Hand Position at Contact PLUS 2 Hitting Drills!
Often times hitters get their hands in the wrong position at contact, which will produce mmore ground balls and pop-ups than you want. You want to get your players to a point where they automatically go “palm up/palm down”. If the hands are in the proper position at contact, you can create more line drives, a higher batter average and greater team success. In today’s blog post, we are talking more about the importance of hand position at contact and how to quickly spot issues caused by hand position. We’ve also got 2 excellent hitting drills that you will want to incorporate into your practice plan today!
What Do I Mean By “Hand Position At Contact?
What I mean by this is, at contact, when the hitter is ready to swing, one palm should be up to the sky and one palm should be down to the ground. You can also imagine a push/pull situation.
Often times, your hitters will have a tendency to have their palms in more of a diagonal direction, or they bring the top hand over the top too soon.
If your hitter is not in a palm up/palm down or push/pull position, the level of the bat will turn diagonally and this will often lead to a bad swing, uppercutting, and dropping the barrel below the hands – all because of the position of the hands at contact.
Alternately, if you get too much of a top hand swing over the top, you will end up with more of a “tomahawk” swing.
2 great drills that can help your hitters become more automatic in positioning their hands at contact, are a “Tee Challenge” and “Soft Toss Challenge” hitting drills.
The Tee Challenge
In the Tee Challenge, players work on hitting the ball off the tee, to a certain location. With the proper palm up/palm down technique, you should see a line drive directly to his destination. (you can also use this drill to pinpoint other hitting mechanic errors in your hitters)
The Soft Toss Challenge
The Soft Toss Challenge purpose is again, to hit the ball in the right direction. The player must position his hands properly in order to see success in this drill.
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