Mechanics Of Hitting: Part Three – Body Language

By Coach Theune

Let’s move on to body position or body language, its important to be relaxed when at the plate so we want to be in a position that does not require any type of balancing act. We want our feet to be shoulder width apart, or close to it. If your feet are too close together, you can’t get your lower body into the swing and if they are too far apart, balance becomes a problem. With our feet shoulder width apart we bend our knees slightly so the weight of our body is on the balls of our feet, not on our heels, our back is straight or just slightly bent forward, head straight and level. Some coaches tell you, your chin should be at your front shoulder at the start of your swing and on the back shoulder when you are finished. This is sound advice. Remember we are supposed to be comfortable. The reason we don’t want to be bent over too much is because our head will be tilted and our eyes will not be level, all you have to do is tilt your head down and look at something sideways to understand the importance of that!
So, just like that we know the how to's, and the what for's, of positioning ourselves in the batter’s box, our stance, grip, hand position, bat position and body position, whew!

Now we can move on to actually hitting the ball!