Baseball Hitting Drills That Really Work

I've been using baseball hitting drills to make myself a better hitter ever since I was a kid. Which is a long time ago. One thing I had that maybe not everyone has, was the benefit of great coaching. From my Dad in little league up through high school and American Legion Baseball and then in the Minor Leagues.

Often times little league coaches are well intentioned parents who have kids on the team. But they might not know what makes a good hitter. You have to know the proper mechanics of a good baseball swing before you can practice them. Otherwise, you will be practicing improper mechanics.

Rocky Balboa vs The Russian

Remember in the movie Rocky 4 when Rocky was training for the fight with the Russian? There was the Russian training on all that high tech equipment and what was Rocky doing? He was out in the snow pulling a sled full of rocks and splitting firewood! The point is that you don't have to invest a lot of money in all kinds of expensive training aids.

Here are some easy to learn baseball hitting drills that will not only improve your swing, but cost little if any money. And most of them you can do by yourself.

Muscle Memory

I was taught early about muscle memory. One quick example of muscle memory is tying your shoes. Try it right now. See how fast you can tie your shoes. You do it without really thinking about it. That's because you have done it so many times that your brain and muscles almost do it for you. That's muscle memory.

I still play baseball in what's called the Men's Senior Baseball League. It's a league for us old guys who still want to play but aren't up to competing with the young guys anymore.

I'm not bragging when I say that I'm one of the best hitters in the league.

But it's not because I have more skill or talent than anyone else. It's because I relentlessly practice the proper mechanics of a good baseball swing.

The goal is to train your body to swing properly without thinking about it so that in a game you only have to concentrate on hitting the baseball. You can't be thinking about staying balanced, staying back, short stride, etc.

Practice the proper mechanics over and over and Muscle Memory will take care of this for you.

Visualization

Visualization is becoming a popular training aid. We were doing it 35 years ago. With all of the baseball hitting drills I did, visualization was used all the time. Another word that describes visualization is pretending. See yourself in your mind hitting line drives. Make pretend scenarios and live them through your mind while practicing your baseball hitting drills.

Pretend that you have a 3 and 1 count and the pitcher hangs a curve ball. See yourself, as you swing, driving the ball off the 375 foot sign in right center field. This actually helps with muscle memory and makes these drills more fun.

Staying Back

If I had to teach a young hitter from scratch, and I have, about the proper swing, the first thing we would talk about would be staying back. I have seen so many young hitters lunge at the ball when they swing. It's like they can't wait for the ball to get to them so they go forward to hit the ball.

We used to do a simple drill in the minor leagues that helped me to learn to stay back. Our coach would have us set up in our batting stance. He told us to pretend that there was a steel rod that went through the top of our head, down through our body and came out our butt. This steel rod was then anchored into the ground so that we could not move forward.

Then he would have us step and swing. The goal here is to step with the front foot, but not allow your body to move forward. When doing this drill, think of your step as a reach towards the pitcher. Now, for this drill to be effective, you have to practice it many times every day. Especially if you were a lunger before. Don't go front to hit the ball. Be patient and let the baseball come to you.

You can add to this drill by practicing your head discipline. Your head should go down to the baseball when you swing. Your body will follow your head. So if you are pulling your head out when you swing, your front shoulder will follow and open to quickly which will totally screw up your swing.

Practice your balance with this drill. When you swing, you should be balanced. Don't swing so hard that you fall around in the batters box.

Practice all of these things with this drill but take them one at a time. Don't try to work on three things at the same time. Work on staying back for a few swings, then concentrate on balance and so on.

Dominant Eye

We all have a dominant eye even though we don't realize it. Try this.

Take the index finger and thumb of your left hand and make a V. Do the same thing with the index finger and thumb of your right hand. Now touch your two index fingers and two thumbs together to form a triangle. Pick out an object on the wall and look at it through the triangle. Then, close your right eye. Can you still see the object? If not, close your left eye. Can you see it now? The eye that you can see the object with is your dominant eye. So when you set up in the batter's box, make darn sure you are seeing the pitcher with your dominant eye.

If you are a right handed hitter and you are right eye dominant, you might have to turn your head a little more to make sure you can see the pitcher with your right eye.

Ball On A String

Here's another cool drill you can do by yourself. And you can do this drill all day. Take a baseball and an eye hook. An eye hook is small and looks like a screw on the bottom and has a loop on top. Look for them at any hardware store for a few cents.

Push the screw end against the baseball and turn it in as far as you can. If you have to, put a screw driver through the loop to help turn it in.

The take some string and hang the baseball from your garage ceiling.

I hang mine from the railing for my automatic door opener or put a small nail in a rafter in the basement and tie the string to it.

Use enough string so that the ball is about thigh high. Swing the baseball out away from you. When it comes back hit it with your bat. Now, don't smack the daylights out of it with a full swing. Just tap it with the bat. Make contact. Play pepper with it.

This is a hand-eye-coordination drill. You aren't all that concerned about mechanics here. At first it will seem hard to even make contact. But the longer you do this drill, the better you'll get. Concentrate on watching the bat hit the ball. Tap it right back at the imaginary pitcher.

You can add to this drill. I was visiting a local sporting good store and found some small, training baseballs. They look and feel exactly like a regulation sized baseball but are smaller. Using this smaller ball will hone your hand eye coordination even more.

You can also replace your bat with a piece of wooden dowling rod from your local hardware store. Or use an old broom handle. Make sure it's at least as long as your bat. Saw some off if you have too. Now with a smaller bat and smaller ball you can really work on your hand, eye coordination.

After you get good at this drill, change the height of the baseball. Hang it higher or lower and keep practicing.

Super Pepper

When I was a kid my brother and I played this game constantly. I think you all know what pepper is. One guy with a bat and several fielders. The fielders toss the ball to the batter and he taps the ball back to the fielders. Since it was just my brother and me we did it a little different. Stand about twenty feet apart. The object for the guy pitching is to get the ball in the strike zone. For the batter, the object is to hit a line drive right back to the pitcher. Again, you are not taking a full swing. Just tap the ball back at the pitcher.

The spin we put on this drill was that the batter gets to hit as long as he hits the ball so that the pitcher can catch it on a line. If the batter hits the ball on the ground, over the pitcher's head or far enough away from him that he can't catch it, the batter and pitcher switch places.

At first this will be difficult. But you'll improve. My brother and I did this drill for hours on end and had a blast doing it. It got to the point where we seldom missed.

This drill forces you to watch the ball and concentrate on making square contact. What happened to my swing was that in a game I would hit smoking line drives to center and right center field. It's a great drill.

Heavy Bat

Back when I played American Legion Baseball we used wooden bats. During a game, I broke my favorite, Roberto Clemente, Louisville Slugger. My Dad taped up the handle. Then he drilled big holes in the barrel and filled them with lead. The lead made the bat pretty heavy. I would stand in front of our basement wall and put a shop light behind me so I could see my shadow on the wall. Then I'd swing that heavy bat over and over again.

You can substitute lead with one of those weighted donuts. Practice your mechanics while swinging this heavy bat. Make sure you are staying back. See the pitcher in your mind and pretend to hit different pitches. Make a game out of it and see yourself driving the ball off the opposite field fence or pulling a curve ball out of the park.

One thing to concentrate on while doing this drill is balance. The heavy bat will tend to pull you off balance. Don't let it. Swing normal but don't swing real hard. Make sure you keep good balance right into your follow through. What you'll find after doing this drill for awhile is that your bat speed will increase dramatically. And that's what produces power. Swing faster, not harder

Reverse Swing Drill

I read somewhere a long time ago that practicing your swing backwards helps build Muscle Memory. The article I read said that Japanese players do this drill all the time. So, being consumed with the goal of becoming the best hitter that I could be, I practiced my swing in reverse so many times, that here it is almost 35 years later and I can still do it.

A good way to prepare for this drill is to have someone video tape your swing. Then watch your swing forward and backwards, over and over again until it's in your head so to speak.

If you don't have someone to video tape you, it's OK. You can still do this drill. I always did this drill in slow motion. Get into your stance. Slowly go through your swing. At the end of your follow through, just reverse the sequence until you are back in your stance. It's like pressing the rewind button on your swing.

This is actually a fun drill to do and as I said, it helps build Muscle Memory.

Tennis Racket Drill

Here's one I'll bet you can't do. But once you master it, you'll most likely be the only player on your team that can do it.

I'm sure you have seen tennis players bouncing the tennis ball up and down off of their racket. Do this with a bat and a baseball. This is a great hand, eye coordination drill. I guarantee you won't be able to do this at first. This drill will show you just how good, or bad, your hand, eye coordination is.

After doing this for a couple of minutes each day, you be surprised at your progress. Doing this with a tennis racket is easy. Doing it with a round bat and a round ball isn't.

These are a few of the drills I used to do and still do. When I was a kid and decided that baseball was what I wanted to do for a living, I practiced these drills almost until my arms fell off. These drills worked and worked dramatically. But a lot of time was spent perfecting my swing.

There will be times when you would rather watch TV or play video games. Go ahead, but then don't expect to be the best hitter around. Your physical talent does have something to do with it. But these drills will make anyone a better hitter.

Steve Ramer is an artist and former minor leaguer. His specialty is creating hand painted baseballs of your favorite players past and present.
He is also the owner of Famous Baseball Players.net
Please visit Steve's website to see his hand painted baseballs.
http://www.famousbaseballplayers.net

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Baseball Hitting Tips - Excellent One Liners About Baseball Tips on Hitting

Sometimes you can say a lot with only a few words. The following list of baseball tips on hitting will prove just that point

"Everything goes toward the pitcher."

Your body should be going toward the pitcher and not toward third base if you are a right-handed hitter or toward first base if you are a left-handed hitter. It's a very common baseball hitting problem because it is extremely unnatural to go toward someone who is throwing a baseball in your direction. But, the truly great hitters all do it.

"Outstanding hitters have slow feet and fast hands."

The faster you move your feet around the better the chances are that you will get "sloppy." A steady, balanced foundation is as important to good baseball hitting as it is to building a house. Even if everything above the foundation is perfect, whether it be hitting a baseball or building a house, if the foundation is not perfect it will lead to many problems. And "fast hands" are of the utmost importance when hitting a baseball. It's very frustrating, especially for power pitchers, when a hitter literally just flicks the bat out with very quick hands and hits the ball hard for a hit.

"Short and quick is so much better than long and strong."

I can not overemphasize how being "short to the ball" is a very critical factor and one of the better baseball hitting tips. Being "short" is an absolute necessity and will enable you to catch up to any fastball. I would rather pitch against a baseball hitter with a long and very powerful swing than someone who is "short to the ball" any day!

"Stride and then swing."

They are two separate movements yet quite often weaker hitters will do them at the same time. Watch and you will see this very common baseball hitting problem often. They should happen in rapid succession but they are separate movements that should be done as smoothly as possible.

"Tension is a hitter's worst enemy."

An expression that's been around for decades and is still one of the better baseball tips on hitting. Hitting a baseball effectively is not an easy thing to do. If you tighten up your muscles it is pretty much impossible to be a good baseball hitter. That's one of the reasons some very good hitters will have a little waggle with their bodies or their bats while waiting for the pitch. It's almost impossible to tighten up your muscles when you are moving them. Relax and "let the air out."

"To hit the ball harder, you don't necessarily have to swing harder."

Don't place too much emphasis on how hard you swing the bat. It's a very common baseball hitting problem, especially with younger players.They swing too hard and miss the baseball by a foot. Focus heavily on getting the sweet part of the bat on the ball as often as you can. Trust me, one of the most important baseball tips on hitting is to just get the bat there and watch what happens. Let the bat do 90% of the work for you. Bat manufacturers spend millions of dollars on research to have the ball jump off the bat when hit on the "sweet spot." Nobody will ever notice how hard you did or did not swing at the pitch. What they will notice is your "seed" going up the right-center or left-center field gap!

You CAN improve and overcome any of your baseball weaknesses if you are a player, a coach, or if you are a baseball parent and your child is struggling! Larry Cicchiello has some FREE baseball tips on hitting and FREE baseball pitching tips available at http://www.LarryBaseball.com. Get ready to be raising more than a few eyebrows!

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Effective Baseball Hitting With Good Training

Baseball is the national American pastime. Many have started appreciating the game by playing in Little League as they were children. Though considered as just playtime, the basics of the sport are inculcated at this early age. There are two aspects of the game that is most notably developed at all levels of the sport, from backyard catching time with another person to the major leagues. These are baseball hitting and baseball pitching. As can be seen in the sport, baseball pitching is the first line of defense that a baseball team against an opponent. But to this can be offset by good baseball hitting.

Effective baseball hitting or baseball pitching can only be achieved through baseball training.

What is considered as effective hitting?

In hitting, the very first thing learned is the batter's stance when up on the plate. The stance determines the baseball pitching strike zone. The zone would be the area with the most probability of getting hit by the batter with the bat as it is within reach of the batter. So having a smaller strike zone by crouching would gain the advantage for the batter since there would be a smaller strike zone and thus more likely that the pitch would be called a ball or it would be hittable into play. But being too crouched would mean being impeded from swinging the bat and hitting the ball.

The second must learn for the hitter would be the correct baseball grip and weight. Baseball hitting is all about being able to swing the bat fast enough and hard enough to hit the ball into play. But if the ball is hit hard enough, the ball may just sail up and over the field fence within the lines and be called a homerun. This is baseball hitting's prized achievement, to make a home run against baseball pitching. With this, the batter is able to score on his own or if others are on base then he can bat them in for the score, hence the statistic RBI for Runs Batted In.

How do you train for it?

The runs scored in baseball hitting determine who wins the game. So grip on the bat and the weight of the bat must be both comfortable and easy, as the bat merely becomes an extension of the arm. When the bat is swung, it must be in one sweeping motion without any wasted movement to generate the speed needed for the bat to hit the ball into play.

A further training issue is the hip swing. This is where the power for baseball hitting is generated to offset the skill of baseball pitching. The hip swing is all about being able to generate force and power to help the bat in hitting the ball. Having the larger muscle groups of the torso does this and the legs create a quick swivel motion to help the arms generate sufficient speed and power for the bat to hit the ball. In essence, the muscle groups of the legs and torso area acting like coiled springs can drive a bat at a much faster rate and a quicker pace.

The do´s and don't s of hitting the ball

An effective baseball hitting technique is through the use of a hung baseball. In this exercise, a baseball is hung using a piece of rope or string. The training commences by studying the bat's angle relative to the height and distance of the pitch from the batter.

Repeating the batting technique several times and each time increasing speed and recoil movement of the batter's body create what sports scientists call as muscle memory. The baseball hitting technique allows the body to remember the exact adjustments that were in place to deliver the same movement and thus generate the necessary speed and power to hit the ball into play. By adjusting the baseball's height and distance, the batter then can see the minute adjustment's that need to be made in order to make contact between bat and ball.

Remember though, not to over train, as this could result to pain and even injury. As much as you may want to hit the ball perfectly every time, learning baseball really does take time.

Perhaps, the best form of baseball training that you could do would be live game play, through either scrimmage or experience in actual game situations.

Baseball hitting can be practiced time and time again through the use of a live pitcher or an automated pitcher to see what needs to be adjusted in the batting stance and swing to generate the optimum set of movements to generate the most power for the bat. It is here where legends are made and hall of fames become immortalized.

Chris Moheno has a long time passion for sports in general and for baseball coaching more specifically.

His goal is to spread the word about effective non-fluff baseball training techniques for both more experienced and young baseball players, to help them perform better during the game.

Discover more about baseball training secrets on http://www.baseballtrainingsecrets.com

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Better Baseball Hitting

Many people seem to believe that baseball hitting at a high performance level is just some natural athletic ability that some people have while most people don't. But excellent baseball hitting requires excellent baseball training in the science and art of batting.

It's true that some natural abilities are needed in order for one to have the potential to become an excellent hitter in baseball. For instance, a .400 hitter will never be unless he's got superior eyesight, so that he's able to pick up the ball from the earliest point in the pitcher's delivery and then read the spinning of the seams in great detail. And, yes, there does need to be a natural gift for basic hand-eye coordination.

But hitting a baseball well is widely regarded as the single most difficult feat in all of professional sports, all things considered. The baseball hitter has to use a round stick to hit a round ball, and that ball is moving rapidly (sometimes VERY rapidly) over a short distance and has been thrown by someone who is intending to make that ball miss the bat. And that's all just about making CONTACT with the ball. Then there's the part where the contact is supposed to be good enough that it gives the batter's team some offense!

So, truly, there's more to batting than meets the eye when it comes to baseball hitting. Mind and body have to work in unison to achieve effective hitting results. And that's just not going to happen unless there is some excellent baseball training in hitting.

Think about it. With only rare exceptions, major league baseball pitchers, some of the greatest athletes in the world, are utterly terrible at batting. You would think that they would be some of the very best hitters because they supposedly can anticipate the pitcher better than most other players. And those of us who played little league baseball surely remember those guys who were great pitchers as well as great hitters--in fact, that seemed to go hand in hand a great deal of the time. But clearly, that's not the case in the major leagues. You see, major league pitching itself is such a demanding art that pitchers have to spend most of their practice time pitching--not taking batting practice. So, even though they may have a lot of natural talent, very few of them can be even competent big-leagues baseball hitters. Their baseball training just doesn't fall into that category.

If you notice, you'll see that most catchers aren't anything better than mediocre hitters, either, although they certainly are better than pitchers and there are some of them who are real batting champions. The baseball training of catchers, too, is more highly specialized to focus on the extremely difficult to master set of skills needed for catching.

So, excellent baseball hitting is so difficult that some of the best athletes aren't very good at it--simply because they don't get enough of the specialized baseball training that makes good hitters. Another thing to think about is that really good baseball hitting is so difficult to master that we give Most Valuable Player awards to hitters who get put out 650, 675, 700 times out of every 1,000 at bats! And if a guy makes an out even more than 700 times for every 1,000 attempts, but he can hit that ball a country mile 35 or 40 or 50 times when he DOES make contact, we may give him an MVP trophy, too!

So, what this all means for you is that there are certain baseball training techniques that are designed to make "merely" talented baseball hitters into good, or great, baseball hitters.

Baseball hitting training is designed to: improve hip and thoracic spine mobility; increase the ability to store and release bodily kinetic energy, especially by increasing the tensile power of the hips; and improve the synergy between the hips, torso, arms, bat, eye, and brain.

Using machines as well as body resistance training and a little bit of free weights, specific movement training exercises are used to improve a player's baseball hitting to take him to another level. The best batting coaches know of these various exercises. If you want to improve your baseball hitting or help your son or daughter improve theirs, research these exercises and talk to these batting instructors. They're a lot easier to find than Nolan Ryan's fastball was!

Chris Moheno has a long time passion for sports in general and for baseball coaching more specifically. His goal is to spread the word about effective non-fluff baseball training techniques for both more experienced and young baseball players, to help them perform better during the game. Discover more about baseball training on baseballtrainingsecrets.com

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