Q&A for 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.