Little League Digest - Proper Baseball Swing Mechanics and the "Belly Button" Rule of Hip Turn

Little league Digest: Baseball Batting Coaching Tips: Teaching Hip Turn Mechanics and Using the "Belly Button" Rule to Improve Baseball Swing Quality

The hips play an important part in the baseball swing process. The turn of the hips helps to generate power and bat speed. There are several important coaching points about the involvement of the hips in the swing. The "B B" rule is one good way to teach young players the degree of hip turn on various pitch locations. This article presents several coaching points and explains the "B B" rule.


By Nick Dixon



Here are 10 Coaching Points related to Hip Movement Mechanics:

1. The degree of hip movement is determined by the location of the pitch.

2. The hips must turn more when hitting an inside pitch.

3. The hips will turn less when hitting a pitch away.

4. The hips should not move before the hands and bat.

5. To free the hips, the back foot must spin, rotate or turn onto the toe.

6. The hips follow the barrel. The hips should open behind the barrel, not before it.

7. Premature front side or hip movement will cause a batter to pull the head and to pull of pitches.

8. The correct hip movement is a spin. Lunging or sliding the hips forward is not acceptable.

9. The hip movement should be a thrust or fast rotation. The faster the rotation of the hips, the faster the bats speed.

10. The degree of hip rotation can be taught by teaching the "Belly Button" rule as explained below.

The "Belly Button Rule" is explained as the following:

The Belly Button should follow the barrel of the bat through the baseball swing process. The location of a pitch determines hip turn. The degree of hip turn determines where the belly button is pointing when the batter finishes the baseball swing. The belly button should always finish in a position that points toward the direction in which the baseball was hit.

For example, when a ball is hit to the opposite field, the batters "Button" should point or be directed toward the opposite field when the swing is completed. If a batter pulls an inside pitch, the belly button should follow the ball and point toward the direction in which the ball was hit.

Coaching Point: For right and left handed batters, if the ball is hit through the box, up the middle, the belly button should "shine" or point toward second base when the swing is complete. For right handed batter, is a ball is pulled, the belly button should finish pointing toward third base. If a right handed batter hits the baseball down the right field line, the button should point toward first base when the swing is completed. If a left handed batter pulls the baseball, the hips should turn completely and the button should finish pointing at first base. If a left handed batter hits the ball to left field, the hips should turn less and the belly button should finish the swing pointing the 5-6 hole or between 3rd and 2nd base.

I hope that you found this article to be informative and helpful. Thanks for taking the time to read it. I wish you and your team good luck this season! Have a great day, Nick.

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Nick Dixon is the President and founder of Nedco Sports, a sports training company established in 1999. Dixon is also an active and full time high school baseball coach with over 25 years experience. Coach Dixon is better known as the inventor of the BatAction Hitting Machine, the SKLZ Derek Jeter Hurricane Hitting Machine, the SKLZ Target Trainer, the SKLZ Derek Jeter ZipnHit Pro, and the SKLZ Strikeback Trainer. Dixon is also a contributing writer for BaseballCoachingDigest, the Youth Baseball Digest, the Baseball Parent Guide, the Baseball 2Day Coaches Journal, and Blog4Coaches.

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Tips For Hitting In Youth Baseball

By Brian McClure

How did Babe Ruth, Micky Mantle Blast the Ball farther than Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa?

Batting drills can be fun, practice has to be done but in the long run hands, wrists, and forearms need to be strong to develop a quick swing and result in hitting the ball hard. This will not only help your child or team hit the ball harder with more control of the bat , but also prepare them for high school baseball. Here is a simple inexpensive way to do just that.

1) Tennis Ball - Have some tennis balls around the house and especially in your childsroom. While your youth baseball player is watching t.v. or waiting on his turn to play a video game he can be squeezing the tennis ball building the muscles on the hand , wrist , and forearms .

Sure you can buy exercise equipment for this but don't waste the money. This will provide enough resistance for what your child or team needs to develop.

(Bonus) Wrist roller - You can also take a rod (old broomstick handle will work) The rod needs to be 15 or 16 inches long with a hole drilled in the middle. Take some thin rope, run one end thruough the hole and tie a knot or two in it so it will not fall through. Leave a few inches past the rope for adjustments later. Take the other end and tie to a brick or weight. The rope should be long enough the weighted object rests on the ground but will lift when the youth baseball player rolls his wrists. The youth baseball player will hold the rod palms up and rolls his wrists. This mechanism is adjustable with the rope as the child grows
or you can tie on different weights.

2) Repetition - Simply put, It takes swings. Hitting off the tee, Soft Toss and some live batting practice. These three can be done at home or at off practice times to increase hitting performance. As a coach of youth baseball practice it would be great to set up one day just for hitting and have some volunteers help and move kids from stations. A tee station. A soft Toss station, a live free hitting station.

Coaches, be sure and tell your kids and parents about the tennis ball. Several will do it. And if you do a repetition station day and tell the parents this is what they can work on at home..many will do that. After all everyone loves to hit the ball, or at least see their son do it. This will be a great step toward the coaches team (or your child) hitting the ball.

For more free Free youth baseball tips & drills

Author- Brian McClure
More about helping your child in youth baseball as a parent or coach?
http://www.coaching-youth-baseball.com/

See our complete list of Topics and articles on youth baseball here
http://www.coaching-youth-baseball.com/topics.html

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7 Tips on How to Become a Better Baseball Player

7 Tips on How to Become a Better Baseball Player
By Jack D. Elliott

Baseball players everywhere want to know how they can get better. The best way to do this is to look at it your training from a comprehensive perspective. Here, are some pointers to help you up your game.

1. Read and Watch Everything Baseball. Scan books, look over hitting and pitching lessons videos, see games, ask for help from coaches and good players.

2. Practice makes perfect. Do your drills daily for at least 5 to 6 days a week. Feel free to mix up your routine; however, make sure you are developing muscle memory with enough reps of your swing and pitching motion.

3. Pick up something else when the season ends. To avoid burnout, choose another sport or physical exercise in the off-season. It is preferable to pick something you are not familiar with. This will allow you to stay fit and appease any creativity interests you have because of the novelty of the new sport. By the time the next baseball season rolls around, you will find yourself avidly looking forward to playing.

4. Strength Train Before It Is Too Late. Do not make the mistake of waiting to build strength until your junior and senior years of high school. Do yourself a favor and start working out in the summer after your 8th grade year and work out each summer thereafter. This will allow you to build a base, plateau, and then, build up to yet another plateau. In this way, by the time you are senior, you will be very physically strong and ready to have a great senior season.

5. Get Lessons. A great instructor will save you time, wasted energy, and ultimately give you better results. By learning from a great instructor from the start, you can develop the best techniques from the start and avoid bad habits. Once you learn the lessons, you can practice them and go back only occasionally when you feel a refresher course is needed.

6. Practice with a tee. The basic hitting tee has improve the swing and hitting consistency of many major league players. Learn from their example and use this tee to perfect your ability to hit to the opposite field and fine tune your swing. This along with some waffle ball toss are great for removing holes in your swing.

7. Maximize your speed and power. Plyometric exercises can help develop your speed and explosiveness. Learn from a trained instructor who can give you a regimen that you can practice several days a week. If practiced sufficiently, you will see your speed and power improve. This added boost will carry over into other parts of your game as you have a new found confidence in your baseball abilities.

All these pointers are geared towards making you a top flight athlete by your final year of high school. By using each of these pointers you can expect to maximize your potential for baseball success.

Jack Elliott, is a former player and fan of the game. To read more tips and techniques like the ones in this article, please click here: http://www.baseballtrainingtechniques.com/ or Baseball Strategy

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4 Suggestions About Private Baseball Lessons

4 Suggestions About Private Baseball Lessons
By Stan E Quin

Giving good baseball lessons are important for any coach, either you might be following the common workforce plans or are giving non-public pitching and hitting lessons. And as a player it's best to have high expectations in your baseball lessons.

In case you're the coach of a baseball team you may have a lot in your shoulders. Having youthful players to educate can actually be a whole lot of enjoyable but it surely is quite a bit different than when dealing with grownups. More than something this implies developing with efficient and specified drills in your baseball lessons. There are a number of drills particularly that must be included in your baseball lessons.

Having the gamers apply easy throw, catch and hit drills is without doubt one of the finest ideas. Give each pair a glove, bat and ball and have them practice throwing and hitting the ball again and forth. Have the group split up into pairs and provides every pair a ball, bat and glove. Another drill that works to enhance their steadiness and agility is to choose one player as a pitcher and have them throw solely a certain type of pitch on the players.

You can also arrange a drill in your baseball classes where one participant would throw only fastballs to the others. The fastball is one of the easiest pitches to strike out on, so this drill might be useful by instructing the players methods to successfully hit the ball when these pitches are thrown to them. It's also important to include baseball lessons which can be going to help the gamers with their response time. The aim of this drill in baseball lessons is to assist players develop their energy and agility.

The way it works is you modify the regular baseball with a heavier one, so that the players have to strike at the ball with more force. By utilizing a ball that is heavier than the traditional baseball, the participant will study to swing more durable and as soon as the common weight baseball is used their hit will go a lot farther. The coloured ball drill helps enhance focus of the gamers and for it you will need a number of different colors of balls. Once they apply with this for some time after which go to swing at a daily sized baseball, the distinction in how far they hit the ball might be amazing.

The hitter is just capable of take a swing on the ball if they see that it's in reality the colour that the pitcher shouted out to them. You need your group to work on these baseball classes regularly to ensure they're at all times making progress and bettering their skills. You wish to have your players working onerous and successful video games but in addition striving to be one of the best baseball player. The most important factor is taking the time to work with every participant and ensure that they're capitalizing on their skills.

There are numerous issues that you must discover out about relating to baseball lesson plans. Nevertheless when you understand these things nothing will earlier you again in relation to baseball hitting lessons.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Stan_E_Quin



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