Drills
Drills
The list of drills is endless. It is our task as coaches to sift through the list to find those that we think fit our hitters. Your favorite few can be ever changing as your thoughts change or maybe you see someone else use the drill with a variation. Here are some samples:
- Tee locations
- There are as many locations as you can imagine
- Low tee – designed to get hips in proper position and then use them to elevate the ball
- Inside tee – designed to stay short to the ball yet sequenced while driving the ball up the middle
- High tee – Know how to hit the higher pitch on a line because more pitchers are starting to elevate for strikes
- Outside tee – be able to drive the outside pitch by backing up contact
- Side flip – good for sequencing the swing, etc.
- Front flip – work mechanics or approach
- Hold the bat – hitter starts into his sequenced swing and his partner grabs and stops his hands as they begin to move making sure the hips are leading the hands
- Start/Stop – Same idea as above except the hitter gets into hip rotation while holding hands in place
- Mirror – visual feedback for any aspect of swing development. A must in any batting cage
- Slow motion swings – definitely a feel drill that can be used with the mirror
- Med ball – throw the med ball uphill from a hip led position feeling the back hip drive into the front. Replicate swing mechanics.
- Long tee – flip on the field including front hip flip as well as driving the ball to all fields
- Work the count flip – coach intentionally flips strikes and balls with different pitches at different speeds while the hitter works to get a good pitch to hit
- Short pitch – use measurements and velocities to simulate BP or game
- Forced hand – Stride/separation drill. Hitter begins with a vertical bat directly in front of his body and syncs his stride with hand movement to position creating bat angle with the launch close to the back shoulder.
- Walk through – Stride/separation drill. Hitter steps behind the front foot loading hips then allows hips to lead to position followed by a sequenced swing. Can be used in combo with several drills. Also the variation of walk through drills is endless.
- Pump – Stride/separation drill. From setup hitter lifts the stride leg and drops the hands touching the knob on the knee then timing separation to launch while incorporating the hip lead.
- Bat resting on shoulder – Stride/separation drill. Hitter keeps the bat in contact with the shoulder until after the stride begins. Good drill for those who move hands toward launch too early.
