By Nick Dixon
The Major League baseball swing is a thing of beauty. The dream of millions of little league baseball players is to become a major league baseball player. Hitting a major league home run is a fantasy baseball dream of every youth baseball player. How do the major league baseball players hit with such power? What makes their swing so powerful, productive, and perfect?
The smoothness, compactness, and timing of the professional baseball swing make it one of the most graceful things to watch in all of sports. Professional players practice and practice the fundamentals of the perfect baseball swing. If you watch it in slow motion, you will see that there are 3 common elements of the swing that that most major league baseball players have in common. Baseball batting practice repetition makes the Major League Baseball Swing consistent with the same 3 basic elements exhibited with every swing of the bat.
Great hitters always have the following swing qualities:
1. Solid and Stiff Front Leg
2. Rotational Swing allowing them to Stay Over Stack
3. Maximum Extension of the Hands and Barrel
Here I will discuss each of these 3 elements of the Major League baseball swing:
1. STIFF FRONT LEG The power hitters in major league baseball use a stiff front leg to give them leverage for their power. When you study their swing, the front leg is firm and at an angle that allows them to stop all body movement forward. The front foot is the anchor that prevents lunging and hip travel forward. Maximum power is generated when the arms are extended and the hips rotate. If the front leg bends power is lost.
Coaching Point: A stiff and firm front leg requires the hitter to have the timing and patience to allow the baseball to get inside the front foot before attacking the baseball. Maximum power is generated when the lower body, hips, and torso spin to generate bat speed. The tendency to lunge at the ball must be avoided.
2. STAYING BALANCED AND OVER STACK This is a term that refers to the spinning motion of a batters body and the process of keeping the head and torso perfect aligned over the back leg during the swing. The head does not move, travel or lunge forward during the swing. The perfect swing is a rotational motion with the body staying back and spinning over the back hip.
Coaching Point: Head travel is a no-no. If the head is moving forward then the batter has too much forward movement. The body must stop all forward movement and spin like a top. This rotational hitting motion generates maximum bat speed and power. A great tool for teaching and training young and advanced hitters this skill is the STAY BACK TEE and HandsBackHitter Trainer by Swing Buster. This innovative tool is a great baseball training aid that forces the batter to keep the correct front leg position during the swing. The STAY BACK BATTING TEE will teach the batter to have a stiff front leg and to stay over stack through the swing.
3. GETTING MAXIMUM EXTENSION THROUGH THE BALL What this means is that when the bat makes contact with the ball, the hitters drive the hands and barrel of the bat through forward as long as they can to prolong the bat to ball contact. They power-drive the moving the hands forward on a level plane as long as possible. This down and through motion of the hands is like the landing of an airplane. The bat travels quickly and compactly to the ball on what is commonly called an A to C swing. But, once contact is made with the ball great hitters have the ability to drive the hands and barrel forward on a level plane to generate and maintain bat barrel to ball contact. The longer the barrel stays in contact with the ball, the more force will be exerted on the ball.
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Nick Dixon is the President and founder of Nedco Sports, the "Hit2win Company". Dixon is also an active and full time high school baseball coach with over 25 years experience. Dixon is widely recognized as an expert in the area of baseball training, practice and skill development. Coach Dixon is better known as the inventor of several of baseball and softball's most popular training products such as the Original BatAction Hitting Machine, SKLZ Derek Jeter Hurricane Hitting Machine, Original Hitting Stick, Hit2win Trainer, SKLZ Target Trainer, SKLZ Derek Jeter ZipnHit Pro, and Strikeback Trainer. Dixon is also a contributing writer for BaseballCoachingDigest, the Baseball 2Day Coaches Journal, Batting Cage Builder, the American Baseball Directory and the Hit2win Baseball Coaches Monthly Newsletter. Dixon has 5 blogs related to baseball training including the BaseballCoachingDigest Blog, CoachesBest Training Blog, Hurricane Machine Training Blog, Batting Cage Buyers Blog, and the Bat Action Training Blog.
CoachesBest.com
HandsBackHitter.com
StayBackTee.com
AdvancedSkillsTee.com
BatAction.com
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