From the previous post (linked above), here were the “rules”:

What to do:

• Use a weight appropriate for the strength-age-level of your player (65-75 oz. for high school, up to 100 oz. for stronger college players and pros)
• Avoid a high volume of swings.  5-10 is enough to get the right feel, then switch back to a regular weight bat
• Avoid trying to swing too hard.  Save that for your overload-underload swings.  Just get the feeling of the drill.
• Focus on hitting line drives up the middle and towards the oppo gap
• Remember this is just a drill and stick to the main principles of swing training for larger numbers of swings

Looking back, I still stick pretty closely to these rules.  But in the upcoming example, we’re actually hitting a baseball off of a tee with a full swing (note: the Bratt Bat is not designed to hit baseballs.  It’s better to use tennis or wiffle balls for higher volume or intensity of swings, as shown in our previous drill).

Now here is a comparison of a high school junior hitting off the tee with his regular bat (left side) and using a 75 ounce Bratt Bat (right side).  After he took several tee swings with his regular bat, all I did was give him the Bratt Bat and tell him to try and hit it up the middle (tee is placed right down the middle, a bit forward of where the stride foot lands).

regular tee swing vs 75 oz bratt bat tee swing

Here’s what happened:

1.  His load stayed more to the inside of his back leg.  This helps create a better angle on the back leg that helps the player move back into his actual hitting position more efficiently.

Better Load

2.  His hitting position is more “balanced” or “centered”.  Since the player hasn’t had so much sway back towards the catcher, he does not have as long of a distance to move back into his hitting position, and he isn’t off balance from having to reach too far forward with his stride foot while his upper body “hangs back”.  Basically, he is able to move to a better hitting position due to what happened during his load.

Better Hitting Position

3. He unloads the bat (the actual swing) more efficiently.  What you see in the load and hitting position create a base that allows the rotation to deliver the hands and bat on a better swing path that is more direct to the ball.  Not to mention more powerful…

Better Contact Position

What is interesting here is that this player actually stays “inside” the ball better (or releases the bat head later) with a bat that is two and a half times the weight of his regular bat.  The bat image is blurred but you can still see the angle of the bat at contact and how it affects the direction of the ball – in this case, the ball on the left is slightly pulled, whereas the ball on the right is hit up the middle.

If you recall another post I made about warming up with weighted bats, I suggested that the swings with the weighted donut, when used correctly, could actually improve your swing, rather than hurt is as implied by the Sports Science video.  Why is that?

I wish I could remember where exactly I heard this, but it was a few years ago and I didn’t write it down, I just never forgot the saying that…

heavier weight exposes inefficieny

This was said in reference to lifting weights, but it also applies to the baseball swing.  If you cast the bat, come “around” the ball, drag the bat…..all of those things are going to be magnified when you add weight to the bat, especially the barrel.  While finding a lighter bat might be the quick fix in some cases, reducing the weight will not require that you use and sequence your larger/stronger muscles more efficiently like a heavier bat will.

What is typical for the first few swings with a weighted bat is that the ball gets pulled on the ground (coming “around” the ball) or missed altogether.  But as players learn to move effectively and transfer energy to the bat more efficiently, they learn how to swing a heavier bat under control (as opposed to having the bat swing them, as some might say).

The feedback of the Bratt Bat drill, as shown in BOTH examples above, is such that if you can hit a solid line drive up the middle or towards the opposite field gap (now staying “inside” the ball), you are creating a better, more efficient sequence of your swing.  Once you get the FEEL from the drill, it will be easier to recreate the movement when you switch back to your regular bat.

The Bratt Bat

The good stuff starts around the 13:10 mark…

the Happy Gilmore drill

Harrington talks about turn/twist/rotate through to impact, which is a concept or explanation that sometimes gets a bad rap in baseball because of players’ tendency to drag the bat or spin on the back foot when focusing on rotation.  The baseball swing has a quickness component that doesn’t exist in golf, but even in golf it is possible to drag/cast the club.  Golfers, however, typically try to maintain a “hinge” angle or prevent the club from casting too soon in order to save up all the rotational energy and release at the last possible moment upon contact.  This way they can create a lot of power through their rotation AND be in position to transfer it to the club right before contact…..this can’t happen in baseball or golf if you’re dragging the club/bat.

And of course, there is the Happy Gilmore drill (hard to spin on the back foot doing this one!) where Harrington talks about taking a step as in a baseball swing, and how he uses it to create EXTRA power.  This would typically be seen in baseball in a common drill called the walk-up drill.  Remember, the idea is to take the lateral momentum and then use it to ADD to what Harrington described as turning/twisting/rotating into contact.  The big lateral shift is relatively worthless (think sliding or lunging) if it’s not converted into rotation.

Here’s a little more from Sports Science:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Here’s a look at El Nino’s swing in several different slow motion views…

click for videos

This first one starts in regular speed and slows to 120 frames per second (fps).  The pitch is a fastball that he hits off the right field wall for a triple:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

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Clip #2 is a higher speed of 240 fps and shows Hanley making an adjustment to an off-speed pitch and still hitting a line drive double to left field.  Ramirez  is able to delay the unloading of his upper body – can you see the hesitation after his foot lands?

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

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Lastly, this super slo-mo shot shows what an incredible pre-swing move Hanley has.  This type of body control during the load is really special:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

I’m planning on adding more video content in the future so don’t forget to visit and subscribe to our YouTube Channel.

In this video, Bautista talks about how he changed his hitting mechanics, and his explanation is fairly simple.  He started his swing earlier so he wasn’t late so often.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

For a more complete picture, check out this article about Jose Baustista’s transformation.  One of the things I found most interesting was the insight into Baustista’s mindset:

In his free time, Bautista reads books on exceptionality. “I’m trying to understand why mediocre people become good at what they do,” he says, “and why good people become the best.” So he mixes other players’ post-career musings on success with real mental protein.

A few things that I really like:

1.  The way he moves against his back leg

2.  The position of his upper body

3.  How his bat gets on and stays in a really great swing path

It’s not easy to have a short swing and create bat speed at the same time, but this is a pretty good example of what it looks like.

…that stride grew longer and drifted toward the plate, which caused Jeter to lean over. It altered Jeter’s bat path, and his timing suffered.

Derek Jeter 2006

The idea of reducing the stride is typically an effort to maintain a good hitting position and allow the player’s swing and timing to work more consistently.  I’ve been to a number of high school and college games this week and noticed several times as hitters switch drastically to a no-stride approach when they get two-strikes.  What I mean by drastic is that it is like a completely different swing.  One of the more traditional thoughts regarding two-strikes is to widen the stance and choke-up on the bat in order to reduce movement in the swing, but is this always a good thing?  Well, it depends…

With any good hitter, there is a certain sequence to the swing (as in kinetic link/chain) that not only provides power and efficiency, but also provides for the rhythm and timing necessary to make adjustments to different pitch types and locations.  A player who has a sound fundamental basis of movement can make many different pre-swing actions and maintain virtually the same swing.  For example, Barry Bonds used a toe-tap and Albert Pujols just lifts his heel off the ground in games, but I’ve seen them use a high leg-kick to load their swings and still look the same from their hitting position through their finish.

In other words, no-stride, toe-taps and high-leg kicks are just different ways of loading that should help a hitter get to a good hitting position with consistency.  So either adding motion to the swing via a longer stride or a leg-kick, or cutting motion from the swing as a no-stride approach could be good ideas depending on the hitter.

The idea of cutting down pre-swing motion with two-strikes is fine, as long as it doesn’t interrupt or negatively alter the timing of the hitter – that’s the exact opposite of the intention!  This is where it is important to be able to apply these concepts on an individual basis.  Here are some examples:

• Added motion to stride via leg-kick – David Wright in 2007

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• Reduced stride length via wider stance – Andruw Jones in 2005

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One of the things I’d like to point out is that these videos show examples of what I would consider to be big or significant changes.  The swings of each player, however, still follow a certain pattern of having a load, a shift/move to a good hitting position, rotation, short path to the ball and finishing through a good swing plane.  In other words, it is still the swing of that player, not drastic as I described at the beginning.

Specifically, with no-stride hitting, notice that a good swing sequence still exists.  Re-check the left side of the David Wright clip above (2006 version) and you can see that there is no actual stride (stride foot does not come off the ground), but there is still a loading/shifting/unloading of the hips.  Albert Pujols is probably the most recognizable hitter today that uses a similar approach.  And if you’re thinking that only big strong giants can pull this off, there are smaller guys out there that have minimal pre-swing movement (ie Chone Figgins).  Outside of baseball, golf is a great example of maintaining solid loading and shifting action in the lower half without using a stride, although I have seen clips of professional golfers doing “Happy Gilmore” impressions where they run up and crush the ball off the tee.

What I’ve found to be a big misconception with no-stride hitting or hitting with more movement is just that either way is done to the extreme.  No-stride, for example, is depicted as going from a dead stop, and having a leg-kick or weight shift is shown as being out of control or lunging.  Neither representation is true, it’s just that some players have difficulty with one approach or the other.  Either way, regardless of the style of pre-swing movement, the loading and unloading pattern through the hips remains the same, and is really the key element in all of this.  The coaching aspect comes in here and requires a bit of trial and error to see which approach bests fits each individual player.

The Front Toss Drill

As I’ve stated before, I always enjoy listening to other coaches, especially those with such a great amount of experience, because I learn things regardless of how much I agree or disagree.  One of the main points from this video that I like is the emphasis of direction in a straight line back to the pitcher.  It seems like a minor detail, but that’s why it often gets overlooked and leads to problems.  Tee work and front toss (the soft toss show in the video) are simple drills to work on this, and are probably the most common things you’d see if you hang around the batting cage at any pro ballpark.

The convention is sponsored in part by International Sports Group, and I was invited to speak by ISG team leader and fellow presenter, Tom O’Connell.  Each year, ISG helps organize and carry out a full roster of international conferences, and going on the trip was a great experience.

I made 4 presentations in total:

1. Major League Swing Analysis
2. Video Analysis “How-to” and Demonstration
3. Movement and Mechanics
4. Practical Bat Speed Application

There I am on the left during introductions

In the first presentation I basically just went through all types of clips of Major League hitters that I’ve accumulated and shared my thoughts, opinions and experience on different aspects of the swing – rotation, swing path, weight shift, balance, staying inside the ball, role of the hands – you name it.  I was also able to show how players make adjustments in different parts of the strike zone as well as how they make adjustments to off-speed pitches.

With the second presentation, I did a walk through of how I use my video software.  This is where the deal with Sports Motion came about.  I had shown so many ways to use the software that I started getting a bunch of questions about where to buy it!  I covered how to capture, trim, edit, compare side by side, use time-lines…..all the geeky stuff.

talking about rotation

The idea behind the movement & mechanics talk was to talk about muscle activity in each segment of the swing.  So I used some EMG research from baseball and golf to show muscle activity during the timeline of the swing and related movements and exercises that were similar to these patterns.  A lot of times I’ll do this to make a point to a player about a move I want them to make in their swing – often they can do the movement during a warm-up or exercise, and when they think of it in that context they can attempt to carry over that “feel” to their actual swing.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, was my talk about practical bat speed application.  I had to start it out with a brief review of the studies that had been done on overload, underload and weighted implements, what protocols have been successful, what ranges of weights to use, and different ways to create heavy/light weighted implements. Then I got into what I’ve experienced as the best ways to apply the information (all things I continue to update on this site!).

I'm on the right for a round-table discussion

The icing on the cake was taking a few more days to travel to Salzburg, Austria and Munich, Germany.  We had never been to Europe so this was a nice way to get to see some different parts of the area.  Salzburg was my favorite:

Atop the Salzburg fortress, overlooking the Alps

We mainly did some video review and worked on mechanics as I tried to give him the information I thought he needed to put things together and make the most of his talent.  I received this text message at the end of this May:

This is P***** P***** from **U. Just played my last game and wanted to thank you for working with me.  You turned my career around.  This year I hit .365 with 11 HR and 51 RBI.  Thanks.

For more success stories, check the Results page.

I had loosely kept in touch with this player of the past couple of years and I knew he was doing better, but it was nice to receive such a positive message, and nicer to know the he thought so much of the work we did together.  As I mentioned in my post about softball training, these are the types of players who make a coach/instructor look good because they take a few pieces of information and apply them well.  Check out his stats after the summer of 2006 (age 20):

Here is a look at a couple video comparisons we used to illustrate some differences in hitting mechanics…

See the Resources page for more on Sports Motion video software

A quick step one was checking out the swing path:

swing plane comparison

In addition to showing some differences in swing plane, I wanted him to see that he could get “inside the ball” better because his initial move was “around” the ball (like “coming over the top” in golf):

outside vs inside

With this last comparison, we looked at a couple of things.  First, making a better pre-swing move into the ball (ie weight shift) to generate a little momentum and allow for some more time to see the ball.  Second, get the wrists cocked and maintain that angle (ie don’t cast the bat) as rotation begins and the beginning/unloading of the swing is actually launched.

side shot comparison

Big hat tip and congratulations for lots of hard work and a job well done!