Saturday, March 10, 2012

What Most Hitting Trainers Won't Teach You

In this article, I'm going to go over an issue that most hitting trainers are not aware of that can greatly affect the effectiveness of your baseball training. That issue is when you're taking batting practice you need to be aware of commercial batting cages in which the batter's box slopes down.
At many commercial batting cages, the batter's box is sloped down so the balls can roll from out of the back stop and back to the pitching machine on their own. However, hitting trainers need to realize that having a batter's box that slopes down towards the pitching machine messes up your stride and weight transfer since it causes your body to go forward. In a regular game, the batter's box is level so your body does NOT get pushed forward and weight does not get pushed forward due to the slope of the batter's box.
Therefore, in your training for baseball, you need to be careful which batting cages you go to for batting practice, because if it's one that the batter's box slopes down in front so the balls just roll back down to the pitching machine, this might end up causing a bad habit of your weight going forward and lunging at the ball which is bad. Obviously, if you're a baseball player that already has this bad habit it's not going to do any good to correct it by continuing to go to these types of batting cages for batting practice.
It's a shame most hitting trainers don't pick up on this, as it is not conducive to conditioning the proper hitting mechanics into a baseball swing. Whether you're a ball player yourself, hitting trainer or parent of a child that plays baseball, avoid these types of batting cages that have the batter's box that slopes down and look for batting cages that have a level batter's box.
What this will do for you by taking batting practice at batting cages that have a level batter's box, is it will allow you to strike out much less and give you the sound mechanics in your swing necessary to generate hit after hit. You will be able to stay back on the off-speed pitches, such as a curveball or change-up, longer and not end up being too early with your swing on these pitches. In all, you won't be fooled by the curveball and similar pitches as much.
As a hitting trainer, I will tell you that if you have a habit of going forward with your body and even lunging at a regular fastball, taking batting practice at those batting cages that have level batter's boxes will help tremendously to eliminate that bad habit. By eliminating this bad habit of lunging for the ball or going forward with your body in your baseball swing, you will see a measurable difference in the amount of power you are able to generate in your swing.
Note there are some good hitting trainers and some not so good hitting trainers; make sure you do your homework before picking out a hitting trainer for you. Take these hitting tips and start applying them today!

No comments:

Post a Comment