Mechanics Of Hitting: Part Four - Hitting

By Coach Theune

Ok we are all ready and comfortable in the box, (by the way, this takes practice. You may not feel right at first because of existing bad mechanics and muscle memory, but with hard work and dedication, you will).

As the pitcher begins his windup, we shift our weight to our back foot just a little, almost in a rocking motion. When the pitcher delivers the pitch we take a small 6-8 inch stride with our front foot and start to shift our weight forward, this gets our lower body in motion and starts the hitting sequence. We then begin to rotate our hips and back foot towards the pitcher and begin the actual swing. (there are several complex movements that go into the swing but i wanted to give a full description before i went into detail.) Ok here is the technical breakdown of the swing. We shift our weight back as the pitcher goes into his windup, then as the pitch comes at us, we shift our weight forward using the stride. (When we take the stride we should understand that what we are doing is starting the momentum that builds the torque that will travel up our body and out our arms).

When you stride, your front leg or stride leg moves about 8 inches forward towards the pitcher and hits gently on the ground. Next you begin to rotate your hips and back leg towards the pitcher. Your stride leg locks which forces the momentum go up, instead of towards the pitcher, and allows you to become balanced. (It is the lower body that is responsible for generating the torque that flows up and out.)

Next, you swing, upon making contact, your back arm should be bent and the palm of your top hand should be facing up. Only after you have hit the ball do your arms straighten out and follow through. Your head should be down, by that i mean you should see the ball hit your bat every time!! Many coaches call this the point of contact. You need to be focused on the ball from start to finish for this to happen. Your head should still be down looking at the point of contact even after you have hit the ball, for a split second.