Youth Baseball Digest - Free Baseball Batting Drill - Batting Tee Curve Ball Hitting Drill

Youth Baseball Digest - Free Baseball Batting Drill - Batting Tee Curve Ball Hitting Drill
By guest author: Nick Dixon

Many coaches use the batting tee to practice proper baseball swing mechanics. The batting tee is a great batter training tool. It offers batting practice repetition and is easy to use. Most coaches use it in drills to practice hitting the low, medium, and high fast ball locations. The batting tee can also be used to practice hitting a curve ball. One of the most difficult pitches to learn to hit is the curve ball on the outer edge of the plate. This article explains how the tee can be used to teach young players the proper mechanics and timing to hit that type curve ball. Curve Ball Batting Tee Drill

Many coaches would say that the batting tee is not a useful tool in teaching a player to hit a curve ball. That is untrue. By placing at the optimum contact point for a curve ball, the batter is allowed batting practice repetition at attacking the curve ball with proper timing and baseball swing mechanics. The batting tee should be placed as shown below. The "8's" represent a right handed batter's feet. The "x" marks the spot where the tee is located. This is the proper spot for a batter to attack the off speed curve ball on the other portion of the plate.

................X

8------------8

The tee is placed even with the instep of the back foot. The tee is placed on the outer edge of the plate. The batter will practice hitting the curve ball to the opposite field. This allows the batter to get the proper feel of hitting the off speed pitch. Placing the target ball at this spot teaches the hitter to keep the hands back, to let the ball get deep, and to drive the ball to the opposite field.

I hope that you found this article to be useful and informative. Thanks for taking the time to read it. For more article like it visit the Youth Baseball Digest, Baseball Coaching Digest, Little League Digest or Baseball Parent Guide. Good luck to you and your team. 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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Youth Baseball Drills - Start the Kids on the Road to Success Early

Youth Baseball Drills - Start the Kids on the Road to Success Early
By guest author: KC Andrus

Why Youth Baseball Drills?
Ahh, the joys of youth baseball. What a wonderful sight to behold, the children out there giving it there all, wearing their emotions on their sleeves and the parents in the stands biting their fingernails, overcome with nervousness. The sights and sounds of a little league game are one of the fondest memories of many children's childhoods and also becomes ingrained in the minds of their parents. Whether you are a parent, coach or player, however, it takes steady practice doing the RIGHT youth baseball drills to make your team a winner.

What Youth Baseball Drills are Effective?
Everyone knows that the most glamorous asset for a baseball player's inventory is his hitting skills, it is also his most valuable. So here are some common problems facing young hitters and some drills to help you improve.

Keep Your Eye on the Ball!
It's the first thing you learn as a baseball player and one of the most important. A good drill to improve this is to have someone stand on a mound and throw a ball and have the player track the ball all the way into the catcher's glove. Very simple and effective.

Hit Line Drives
If you're popping the ball up a lot or hitting way too many choppers, it is always one of two things: your timing is off or your swing is off and your bat path isn't straight to the ball. A good drill to make sure your bat path takes you straight to the ball is to practice hitting sharp line drives off of a tee.

My Timing Is Off
If you're struggling with timing and rhythm within your swing one of the best drills you can do to correct that problem would be soft toss. Have someone kneel on one knee out to the side and softly toss the ball up to you while you focus on timing and hitting the ball up the middle squarely.

What Other Measures Should I Take?

There are various other resources that can help you come up with Youth Baseball Drills and provide fantastic coaching tips. In order to get the best information, you have to sift through all of the misinformation on the internet. This is where I found the best information for me, it provides solid tips and even lets you in on some secrets to maximize hitting potential:

Youth Baseball Drills

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

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• Articles from the Youth Softball Coaching Clinic Blog
• Articles from the Coaching Fastpitch Softball Pitchers Blog
• Articles from the Coaching Fastpitch Softball Hitters Blog
• Articles from the Tips for Fastpitch Softball Coaches Blog
• The Fastpitch Softball Training Equipment Blog

Are You a Heavy Hitter?

Are You a Heavy Hitter?
By guest author: Chip Lemin

Hitting is the Spice of Life in Baseball

There are plenty of theories on how to hit a baseball. Let's start with some real live facts. Home plate is 17 inches wide. Batter's box it is 4 ft. wide and 6 ft. long. The catcher's box is 8 ft. from tip of home plate. So as you can see, you do have room to move closer to pitcher, or farther from pitcher.

When there is a pitcher who has an overpowering fastball, batters should move toward the back of the batter's box. When we face a pitcher who is throwing slower than normal, we may want to move up in batter's box.

In youth baseball, especially younger ages, a common mistake is being too far away from the plate. Younger player's bats are too short to cover entire plate unless they stand close to the plate. Crowding the plate will help the player to reach the outside corner of the plate. It will also help teach the player to react quickly inside pitches and pull them.

Young players should use bats that are light enough to generate good bat speed. Make sure your players use the right length bat also. A bat that is too long will also slow down bat speed. A good way to check if the bat weight is right for the player is to hold out your weaker arm at shoulder height while holding the bat near the knob. If you can't hold the bat without struggling, then the bat is too heavy for the player.

The length of the bat should be no more than three to 8 in. longer than the number of ounces it weighs. Players 8 years old should use bats that weigh anywhere from 15 to 21 ounces. Players who are 9 to 12 years old will swing bats that weigh around 21 to 25 ounces.

Every player should know how to get out of the way of a pitch. That should be one of the first things you show a young player to do. We recommend a complete drop down to the ground, just dropping the bat, as you sprawl to the ground. We will have video links to this technique.

Players should hold bat loosely, so that they don't restrict wrist movement during the swing. The player's middle knuckles on both hands should be lined up on the bat. That is where they will end up after the swing anyway, so you might as well put them there to begin with.

We feel that you should have your players hold their hands up high while in their stance. This will help them to keep from holding their hands too close to their body. Having your hands too close to your body restricts your ability to throw your bottom hand at the baseball quickly.

Your players or their parents should clean their bats once in awhile and look for any damage to the bat. The bats should be cleaned occasionally including the grip. Just use some cleaning spray on the handle to bring back a nice sticky grip. Also wipe the barrel and check for damage.

These bats sometimes cost up to $300 or more, so let's take care of them. When using a hitting stick with a coach, use an old bat, to prevent damage to your game bat. When hitting at the batting cages, don't use your game bat, because the cage balls can damage your bat. When the temperature is below 50 degrees don't use your game bat unless there is a real a game being played.

Put your name or some identifying mark on your bat somewhere where it will not come off, like just above the grip. There are barrel covers available to use during batting practice to help protect your game bat.

Hitting is probably the favorite part baseball for most players, although it is arguably the most difficult. There is nothing like hitting solid line drives, or bombing a pitch over the outfielders head. Even little kids at T ball games love hitting the baseball.

There are many types of approaches to hitting. We hear of linear, rotational, or a combination of both. Or you can just plain attack the baseball. Good consistent hitters all share some similar traits. They may not show or arrive at these points at the same time in their swings. Our course doesn't endorse nor oppose any of these approaches. We will stress good simple methods you can use to help develop good hitters.

In our course, we will share what we believe to be some solid pointers on hitting. Hitting is hitting. Some old sayings are true, see ball hit ball, drive the ball, hit the middle of the ball, stay back on ball, are only a few of them. Good hitters have a plan, for example, try to hit only strikes, look for a certain pitch early in the count, or try to get into a hitters count.

Most good hitters have good balance. They keep themselves under control during their swing. You will not see them lose control during a swing. Usually they hold the bat fairly loosely, not in a death grip, with middle knuckles lined up. They often swing only at good pitches.

Every player will have their own style in their stance. This course will address some of the basics of hitting. It will not attempt to change any player's stance or swing. That is the job of the youth baseball coach, or parents after reviewing our course. Professional instruction is always a solid option.

Our hitting drills will help you to develop basic hitting fundamentals. The main objective is to make it fun to learn. That is why we encourage a positive mindset when running these drills. There are many other hitting drills out there for you to use. We are introducing you to the ones that been successful in the past. By purchasing this course you will have access to more instruction in all areas of youth baseball as part of our website.[http://www.youthbaseballonline.com]. If you so choose, we will give you updates and instruction information as part of our newsletter which we hope you enjoy.

ATTENTION: Please always wear helmets when conducting any kind of hitting. Please train your hitters to always be aware of hit or thrown balls while on deck waiting to hit.

Hello My name is Chip Lemin. I'm a long time youth baseball coach who loves to promote this great game of youth baseball. Promoting sportsmanship in this game of youth baseball is something that is greatly needed. I have a free e-course that will give you some solid coaching information along with great help on the inter-personal relationships we must have to be good youth baseball coaches. Things such as parents, travel baseball, getting parents to help out, how to communicate better to parents and players, just to touch on a few. This course will help to organize practices like an elite coach. How to motivate players and other coaches with your positive attitude. It really is not very hard to be a great coach when you know what to do.Best of all you will learn how to have fun with these great kids that you have the privilege of coaching. Do yourself a favor and check it out, it's free,you will get 1 part every couple of days in your e-mail. Coaching can be fun and rewarding if you have a plan in place first, and you have an idea what you are doing. http://www.baseballecourse.com

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

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