With the ball flying in at them, often times batters can be too focused on trying to do everything right, making their batting motion to
robotic, or perhaps even out of sync. Now alot of coaches would say that if a player is struggling to hit the ball right, they should just keep practicing on hitting the ball, but I just disagree on which.
Instead of continuing to try to get contact on a pitch when a batter is clearly low on confidence or out of rhythm, I have two tee-ball drills that in my experience have worked miracles.
Tee Ball Sequence Drill
This is a fairly simple drill. If your players swing is out of sequence, there are a couple of baseball hitting drills you’ll want to put them through first. Once they understand the idea – don’t put them in front of a live pitch. Instead of working on getting comfortable with what you’ve just taught them, they will focus on just getting their bat on the ball, and revert back to the swing they are comfortable with.
To help players gain comfort and confidence with their swing, I put them through the tee ball sequence drill. But don’t let players just walkup to the ball and smack it as hard as they can. The goal here is to simulate an entire at-bat. The stare down, the wind up, the pitch, and then the contact. The player should visualize a pitcher out there, and go through their hitting sequence as if it were a real at-bat, focusing on the fundamentals you’ve just reminded them of.
Reverse Sequence Tee Ball Drill
This is a great drill for getting their rhythm going once they feel comfortable. Since just standing in front of a tee-ball can feel awkward and stagnant, I have my players start as if they were making contact, halfway through their swing with their bat up against the ball. Now they will go through the reverse sequence stacking up from the lower body to the top, and then swing back through as soon as they’ve got their bat back to their normal start position.
This gives it an element of rhythm and timing that may not be present with just a normal swing.
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