The hitting position is the moment your stride foot lands and you are about to swing the bat. This is one the most key positions in hitting. For major leaguers, regardless of how they set up in their stance, they are all within inches of the same position at stride landing. If the most successful hitters in the world do this, you have to say there is a reason for it. It puts their body in the best position to maximize both power and speed. For this blogpost, I will focus on the hands because young hitters tend to struggle with this the most.
To the untrained eye, a lot of things can go unnoticed. How do I know that my hitters are really stepping into a strong hitting position with their hands, it happens so fast? Do this test with your hitters, fake the pitch or throw an intentionally bad pitch that you know the hitter will not swing at and watch their hands. You will immediately see their reaction. If their hands stay up and they maintain their bat angle, there are doing it properly. More often than not, the hitters’ backside will collapse, they will drop their hands and the barrel of the bat.
The easy part is done, we have identified a problem, now we have to fix it.
- To get the hitter used to stepping into a strong hitting position, practice throwing pitches to the hitter without him swinging. He has to get used to the feeling of keeping his hands up at toe touch.
- Advance to batting practice or soft toss and mix up throwing strikes and balls.
- Separate stride and swing by having hitter step into hitting position, hold it, then throw pitch.
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