Getting Ready for the Big Game

Sports giants are people willing to pay the price for excellence.  Brooks Robinson took 200 ground balls a day from the time he was 12 year old until the end of his career.

Nolan Ryan is legendary for his dedication to his conditioning and his personal work habits.  In addition to having strong work habits, it is important to note the fact that dedication and effort is channeled toward specific performance goals.  On a day to day basis, the great athletes work on the things that are necessary to achieve their outcome goals.

Some may regard the hard work involved in developing the principles outlined in this book as a huge sacrifice, but a highly committed player doesn’t look at it as a sacrifice, but rather as a choice that involves sacrifice.  As a player, you need to decide what price you are willing to pay to become the best that you are capable of becoming- on and off the field.

Happy Memorial Day from SwingAway

A Short Path to the Ball

Let’s examine the path the hands will take through the swing.  The goal of the swing is to keep the barrel of the bat in the strike zone for as long as possible:

• Get the barrel of the bat in the strike zone with the shortest possible angle
• Keep the barrel of the bat in the strike zone for as long as possible
• Finish with the extension out front and with a good follow through

If you do this, you will have an efficient swing, one that will be consistent and repeatable.

It is very important to take a proper and consistent angle to the ball; the lower half of your body is what allows you to take this angle.  If the feet and hips are not working correctly, the hands and arms will not be able to take the correct path tot he ball.

When Do You Need Mental Toughness?

No one needs to exercise mental toughness when things are going well, however, you do need mental toughness when things are going bad.  As a challenge grows and pressure increases, so does the need for mental toughness.  By nature, people are competitive.  The greater the challenge, the more pressure you feel.  Challenges offer great potential for satisfaction, and a sense of accomplishment; but if your performance does not meet expectations, it becomes a source of anguish and frustration.  Those who are mentally tough enjoy the challenges of this game; those who are not, are frustrated.

Winners in life, as well as in sports, are mentally tough.  What separates the winners from everyone else is how they deal with pain, adversity, pressure, challenges, and the unexpected.  No matter how difficult or uncomfortable the situation, the mentally tough do their thing.

Young Athletes on Steroids

Steroids: Young Athletes On Steroids
How many young athletes are using steroids?
Yeah, there’s young athletes using it from high school on. Growing up in the fitness industry, I’ve seen kids that were at the Teenage America when I did that, Teenage Nationals. I was sixteen, seventeen, going up against nineteen year olds that looked like thirty year old men. I was like, “wow!” You’re still growing at that time. You’re still going through puberty. You still grow as a male until you’re about twenty-four years old, twenty-five. They start using them young, and that’s, again, maybe just not being brought up well, parents’ fault? Or maybe just society pushing the whole point of being “the very best you can be,” no matter what the cost.

Are steroids easy for young athletes to get?
Are steroids easy to get? I don’t know because I’ve never tried to get them, but it seems like it is. At the gym there’s always somebody saying “Hey do you want some”, so in that sense it is, but it really comes down to your individual person you know wand what you are. There’s great athletes out there that don’t do it you know, and what sucks is that there are athletes that are doing it. That you don’t even find out about the other guys, those other guys aren’t stepping forwards going “Listen I did this and I don’t do that stuff” It’s like Mark McGuire did vitamins. I don’t know much about Mark McGuire but compared to like what I hear about Barry Bonds who admitted he put on GH in lotion on his body, you know that sucks. That sucks that he gets a record for doing something when he did have help

How can we keep kids from doing steroids?
Teach them. Tell them that whatever they are going to do with it, they are going to lose. You can’t keep it. So understand, try to develop everything you possibly can and that you get to keep. So you get to play twelve to fifteen years as a pro football player without getting injured all the time. And then what happens after that. You don’t see a lot of these athletes, the kids don’t, after they quit sports or retire. These guys move around like they are broken. And that is not just from playing sports. That is just doing everything wrong. Doing the drugs, you know. So teach them. Teach them.

How can I tell if my child is taking steroids?
can tell if he is taking steroids in case of gynacomastia which is a swelling of nipples for the male, an a extreme agony and quick size growth – just blown up right up in front of you because you can typically put on weight of 20-30 pounds in a month or two so have them checked.

What should I do if I find that my child is taking steroids?
The first thing to do is sit down with him, talk to him, try to explain, you know, the negative part of it, and explain the positive part of it. You know, if later on in life, you make that decision as a man, then that’s understandable, but you’re a kid still and that’s something I was lucky enough, when I was a kid, that I saw people very close to me do it and the downfall of them. So I made that decision as a kid not to do it and I know kids think they know everything, you know, you’re fourteen years old, you want to make the varsity football team, if you do some steroids then you can do it and you’re popular and you get the girls and it’s not worth it in the long run. Just keep working. Show everybody you can do it without it.

Playing with the Right Attitude

Approach attitudes include a player’s plan (what he is going to do) and his approach (how he is going to do it).  Players have approach attitudes about everything that they do in the game.  These attitudes can change from pitch to pitch, just as their job and the situation in the game changes.  Approach attitudes direct the player; they are his guidance system.

The words hope, need, not, and won’t are negative.  Keep them out of your self talk vocabulary.

As a starting point, examine your attitudes concerning the following:

• Seeing the ball
• Where the best point o contact is for pitches inside, middle, outside, etc.
• Hitting pitches to the opposite field, up the middle and to the pull field
• Bunting for a hit, sacrifice and squeeze
• Hit and run
• Hitting mechanics
• Your strike zone

Proper Swing Path

It is very important to take a proper and consistent angle to the ball, the lower half of your body is what allows you to take this angle.  If the feet and hips are not working correctly, the hands and arms will not be able to take the correct path to the ball.  Also mentally the hitter must not be thinking home run or have these types of thoughts in his mind.  These thought will throw off the proper swing rhythm and sequence of the swing.  The approach must be fundamentally sound from the ground up or somewhere along the line you will reach your ceiling and improvement will stop.  This is why it is so vital that these mechanics are learned as soon as possible, the more time that lapses, the more difficult it becomes to overcome.

A Long Swing can be the result of:

• Using too heavy a bat
• Having used an aluminum bat which has such a large sweet spot that gives the appearance of a good swing which can be deceptive until you face good pitching
• Trying to hit the ball too far and over swinging

Getting Ready for the Big Game

We have established the value of routine.  Routine – Set Behavior – Habit – Plan.  Call it what you will, effective preparation is grounded in such behavior.  Diet, sleeping habits and workout schedules are part of a hitter’s preparation.  Important as they are, these off-field preparations, and the related philosophy, are too inclusive for these pages.

Before getting to those specifics, I must again note that baseball has been called a game of adjustments.  The vehicle for this adjustment is your brain.  The emotional system won’t allow you to learn from your mistakes.  This has been discussed earlier.  Its importance of the reminder is based on learning.  The ability to make an adjustment implies the ability to learn from mistakes.  When applying that learning, you are not preparing for the next pitch, or the next at-bat or the next game.

Hitting with the Proper Effort Level

Question:

In working with my son, he seems to struggle with a problem, he has had on and off for 4 years now. He is currently 13. When he is not swing well, he appears to be too aggressive with his hips and shoulder, ie. pulling away from the ball. I shows up to look like he is not having aggressive hands, with the result of hitting a lot of weak balls to the opposite field. He is right handed. We have worked a lot off the tee, short toss, and live pitching on the outer part of the plate. He has a good understanding of the various contact points. We just haven’t had any long term success at fixing this problem. When his front shoulder pulls off, of course his bottom hand pulls away from the ball, ie. causing him to “what I call, slice the ball”. Sometimes during the season he will get in a real groove where the ball just jumps off his bat, but he eventually falls back into the problem of pulling away from the ball. We have also worked the one handed drills extensively over the past few years. I would appreciate your advice on how to approach this problem for long term success.

Answer:

Take a look at three areas:

• Overswinging, this is one of the areas where most young hitters do not understand. Young hitters generally want to see how far they can hit the ball, This causes them to use their body too much and therefore overswing. It’s best to develop a swing that is about 80% of his max. This does not mean that the hands are not aggressive, but he should feel like he has something left in his body. In hitting, swing at 80% will give you better hand speed. This will help him with the next two areas.
• Balance, swinging at 100% will keep him from having great balance and actually slow his hands down, and as in your son’s case, will miss direct the hand path. Swinging at 80% will allow him to work on the correct hand path and will help with the next area.
• Head position, this is on of the most important aspects of the swing. The proper head position not only allows him to see the ball well, but also allows the upper body to stay over the ball. Have him keep his head down past contact.

Perfect each of these three areas and he will be making consistent hard contact. Good luck.

How to Hit with Leverage

Question:

When I transfer my weight back at the beginning of my swing, my back leg seems to bend a lot (almost want to collapse). Is this because too much weight is going back, or my leg is not strong enough, or what?

Answer:

I am assuming the way you found out that your back leg was collapsing was by watching video of your swings. If not, then make sure to have someone record you swinging in batting practice, doing side toss, and in games. The reason you should look at these different stages is because you may be swinging too hard. Perhaps you are too far back on your leg, but usually a hitter’s back leg collapses when they are trying to hit the ball too far and hard. So make sure to see those three different shots, because if you are swinging too hard in the games, you probably are easier in your side toss drills when you are relaxed. This would just tell you whether you have an effort level problem, or a mechanical problem. If it is effort level, then you might just need to relax, and not try to do too much with the ball. And if it is mechanical, then you probably should take a little weight off the back leg when you start your swing. Hope everything goes well.