90-mph fastball drops 4 feet before it gets to the catcher.  This equates to about a 5-degree downward trajectory.  To the hitter, the ball may seem “flat”, but Gravitational Forces are instantly at work pulling the ball down after the pitcher releases it.

That’s only a fastball.  In baseball, we can see up to a 20-degree downward pitch plane when the pitcher throws a breaking ball!

The other thing that’s happening immediately after the pitcher’s release, is the ball starts to slow down because of a myriad of factors, a couple being Gravitational Forces, and the humidity (or lack thereof) in the air.

In other words, the ball may be leaving the pitcher’s hand at 90-mph, but by the time it reaches the catcher’s glove, it’s lost maybe 4 to 6-mph.

 

How to Train Hitting the Bottom Half

Baseball Batting Mechanics: Backspin Tee

The Backspin Batting Tee photo courtesy: BackSpinTee.com

Taylor Gardner told me a story about when his hitting mentor Matt Nokes was telling him of when Hank Aaron, shortly after retiring, was ‘touring’ MLB ballparks taking batting practice and playing home run derby.

Hank Aaron wound up crossing paths with Matt Nokes, where a young Nokes asked him what he was trying to do when he hit.  Hank Aaron shared that he was always attempting to hit the bottom half of the baseball.

Traditional batting tees can promote baseball batting mechanics that hit the top half, especially with younger hitters, because they generally fear hitting the tee and knocking it over.

This can have a cascade effect, mechanically speaking, causing a hitter to swing down on the ball.

The BackSpin Tee turns the traditional tee upside down…literally.  Try and swing up or down on a BackSpin Tee and you’ll hit the rubber tee cone, miss the ball completely, and/or get a weak result.  Instant feedback.  Ineffective outcomes.

The BackSpin Tee promotes ‘On Path Bottom Half’.

 

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

Backspin Batting Tee: Best High School Baseball Or Softball Professional Hitting Trainer For How To Hit Line Drives Instead Of Ground Balls | Reviews & Drills

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Discover the Backspin Batting Tee, which is the best high school baseball, fastpitch, and slow pitch softball professional hitting trainer for learning how to hit more line drives instead of ground balls.  See how it works in this drill review…

Backspin Batting Tee: The Quickest & Easiest Way to Drive the Ball Using A Baseball Hitting Tee

 

 

 

Batting Tees: The Ugly Truth Baseball Hitting Tee Interview

Meet the Backspin Batting Tee team. Photo courtesy: BackSpinTee.com

This is the first in a 3-part baseball hitting tee interview series…

One of the most frustrating things for coaches I’m in touch with (myself included) is finding minds that think alike when it comes to applying human movement science to hitting.

In other words, how do we separate the “weeds” from the grass?  Below is an interview I did with one of the three hitting and movement experts, Taylor Gardner and his innovative batting tee.

First a brief introduction…

Taylor Gardner is the inventor of the Backspin batting tee (I carry the Backspin Tee at TheStartingLineupStore.com), that received “Best In Show” Awards at the 2015 American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Convention in Orlando, Florida.  The baseball hitting tee concept is really simple really, practice hitting the bottom half of the ball (see video above).

At the convention, Taylor had a coach come up to his booth, take swings off his Backspin batting tee, and said that it was nearly impossible to swing “down” on the ball, because of the batting tee design.

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

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The “ugly truth” about the batting tee?

BackSpin Batting Tee

Photo courtesy: BackSpinTee.com

…If youth hitters aren’t coached properly, then they’ll default to hitting the top half of the ball, to avoid knocking the tee over.  Taylor’s Backspin baseball hitting tee turn this ugly truth on it’s head…literally 😛

Not only did Taylor breath new life into the batting tee, but he’s a student of hitting.  He uses human movement science like we do.  I met him on my Facebook fanpage, and after a couple interactions, I had to interview him for the HPL blog…

 

Taylor Gardner BackSpin Baseball Hitting Tee Interview…

If you were to train me for four weeks for a HUGE tournament and had a million dollars on the line, what would the training look like? What if I trained for eight weeks?

TG: With 4-weeks of training…

…we would have time to adjust any swing path flaws with video analysis so that everyone was seeing the same movements. We would do positional strength test to show if their are any weak points in the swing that might be causing a dropping barrel.

Your grip would be looked at to ensure that at contact both wrist were close to 90 degrees, and then keep that grip (don’t just change it for comfort).

Simple soft-toss from in front would show any basic timing issues, as well as your ability to get in position to the ball on time to use a proper swing path. Bad positioning at landing can cause hitters to change their swings regardless.

I practice a “1st baseman” drill where you train your eyes to step towards a ball before you catch it (Learned from Barry Bonds) to help your body learn how to get to the pitch more efficiently.

Depending on how good your timing, body positions, and swing path were, we could then move onto any movements in the body that might need more exaggeration, for example: if you were very stiff with your legs, and had a hard time getting to lower pitches, we could do variations of tee work and soft toss to exaggerate that one body movement, and these same techniques would apply if you had connection problems with your arms, hands, head movement, etc that may need to be fixed more quickly.

After your technique is sufficient in the 4 week time frame, I would have you learn how to “time” a pitcher and practice different fastball speeds. For example: if you are facing mostly 80mph pitching and slower, we would practice speeds of batting practice (with the new exaggerated movements now set) that were no quicker than .47 seconds out of the pitcher’s hand to the front of the plate (a simple stopwatch would get us close).

If you were facing 90mph then we would train your stride timing to adjust to .40 seconds, but no faster. Pitcher’s don’t accidentally throw their fastest pitch 10mph faster….In the 4 weeks we would conquer the technique of the swing first before seeing live pitching. You came to change your swing, and 4 weeks is plenty of time to make physical adjustments, the rest of the time would be focused on the timing and reaction to positions in the zone.

If I had 8-weeks with you,

Backspin Batting Tee

Photo courtesy: BackSpinTee.com

…we would take the same approach, I don’t believe their are quick fixes, unless your swing is already close to doing the right movements, but I would ask you questions about the approach at the plate, and we would keep it as simple as possible. The pitcher throws his fastball 70%+ most of the time, so you can trust that that is what you will see.

You can always buy time (wait) in the swing, but you cannot speed up faster than your body will allow. You would learn to set your timing approach up to hit that particular pitcher’s speed, then time your stride accordingly. Some hitters need to wait longer, or start sooner depending on their tendencies.

Your set up (assuming isn’t an issue) would be able to swing level to a high pitch (considered a pitcher’s mistake in Pro ball) because it is the easiest pitch to get to the bottom half of the ball, and would learn to adjust to the height adjustment of off speed and swing to the pitch accordingly.

Every physical movement that would be instructed would have your own style to it. There is no cookie cutter swing, only movements (and maybe some variations of those movements) that were backed by facts and studied knowledge that can be performed by the human body.

Getting on path with the pitch, hitting the middle/bottom half of the ball at a contact point that is proven for max energy connection into the ball would be taught. How high or low you consistently hit balls (angles) is more important than pulling it or going to opposite field. This has been proven time, and time again.

 

What makes you different? Who trained you or influenced you?

TG: Matt Nokes (Silver Slugger Award Winner, New York Yankees) Boots Day (Montreal Expos, and knew Ted Williams), Jarrett Gardner, Professional Pitching Coach

 

What are your favorite instructional books or resources on the subject? If people had to teach themselves, what would you suggest they use?

TG: DVD-Pyramid Of Hitting. Training tool-The Back Spin Batting Tee.

 

What are the biggest mistakes and myths you see in hitting? What are the biggest wastes of time?

TG: Hit the top of the ball to make it rise with backspin. Soft-toss from behind the hitter. Your hips are your main source for power. Quick hands. Pulling with the bottom hand, and pushing with the top hand. You can stay “through” a ball longer if you try, the ball only stays on the bat .0007 seconds, no matter how you hit it. Swing down and through a ball. Keep your hands inside the ball. Get your foot down early. You have to have a straight front leg to hit. You have to rotate your back foot for power. “Don’t worry about timing, just react to the pitcher.” Foul off offspeed and wait for fastball. They all are a waste of time, and I can explain how.

…

Thank you Taylor!

Here’s how you can stay updated with Taylor Gardner and his BackSpin batting tee:

Please direct baseball hitting tee questions and comments below…

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Backspin Batting Tee Placement Tips: How High Or Tall And Drills To Teach Hitting Power For Baseball & Softball Swing

Backspin Batting Tee Placement Tips: How High Or Tall And Drills To Teach Hitting Power For Baseball & Softball Swing

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Learn Backspin Batting Tee placement tips on how high or tall to make the tee.  Discover how to do drills off the tee to teach hitting power for the baseball and softball swing.

Backspin Tee: Batting Tee Location Setup

 

 

Answered: “I have a question about contact points for hitting inside/outside pitches. What’s your opinion on how you should set up your batting tee for working both of these locations?”

Here’s what we discuss in this Backspin Tee batting tee video above:

Backspin Tee: How To Set Up Baseball Hitting Tee Locations

Photo courtesy: Yours truly.com

Hey. What’s going on? It’s Joey Myers from ‘Hitting performance lab’. In this batting tee video, we’re gonna answer another reader question:

“I have a question about contact points for hitting inside versus outside pitches. What’s your opinion on how you should set up your Tee for working both of these locations?”

This is a great question, and this is what I got in from email. I thought, I have gotten it quite a few times, it’d be nice to just put in a post, and that when people ask, I can just send that out to them instead of having to explain it.

So, here’s the general batting tee rule in setting up Tee for the pitch depth, whether it’s inside, middle, or away. Now, I know this requires some visuals. I will take a picture (image to the right), and during this video, I will put it up, so that you can see that image while I’m actually talking you through it. Because I realized that it would be kind of tough to do that in this video setting without actually being out on the field…

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How To Set Up Inside Batting Tee

So, on the inner third of the plate, realize that when you set the Tee up you want to be on the inside inner third of the plate.

The other thing that you want to make sure you’re doing is ‘at stride’ landing. So, all these positions are at stride landing, okay. It’s not at the start of the swing. So, you have to get your hitter at the stride landing, and then you can kind of figure out how far up, middle, or deep you want to put the Tee. On the inner third of the plate, ball is on the inner third, you want the ball to be set up whether using a BackSpin Tee or Tanner Tee or whatever Tee. You want it to be set up about six inches to a foot out in front of the stride foot, okay.

Again, lined up on the inner third of the plate. But in relation to where the foot is, you want it to be about 6 inches to 12 inches. Perry Husband actually says when we’re using the front arm shape, we’re locking that front arm out, for some players could be as much as 18 inches. So, it’s going to depend on the age of the hitter. Obviously, if there’s 7 years old you’re not going to put the ball, if you’re working in or third, you’re not gonna put the ball 18 inches out in front of them.

But maybe a high school or college or pro guy or gal, you want to basically use your common sense to where you need to put that, in relation to setting up batting tee locations. It might take a few swings for you to finally find that sweet spot. Because it all depends on the length, and seven-year-olds arms are definitely not as long as a 22 year old’s arm. So, in the inner third, about 6 to 18 inches out in front, of the stride landing foot.

 

How To Set Up Middle Tee

Middle third of the plate, you’re gonna be somewhere around the stride landing foot, in line with it to about 6 inches give or take, 3 to 6 inches, 3 to 8 or so, give or take.

But somewhere at middle should be around stride foot landing, or in line of the stride foot over the middle third of the plate.

 

How To Set Up Outer Batting Tee

Now, the outer third part of the plate you want to set it up on the outer third, and it’s gonna be deeper off the stride foot. So, it’s gonna be farther back, closer to the catcher. So, you want to make sure that that’s gonna be a range. I know, you probably don’t like ranges, it would be nice for me to just say we’ll do it 6 inches from.

But it’s all going to depend on your hitter, the younger the hitter, the less the discrepancy between staggering these balls, the less distance between the contact points. Because the arm, the front arm shape or length isn’t as long as a 22-year old. So, it’s gonna be the range between 6 and 12 inches I would say, or 3 and 12 inches, just again play around with it. But what should happen is when they hit it, when they hit it optimally, they should be on, if it’s on the outer third correctly, should be going to right center field. Inner third, it should be about left center.

Again, the farther out you move it, the more they’re going to pull it off those lines. So, you want to make sure that’s kind of a ballpark of where you want to put it. Think about it this way, this is what I tell my hitters. When we’re talking depth, hitting depth, whether opposite field middle or pulling the ball is think about like a pinball machine. Now, some hitters don’t know or never played on a pinball machine, you can show them. But think about the flappers on a pinball machine, if I had the left side flapper or right-handed, if they’re a right-handed hitter.

So, if I want to hit the ball across the table, opposite field. Then I’m gonna let that ball travel deeper and then my flapper is going to hit ball deeper. If I want to pull it across the table then that ball has to be more inside or coming more where the flapper is, and that flapper has to hit the ball more out in front in order to get it to go. Now obviously, it’s a little bit different when we’re talking about a hitter in a flesh-and-blood human being, but the bat is like the flapper, and the human body is just an extension to that.

That is how you set up the Tee.

Using Art of Variance To Train Off Tee

Now, a couple things that you want to do when you’re working and training off the Tee. Because there are some people out there anti Tee, they are “Never Tee’rs”, never batting Tees. Working on the Tee has its place, it shouldn’t be something that you do all the time. But if you’re gonna work on the Tee, make sure you use what I call the ‘Art of Variance’. So, you want to vary where the pitch height is, and the pitch depth. Whenever we’re on the Tee, we’re on the backspin Tee, or Tanner Tee. We have our hitters, after every swing, we move the Tee up or down.

Doesn’t have to be a lot, just a little bit. Just giving them a different height to it, then what we’ll do is say a five swing round, is the odd swings, the 1, the 3, and the 5 swings, or the first three swings will actually have them swing inside. We will have the Tee set up on the inner third, and we’re moving the ball up and down. Then the last two swings, we’ll move it to the outer third, and we’ll move the swing up and down.

Then, the next round, the next round of five, we will reverse that. So, the first three swings are on the outer third moving it up and down. We’ll move it to the inner third, and then for the last two swings, and we’ll move that up and down.

So, you want to make sure that you’re varying the ball, whether it’s height or depth on the Tee when you’re working off the Tee. Because the pitcher is not going to be throwing it in the same spot every time. So, the Tee definitely has its limitations, it does not obviously simulate a moving pitch. But we can work on the Tee whether, it’s mechanics, we can work on it on getting hitters to understand pitch depth. Where you’re hitting the ball deeper, they hit at the other field, or pulling the ball, we can work on it using especially overload training is really good. We can set the Tee really high and inside, up and in. So, we can get them to work on some things with the overload bat, to get them not getting under the ball.

 

Backspin Tee v. Regular Tee Swing Experiment

So, there’s some cool stuff we can do with the Tee. Just make sure we are smarter with it, and the difference between a backspin Tee and a Tanner Tee or any of any other Tee. Because every other Tee is way different than the backspin Tee, there was an experiment I did. A swing experiment where I hit, I took a hundred swings off a backspin Tee, and a hundred swings off a regular Tee. I split those hundred swings up, I mixed them. So, I had say A, B were split in 25 swing chunks. So, I would say A, where backspin Tee swings. I would go A, B, B, A and then the last round of 100. I would go B, A, A, B.

‘A’ represented backspin Tee swings; the ‘B’ represented regular Tee swings. I took identical pictures of the cage. Then plot it, when I take some swings out the backspin Tee where the ball would go, and then I would do the same on the Tanner T.

But what the difference was, off the backspin Tee, 100 swings looked like a tornado or a tree. The swings off the regular Tee kind of looked blockish. There were some up above the top of the Tee or a top of the gate, but it was more block-ish. What was interesting is the “backspin Tee effect” is what I call it, after changing from a backspin Tee swing to a regular Tee swing. The backspin Tee effect where I was still driving the ball up, lasted for about 10 swings or so. Then, the last 15 of the 25 swings on the regular Tee, I’d noticed that the ball would start to kind of drag down. Then, when I go back to the backspin Tee, would go back up again. It was just an interesting backspin Tee effect.

So, in this video, we answer reader your question:

“I have a question about contact points for hitting inside versus outside pitches. What’s your opinion on how you should set up your Tee for working both of these locations?”

I hope this video answered that question…make sure we’re swinging smarter by moving better. And before I let you go…

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

Best Backspin Batting Tee Experiment For Youth Baseball, Slow Pitch, & Softball To Hit Launch Angle Line Drives | Swing Aid & Tools Trainer Reviews & Coupon Codes | STOP Son Hitting Too Many Weak Ground Balls To Shortstop!

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Discover the best Backspin batting tee experiment for youth baseball, slow pitch, and fast pitch softball to hit more launch angle style line drives.  Get swing Backspin Tee trainer reviews and coupon codes.  Also learn how to STOP your son (or daughter) from hitting too many weak ground balls to shortstop.

Baseball Batting Cage Drills: Here’s A Quick Way To Hit Less Ground-balls

 

 

Question: Does The BackSpin Batting Tee Help Hitters Elevate The Ball?

In this baseball batting cage drills experiment using the Backspin batting tee, I wanted to use the Scientific Method to analyze what would happen to a hitter’s spray chart (ME!!) by taking:

  • 100 swings using a conventional tee (ATEC Single Tuffy Tee), versus
  • Taking another 100 swing using Taylor and Jarrett Gardner’s BackSpin batting tee.

I’ve done a couple posts promoting what Taylor and Jarrett are doing with the Backspin Tee because I really believe in their product and what it can do for young hitters in getting the batted ball off the ground.  Whether we’re talking baseball, fast pitch softball, and slow pitch softball…

And to let you know, this experiment has been brewing in my head since the summer of 2015, but the stars just didn’t align…until NOW!

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

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Background Research

Here are two baseball batting cage drills posts mentioned earlier, to give some background on the research for The Backspin batting tee:

Hypothesis

Baseball Batting Cage Drills: ATEC Tuffy Single Batting Tee

ATEC Tuffy Single Batting Tee photo courtesy: ATEC

Okay, so I cheated a little bit…

Before the OFFICIAL baseball batting cage drills swing experiment, I’ve been using the Backspin batting tee with my local hitters and the results have been positive.

And now, I’m making my Hypothesis official…

I think by using the Backspin batting tee, it will allow the hitter to cut down on ground-balls, and will empower them to get more effective at putting the ball in the air (line drives primarily).

In addition, I think that not only will the tee reduce a hitter’s ground-balls, but will contribute to above average line drive launch angles.  Average line drives would be within the reach of a fielder.

 

Baseball Batting Cage Drills: Backspin Batting Tee Experiment

Equipment Used:

  • Backspin Batting Tee,
  • ATEC Single Tuffy Tee,
  • Flip Camera,
  • Baseballs, and
  •  33-inch ProXR wood bat

Setup:

Baseball Batting Cage Drills: Backspin Tee

Closeup of the ‘inverted’ rubber cone that holds the baseball or softball. Photo courtesy: TheStartingLineupStore.com

  • I had two of the same laminated images of the batting cage I was hitting in (Hitting Spray Chart images below).
  • After each swing, I’d use a Sharpy pen to mark where the batted ball hit first (on the ground or the location on the batting cage netting), right after coming off the bat.
  • All swings for the baseball batting cage drills experiment were taken off either a Backspin or ATEC Tuffy Single tee.
  • I used the Backspin batting tee rubber cone for baseballs (they have one for softballs as well).
  • I stayed as consistent as I could with keeping the ball height and depth the same for both tees.
  • I used two yellow dimple ball markers to make my stance setup consistent…one was placed inside my back foot, close to the plate.  The other was placed one bat’s length plus two baseballs in front of the back marker.
  • The two tests in the baseball batting cage drills experiment were counter-balanced.  Which consisted of eight blocks of 25-swings done in the following order ABBA BAAB.  Hitting off the “Backspin Tee” was letter ‘A’, and off the “Conventional Tee” was letter ‘B’.  200 total swings were completed in the experiment, 100 per test.  Counter-balancing helps remove the “getting tired” and “not being sufficiently warmed up” factors.

Data Collected (Hitting Spray Charts)

Backspin Batting Tee Spray Chart:

Baseball Batting Cage Drills: BackSpin Tee Spray Chart

The Backspin tee spray chart is cleaner and resembles a bit of a tornado…

Conventional Tee Spray Chart:

Baseball Batting Cage Drills: Conventional (Regular) Tee

As you can see, the spray chart is a bit messy…

 

Data Analysis & Conclusion

  •  The Backspin batting tee spray chart looks much more tidy than the “regular” tee chart (the former looks like a tornado),
  • You can see when using the conventional tee, I tended to pull the ball to left side of the cage.
  • There are definitely a higher concentration of batted balls in the above average line drive spots (not within reach of the fielders), using the Backspin batting tee, and
  • There were more balls hitting the ground or bottom of the cage when using a conventional tee.

 

Notes

  1. Addressing the excessive of pulled balls using the conventional tee, I thought maybe my tee was moving on me (getting too far out front).  I even tried pushing the regular tee slightly deeper than the position I started it in for a couple swings, to counter this, but that wasn’t the issue.
  2. Now, here’s where it gets interesting…remember in the “Setup” section above, I hit on the Backspin Tee (‘A’) FIRST.  I started to notice a pattern after switching tees…I didn’t have an issue getting the ball in the air with the Backspin tee, sometimes getting into the pop-fly territory.  But what I found was after taking a Backspin tee 25-swing chunk, the first 10-15 swing launch angles off the conventional tee mimicked what I was getting with the Backspin Tee.  As the conventional tee round approached the last 10-15 swings, the launch angle slowly creeped downwards into the average line drive arena.  So when I repeated TWO conventional tee 25-swing chunks (the BB in the ABBA pattern), by the time I got to the end I was having a hard time getting the ball back up again using the conventional tee.  And on the last BAAB 25-swing chunk pattern (last 100 swings), I noticed the same thing emerge.
  3. It was like the “magic” of the Backspin tee wore off after 10 swings into hitting on the conventional tee. My Hypothesis?  If I took 100 STRAIGHT swings on a conventional tee, then 100 STRAIGHT on a Backspin tee, I’m willing to bet there would be WAY more ground-balls and average line drives using the conventional tee than I got in this baseball batting cage drills experiment.
  4. The other weird thing (in a good way) I noticed hitting off the Backspin batting tee, was that it trimmed up my spray chart (making it look more like a tornado rather than a cinder block).  I rarely pulled the ball towards the left side of the cage hitting off the Backspin tee.  And the ones I did pull that way, I’d be willing to bet it was after hitting off the conventional tee. CRAZY!

The Bottom Line?

Well, the baseball batting cage drills experiment data showed that not only did the Backspin tee elevate ball launch angles, but it also cleaned up horizontal outcomes.  Meaning, I didn’t hit the ball to the left side of the cage as frequently when using the Backspin tee than I did with the conventional tee when the ball is located virtually in the same position every swing.  Also, the “Backspin tee effect” lasted a good 10-15 swings into switching over and using the conventional tee!

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STOP Hip Coil & Slide Hitting Drills For Lower Body Baseball Softball Mechanics?

NO Stride Vs Leg Kick MLB Player Swings | STOP Hip Coil & Slide Hitting Drills For Lower Body Baseball Softball Mechanics? | How To Hit Line Drives & Square Up The Ball More

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Find out if a NO stride versus leg kick makes for a better MLB player swing – does it REALLY matter?  In this video, discover whether you should STOP hip coil and hip slide hitting drills for lower body baseball and softball stride mechanics.  And lastly, learn how to hit line drives and square the ball up more often.

Anthony Rendon Swing Analysis: “Getting Shorter & Staying Shorter”

 

 

Hey, what’s going on, it’s  Joey Myers from the Hitting Performance Lab.  In this Anthony Rendon swing analysis, we’re going to go over a couple of things…

  • Inward turn of the pelvis pre-stride touchdown?
  • “Hip slide” as a stride technique,
  • Shifting foot pressure, and
  • Get short, stay short…

Transcription of above Anthony Rendon swing analysis is what follows…

 

Inward Turn of the Pelvis Pre-Stride Touchdown?

First off, I wanted to show a pitcher’s view and talk about how really insignificant the turning in of the pelvis is. I have Javier Baez over here on the right, and I’ve done a swing analysis on him where we talked about this.  Anthony Rendon is over here on the left.

You can see the difference in how much that they turn their pelvis in or don’t turn their pelvis in. And my argument is that we really don’t need to do that. We talk about putting the hips on a skewer … where the skewer goes through the hips towards the pitcher and that the hips slide on that skewer.

The only time they can come off the skewer is during the actual turn itself as the pelvis starts to open. But we don’t want to see it come off the skewer, by turning into the skewer before that, which we see Baez doing over here. You can see both butt cheeks pretty much from there, which you really only see one butt cheek over here with Anthony Rendon.

I wanted to start this off and show you this view and just take my word for it … there are many swings here of Anthony Rendon, who’s doing the same thing in all of them. It’s not just because this pitch is inside.

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Anthony Rendon Swing Analysis: “Hip Slide” as a Stride Technique

Now, one thing I wanted to highlight, in this Anthony Rendon swing analysis video is the hip slide as a stride technique. And what you’ll see here is Anthony Rendon really doesn’t have much of a stride. You can argue here that maybe he’s got a little bit of a toe tap where he kind of sets the foot out there. He’s got his weight at about a 60/40 type of position. And then what you’re going to see is his hips slide forward on that skewer. And then he’s going to start his turn.

I have some hitters that do this, and that choose to do this especially with two strikes or when they’re facing somebody, a pitcher that’s got above average velocity, and that is OK. The stride in our system is not meant for power. In the stride, I argue for any hitting system doesn’t really contribute much power to the swing. You might get a half a mile per hour ball exit speed with a longer stride versus no stride. But a stride’s main purpose is timing.

If my hitters are getting on time more often or they’re comfortable with their timing and their stride, then we don’t touch anything. However, if they’re having a hard time with their timing and they have a high leg kick, then we may experiment with the toe tap or we may experiment with this hip slide style.

 

Shifting Foot Pressure

One thing I want you to check out in this hip slide is the shifting foot pressure, no matter what the hitter is using as a stride type, whether it’s a leg kick, medium or high, a toe tap, a hip slide, or a slide step.

Does it really matter?

You’re going to see them using shifting foot pressure. We should see in the beginning before the turn happens, before the hitter starts turning, and we should see foot pressure on the outside part of the back foot and the inside part of the front foot up until the start of the turn.

As you can see here, this is the start of the turn here. He’s starting to load and take slack out of his system. And then you’re going to see that shifting foot pressure go to the opposite side of what he started with. You’re seeing on the outside here is going to shift to the inside of the back foot and it’s going to shift from the inside of the front foot to the outside of the front foot.

Oftentimes you see hitters, some hitters more than others, where you can see the bottom of their front foot because they’re on the outside or on the fifth metatarsal of the foot – the pinky bone in the foot. You see the bottom of their foot as they do it. Now, this isn’t a teach. I don’t talk about doing more or less than that. Typically, when the ball is closer to the hitter, you’ll see more of the bottom of the foot. They’ll be more on the outside part of the front foot.

And if the ball is more away, you’ll see the foot a little bit flatter. Now, in this Anthony Rendon swing analysis, you can see that he stays pretty stable, pretty grounded with it, the sole of his foot, although it can be argued that he is definitely on the outside part of his foot, but more of the bottom than other players.

So this is the idea of a hip slide. It’s OK for hitters to use, especially facing high velocity pitching, or maybe a two strike approach. But the objective of this is, if you’re going to use a hip slide, minimal stride, minimal feet off the ground. The objective is to get on time more often. It isn’t about gaining power, or taking away power. It’s a timing mechanism.

 

Get Short, Stay Short

In this Anthony Rendon swing analysis, I’m going to show you a couple of swings exemplifying him getting shorter and staying shorter or getting low and staying low.

The benefits to this are when the hitter gets taller, as some coaches teach, getting their hitters to get tall or stand tall or stay tall or whatever. What tends to happen is, it pulls the hitter up on the plane and the pitch. They tend to hit the ball on the ground more, and if they are a little bit more mindful about their batted ball outcomes, and they are hitting more ground balls as they’re swinging, getting taller…

What they’ll end up doing is they’ll compensate by using their hands more to get under the ball. We don’t want to do that. We want to let the hands just swing. We want the body to get the barrel on the plane of the pitch.

What you’re going to see at the start of the swing, even with a hip slide, you’re going to see him drop below that bottom line. At the start of his turn, this is a typical at stride landing position, so if a hitter wasn’t using this hip slide … they were using a slide step or leg kick or whatever, you would see the best hitters drop below the starting line.

Or maybe if they’re more crouched like a Victor Martinez was, he’ll start at this bottom line and stay under. This line down here. So, you’re going to see he doesn’t really pick this back foot off the ground. He just kind of goes to the toe, shifts his weight against a braced front side, which is “a” OK.

As long as there is a shift going on there, of the center mass, we’re not squishing the bug or putting out a cigarette butt.

But you’re going to see him stay below this line. So, he’s going to get short. He’s going to stay short. And he’s using his knee action. He’s using the distance between his feet to do this. Players that tend to skip too much, they skip their back foot six inches will end up taller above this line. And as they’re swinging, they’re getting taller.

This messes with vision and tracking. It messes with them getting on the plane, Anthony Rendon even actually gets lower during his turn. You see him getting lower and staying lower.

Here’s another at-bat you can actually see from the beginning. You can see this hip slide toe tap, staying shorter principle where he’s starting at his head setting the top line. Then you’re going to see him set that foot out there. And he is going to, what we’re going to talk about it in a minute, he’s going to sit into this back hip, or his back-hip pocket.

Then you’re going to see him as his hip slides before his turn happens. You see him sink below the bottom line and he’s going to stay short or stay under that bottom line. Now, we talked about the neutral position that his pelvis, or hips, start in versus Javier Baez earlier in this video. You can see that here. And then what he’s going to do as he gets that front foot out there is, he’s going to sit and sink.

A couple of things we work on with hitters…

Sometimes our hitters will, as they stride, will straighten this back leg and will make them taller, obviously. Wherever they start, they’ll end up above the line. Well, what we do is there is something in there that that hitter is trying to take slack out of this system, trying to create and hunt and seek out stability to be able to move from as they move into their turn. And they will straighten this leg out, which there is stability in straightening the knee out. And also, possibly going into kind of a hip extension where you come out of a hip hinge, or an athletic position.

We want to promote or encourage our hitters to be in more of an athletic position, which you see in this Anthony Rendon swing analysis. You can see that’s what he’s doing. One thing we do is take this back toe … instead of it pointing straight at the plate or perpendicular to the plate. We turn the back toe in slightly, which now gives the hitter a little bit of hip torque in the back hip.

The second thing that we do is, as you’re seeing Anthony Rendon do here, is you’re seeing him sit or sink into this back hip or back hip pocket. He’s just kind of like there’s a harness going over the back butt cheek. So, for a righty, the right butt cheek, and for lefty the left butt cheek.

Maybe they might feel that they’re pinching their back groin a little bit, but they should feel like they’re bone in their butt is peeking out of that back-butt cheek, they’re sitting into that harness back there and it’s not a rotating inward of the hip. We saw that at the beginning of this video comparing it to Javier Baez.

We saw Anthony Rendon not inward turn his hips. He sat into his back-hip pocket. That’s more like what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to keep the hips on the skewer.

You see him sit. He goes from this kind of neutral position and then you see him take that stride and you see him sit into this back hip, which creates an environment of taking slack out of the system.

You turn that back toe in, creates back hip torque. And now we sit into that back-hip pocket and now we’re all ready to go with the pelvis.  Again, not an inward turn. He’s just sitting into it. It’s more linear, but in a diagonal fashion, it’s not back towards a catcher, but it’s kind of more behind, in line with the hitters back butt cheek.

Here it is again. Anthony Rendon swing analysis. You can see the getting shorter, staying shorter.  He starts at the top. He gets out to that stride, that 60/40 weight distribution, you can see this back toe turn slightly in. You can see him sit or sink into that back-hip pocket. It’s like he’s sitting down on one side of his butt cheek.

You’re going to see him move as he’s getting close to the turn. You’re going to see him move under the bottom line and he’s going to stay shorter and stay under the bottom line.

What’s also interesting to note here is this pitch is in and up, in or up, in and or up, and you’re going to see the barrel path… He’s not snapping it backwards like you see a lot of coaches doing. And teaching. It’s okay to snap it backwards… when we’re talking pitches middle away or middle down.

What he’s doing is he’s imagining that there’s a catcher’s gloves set up at his belly button and he is knocking that catcher’s glove off.  In order to get to this pitch, which is middle in and/or middle up. At a higher speed, this is how we catch up or how the best hitters catch up to pitches depth wise that are closer to their eyes and faster.

All right, last swing in this Anthony Rendon swing analysis, you can see, again, all the principles. In conclusion of this video, you’re going to see him maintain his distance between his feet. He’s going to start at the top before his swing starts, he starts to turn. He’s going to drop below the bottom one by maintaining the distance between his feet is going to help him to get shorter and staying shorter.

You can take a PVC pipe with your hitters. You can set it at about their nose level and have them practice getting shorter, staying shorter by using their knees. We also don’t want them to skip too far. We tend to like the one to three-inch skip and it all depends on how tall the hitter is and how young the hitter is. We maintain the distance between the feet. We use the knees.

You can see Anthony Rendon using his back knee. Even though the front knee gets straight, which some hitters like Anthony Rizzo, Cody Bellinger, Adrian Beltre … they tend to on pitches down in the zone, will keep this front knee bent and won’t actually get it to straight. But they’re also using their knee action to stay shorter, to stay below the bottom line.

 

How To Train Hitters with this…

And how do we do this? How do we train this into our hitters by taking this back foot, turn it slightly and towards the pitcher to create some hip torque back here. We are going to have the hitter sit or sink into that back hip. They’re going to feel like a bone is sticking out of their back-butt cheek.

And they’re going to ride that feeling up until their stride landing position. It also might help by using shifting foot pressure, getting the hitter to understand that they’re going to start on the outside of the back foot, inside of the front foot. And as they approach stride landing and about this point, you’re going to shift it to the opposite side of each foot. Outside becomes the inside of the back foot and inside becomes the outside of the front foot.

And this is an easy way to practice this. They can just do it in the room by just standing sideways like they’re hitting, grabbing their thumb, their top hand thumb and practice, shifting back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

Again, in this Anthony Rendon swing analysis video, we talked about:

  • The hip slide as a stride technique,
  • Shifting foot pressure,
  • The difference between Javier Baez and Anthony Rendon and how they inwardly turn the hips pre stride landing or they don’t, and
  • The benefits of getting shorter, staying shorter, what to look out for distance between the feet, minimal to zero skip …
  • Using the PVC pipe…

…make sure that you’re swinging smarter by moving better. And before I let you go, please like this video on YouTube, like our YouTube channel, and check this out…

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

STOP Chopping Hitting Ground Balls For Baseball Or Fastpitch Softball? Too Many Pop Flies? Want To Hit More Line Drives Instead? Try These Drills!

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Do you want to STOP chopping and hitting ground balls for baseball or fastpitch softball?  Or you may be hitting too many pop flies?  Do you want to hit more line drives instead?  Try some of the drills mentioned in this interview with Perry Husband (EffectiveVelocity.com) and I…

“Put Hitters In Charge…Our Job Is To Eliminate Our Job” Perry Husband & HPL Hitting Jam Session #4

 

Here’s the Hitting Jam Session Interview Collection with Perry Husband:

  1. Why You Should Not Teach Hitters To Hit Homers?
  2. What’s The Biggest Mistake Coaches Make In Boosting Ball Exit Speeds
  3. How To Make Teaching Proper Weight Shift In Swing More Understandable To Hitter
  4. [YOU ARE HERE] Teach: How To STOP Hitting Excess Of Ground-balls & Fly-balls
  5. 5,000 Swing Experiments Validate Locked Lead Arm Is Superior To Bent
  6. Overload Bat Training: Hitting Has To Work Butt Off To Resist “Casting”

Here’s what we discuss in this episode:

  • “How do I get my son to stop hitting an excess of ground-balls (or fly-balls)?”Perry Husband & Joey Myers Hitting Jam Session #4
  • How swing intention is great, but its benefits can be suppressed by physical limitations,
  • The key ‘tinker & test’ learning principle helping hitters learn faster,
  • Why a hitting coach’s job is to eliminate their job,
  • And much more!

Hitting Jam Session 4 above jumps right into the conversation already started…

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Show Notes

  • At about the 1-minute mark, question: how do I get my son to stop hitting ground-balls OR how do I get my son to stop uppercutting? What drills and mechanics?  What’s most essential get barrel on plane of the pitch.  If hitting too many ground-balls, then tell hitter to swing up.  If hitting too many popups, then tell hitter to swing down.  Perry talks about ground-balls most likely indicate being too early, and fly balls swinging too late.  Take BP round, up solid, down solid, then find the middle solid.  Matching feel and real, set up targets at distances on the field, like at a driving range in golf, and have hitter hit different target distance…hit a one-hopper v. 3-hopper v. 5-hopper v. NO hopper.  Now coach can cue that to correct extreme barrel angles.  Hitter can feel it but not see it, while coach can see it but not feel it.  Match real and feel.
  • At about the 7-minute, 30-secs mark, Carlos Pena really struggled on the up and in part of the strike zone (in 2009), what did Perry do to fix that…part was physical: he was really bent over at the waist (was at a 50-degree hip hinge – straightened him up a bit), the other part was approach: INTENTION…hunting up and in, trust ball flight to get what the reality is, using Bernstein’s Law of intent to change ball flight
  • At about the 12-minute mark, Joey Votto trying to cut down on strikeouts and wanting to match the pitch plane to give up some homers, Votto talked about how Mike Trout could put the ball anywhere on the field you asked him, don’t be obsessed with Launch Angles – gotta take care of the horizontals too, Ben Hogan willing changes to happen, Perry talked about demonstration of holding paper clip tied to a string, and paper clip starts spinning in a circle if you think it, control knobs in fingertips, intent is great but may be limited to physical ability, on Votto’s 2-strike approach changes – missing more balls he should’ve driven because he puts more emphasis on weighting the backside
  • At about 17-minute mark, if hitter swings up and is late, they’ll hit a lot of grounders, how to develop feel for things, swinging different sized and weighted bats (end loaded, balanced, and knob weighted), hitting different sized and weighted of balls, swinging at different points in the zone, hitting targets on the field at different depths, Make It Stick by Peter C. Brown on the power of variance, the Bean Bag study and the 2 bucket challenge, building multiple reference points, Perry played game with hitters in the cage, based on his 10-degree Launch Angle target in the cage 1-5 point scale, only get 10 balls (minimize 1’s and 2’s) – once they think about getting a 5, hitting the 3’s and 4’s are easier…intention: focus on ball flight
  • At about the 25-minute mark, Aaron Miles and our phone conversation about quality v. quantity swings, screwed up a bunt in game and next day cranked machine up to 95-mph on the field before game and bunted, Miles went on a tear after that, quantity reps are great but they better be quality reps, Aaron Miles coaches indy team in NorCal and says he’ll take a hitter who can hit 40 line drives out of 50 versus only 20, CLICK HERE for Perry’s launch angle tee test chart, I do similar test to get a ballpark of where the hitter is at – before lesson I have tee setup middle-middle and let them take 5 or so swings and make note of where they’re hitting the ball vertically and horizontally, if it’s measureable, then it’s manageable – even if you’re measuring distance (or eyeballing it)
  • At about the 33-minute, 30-secs mark, I asked Perry’s advice on the following comment from a 13yo hitter I received on one of my YouTube videos…

“I have been doing your catapult loading system method for hitting for about a month and a half now. I am the hitting ball harder than ever and it feels great. A coach yesterday, (while I was was hitting front toss at the beginning of practice) said that he thought I was rotating my shoulders too much and should keep a better posture in my swing. I got the hunch from your book. So I explained to him the catapult loading system method and he didn’t like it. He said it will cause me to pull off the ball and that no big leaguers do it. Then I named josh Donaldson, Aaron judge, and Andre mccutchen and said they all do it. He didn’t give me a really definitive answer after that. This coach uses the method of making a “positive move” towards the ball and “walking away from your hands” which I remember in your book you said is not what you teach. I am 13 and I was wondering how should I tell coaches about the catatpult loading system and why you don’t you like the “waking away from hands” method. I have had 3 coaches now comment on me showing the numbers and hiding the hands and they all said I won’t be able to hit faster pitching with it, but I have been smashing the faster pitchers (70-75 mph) and have done fine with it. Thx“

  • …Perry asks hitters whose swing do you have, put hitters in charge, our job is to eliminate our job, hitter tells coach “Thank you, I’m going to give it a shot”, takes time to make changes in swing, not going to happen overnight, this player is on the right track, listen, soak it in, let some things leak back out
  • At about 38-minute mark, comment on my blog from alphabet soup acronym expert bashing tee use (CLICK HERE for link to comment)…you can hit a curveball farther because it arrives with backspin (from hitter’s perspective) and bat-ball collision wouldn’t have to reverse spin like a fastball arriving with topspin, Perry talked about how much farther hitters hit a ball off the “hover-ball” tee when backspin is put on ball before hitting it, 211 players averaged over .400 hitting 100-mph+ ground-balls, type of spin hitter puts on batted ball ball IS NOT predetermined by starting spin from pitched ball.
  • At about 49-min mark, how batting tees (like the Backspin Tee) can be beneficial to hitters, doing “circle drill” pitch recognition using tee in ideal situation, the only bad thing about hitting off tees is turning the head to see ball hit bat, in reality the brain doesn’t every see this happen, anti-tee people would be a difficult thing to promote,
  • At about 53-minute, 30-secs mark, Perry shows swing analysis swing-and-miss example of Spring Training game, being late on the pitch and where the barrel is at certain point in time, line of ball is at 4-degrees – barrel path is at about 13-degrees, clearly not in line with line of ball, pitcher ended up throwing right into this guy’s barrel middle away after throwing 3-pitches by him – dinger!  Target rich environment out there, most hitting approaches will work until pitchers go EV,
  • You can find Perry Husband at EffectiveVelocity.com, use EV25 coupon code for any of the online courses.  @EVPerryHusband on Twitter, and @PerryHusband on Facebook
  • My offer…FREE Catapult Loading System 2nd edition print book – just pay $8.95 shipping and handling (retails on Amazon for $19.97) – in addition you’ll get our essential consistent power online video mini-course Power Hitter 2.0: Engineering The Alpha: https://www.truthaboutexplosiverotationalpower.com/pl/60039
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