How To Develop Baseball Swing Techniques

Step 1

Weight balance/ light grip: Feet in line and knees slightly bent with weight ratio 40-60% from front to back, respectively. Remember to press more toward the forefoot and not your heels. Good strong athletic stance. Your grip should be focused on fingers and outermost knuckles should nearly line up on each hand down the handle.

Step 2

Load/Inward rotation: As the pitcher turns and brings their arm back just before a pitch, the hitter needs to have a small motion back toward the catcher to eventually move forward and throw the ball in a fluid motion. Hands should move a few inches back and up, and hips (not shoulders!!!) should turn slightly inward and rotate back toward the catcher. Creates a coil like build up of the body to explode through the ball

Step 3

Small step, or no Step: As the batter prepares to move to strike the ball, they should not step more than a few inches forward. Bringing the foot back and returning it to the original spot is fine, as well as not moving your feet at all. This movement helps with timing, but is more focused on keeping your body still and positioned the same way when swinging toward the ball. If you take too big of a step your shoulders and eye level will drop, changing the plane the ball is traveling down, thus making you swing and miss the ball.

Step 4

Top hand to Top ball: In order to achieve the quick, short efficient swing of the pros, you will need to think about throwing your top hand to the top of the ball. This creates a quick and downward motion to initiate the swing to the ball. If this is not achieved, the hands will be slow and will most likely drop below and force you to pop the ball up.

Step 5

Down to it, stay through it: As you get your top hand to the top of the ball, you need to make contact and keep your wrists through the zone of the ball trajectory as long as possible before letting your wrists turn over around your body to complete the swing. The longer the bat is in the zone, the more force will be behind the ball with more solid contact.

Step 6

Extension: After getting through the ball continue to keep arms straight and strong as your hips are coming through the ball. Imagine if there were three more balls you had to also hit in front of the initial baseball. You would need to really extend those arms to get all three.

Step 7

Hip rotation/drive back leg into ground: As your hands move to the ball, your back leg should begin to grind into the ground with great force and rotate with your hips through the ball. Your front leg stays planted and remains relatively locked as you rotate. Your back leg bends and drives into ground.

Step 8

Hips and body forward to back: As you throw your hands to the ball and drive the back leg, your body should stay level and your hips will move slightly forward toward the ball as you attack it. IT IS NOT A PURE ROTATION AROUND A POLE THROUGH YOUR BODY. Your going to drive into the ball and as you extend through the pitch, your body weight and hips will return to the beginning, weight-back position. 40-60% front to back into 60-40% front to back, and returning to 40-60%.

Step 9

Finish below shoulder: Until you get consistent at staying through the ball and making solid, powerful contact, you should force yourself to turn your wrist over and allow the bat to finish below your shoulder level at the end. Finishing high or above your shoulder tends to force you to only swoop the bat through the zone like a golf swing.

Step 10

Final balance: As you finish your rotation, work on your balance through the ball and overall swing. You should finish in the same position without having to take any extra steps to hold your balance. If you are going to fall off track or off line, it should be toward home plate after the full swing is completed.

Step 11

Constant repetition and swings off of a training tee can help drill this muscle memory into your mind and body so you do not have think so much during your swing. The above book is a great, simple tool for understanding the mechanics of a baseball swing and how to develop the confidence needed to succeed.