As a coach, I spend alot of time showing my players the importance of building their swing from the ground up. And while the lower
body and torso are the most important parts of building a good swing, that doesn’t mean we should completely neglect the upper body. Learning how to transfer the power from your lower body up top, as well as how to keep a strong, compact upper body, is incredibly important, and today, we’ll take a look at just how to do that.
Shoulder
Keeping a low shoulder is one of the first things I show my batters. Raising the shoulder is instinctual for some players, as if to protect them from the ball, but it leads to high tension in the torso and back, throws the batter off-balance, and makes
it much tougher to keep both eyes on the baseball – something I believe is absolutely necessary if you want to bat at high percentage.
Elbow
While a certain amount of elbow movement is to be expected, flaring out the elbows
creates stress on the joint, not to mention making your stance incredibly weak. Next time a player flares their elbows up high, to demonstrate just how weak they’re making their stance, have them stand in front of you, with their hands clasped together as if they were holding a bat, and their elbows flared out to the side. Now push down on their hands with just one hand, and you’ll see how easily you can push
their hand down below their stomach.
Next, have them get into a proper stance, with their elbows well below their hands and closer into their body, and push down. In this stance, even pulling down with both hands, you’ll have a hard time moving their hands away from their body. This is a great lesson for them to learn, as they can see and feel the difference in strength between the two stances.
Hands
The players have some freedom with where they choose to leave their hands, but it’s not that big a range. Generally I believe that the batter should have their hands at just about where their heart would be if it was on the right side of our chest – just behind the sternum, but not so far back as the armpit either.
Developing a great batting stance is a long process, but we’ve got an array of hitting drills that are sure to keep you occupied out on the diamond! And if you’re looking for more baseball drills, tips, and coaching strategies, make sure check ‘Like’ our Facebook page, where you can find new updates on a day to day basis!