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.

The Coaches Best Baseball Store has a great selection of 1400 Baseball Products. Check out the BatAction Hitting Machine baseball pitching simulator. This high speed training machine is 100% Guaranteed to raise Batting Averages and has a full year warranty.

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.

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

========================
Thanks to our sponsors:

Baseball2u.com/CoachesBest.com is the ultimate online baseball training and coaching store. With over 1400 products organized into categories Baseball2u.com makes finding that baseball training product easy and simple. Order securely online or by phone. Baseball2u.com is a fully licensed company and has a full time staff available from 8:00 to 5:00 CST. Their toll free customer service number is 1-877-431-4487.

The Categories they have are: BatAction Hitting Machines, Hurricane Hitting Machines, Batting Cages, Pitching Machines, Jugs Equipment, Game and Practice Baseballs, Protective Practice Screens and Nets, Portable Pitching Mounds, Baseball DVDs & Books, Clearance Items on Sales, NEDCO Bataction Replacement Parts, Baseball Training Equipment, Youth Baseball Training Equipment, Training Bats, Pitching & Throwing Trainers, Defensive Trainers, SKLZ Hurricane Replacement Parts and Much Much More! Visit Baseball2U.com today!

Little League Tips: Backyard Baseball Drills (video trailer)

Little League Tips: Backyard Baseball Drills (video trailer)
Posted on YouTube by VideosForCoaches

This is the trailer for the popular Little League tip video:

BACKYARD BASEBALL DRILLS

------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to Our Sponsor: Nedco Sports - BatAction Hitting Machines
www.BatAction.com


---BatAction Machine at CoachesBest.com
---BatActionMachine on Ebay.com
---BatAction Machine Video Clips
---BatAction Trainer - 15 Reasons Why You Must Own This Machine
---Message to Parents From Coach Nick
---If you are looking for BatAction Replacement Balls or Power Bands Click Here
BatAction Demo Videos on Youtube

Baseball Drills for Youth Teams

BatAction Hitting Machines - The World's #1 Hitting Machine

By Kenny Buford

Baseball is a game of skill and power that is unlike any other game today. Baseball has subtly to it that is often lost in other team sports such as basketball and football. So when people come together to play this game they need to be ready for any eventuality no matter how unlikely it maybe. That is why baseball drills are so important. Practicing these different scenarios keeps players from being unprepared for what may happen during a game which is very important. Here are a few drills that teach players both the fundamentals and some of the more important drills that can help teams with their weaknesses.

A good drill for all around practice is ironically called the "All Around" drill. This is an excellent baseball drill to teach kids to stop the ball and how to throw in and out of field. It starts with lining up players in groups of three to four at first base, right field, and third base. Each group has a different job, the first base players try to run from first base to third without being tagged and then must slide into third base. As the player runs a coach throws a ball to the right field players. This gives them an opportunity to practice stopping the ball. Then the right fielder throws the ball low to the third base players. The third base players then need to and tag the player that ran. It's a slightly complicated drill but a good one for those that want to make sure that players are familiar with the basics of field play.

Another good drill is called "The Fence" drill. This is another excellent baseball hitting drill. This drill calls for a player to be standing behind some sort of solid wall; it can be made of chain link, cement, or even brink. The important thing is that the player can tell the difference between when they have touched the wall and when they have not. Have the player make their normal stance and stand about a 1-1 ½ feet in front of the wall. Then have the player practice their hitting style, if they continually hit the wall that means that they must tighten their stance. This will in turn help them with a quicker bat swing. Just remind your players that this drill is not about power but precision that way they won't hurt themselves or the bat when they swing to far back and hit the wall.

Finally, a good creative drill to keep players practicing at home has many names but one can either be called rooftop ball or error depending on what players have heard it called. This is a simple drill that does a good job of practicing both fielding, throwing, and stopping the ball. At home, a player throws a ball down their slanted roof and tries to catch it after it rolls down. There is more than a slight chance of a "gutter ball" but it still does a great job of helping players at home practice in a creative way.

These different baseball drills will help players become much better rounded and in turn that will lead to better games. Baseball is a subtle art but much like an artist if a player has experience behind them it is more likely that they will be successful.

Kenny Buford is a baseball coach with over 20 years of experience. You can find more of his baseball drills on his blog:

http://www.baseball-tutorials.com/

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

Our Sponsor:



---BatAction Machine at CoachesBest.com
---BatActionMachine on Ebay.com
---BatAction Machine Video Clips
---BatAction Trainer - 15 Reasons Why You Must Own This Machine
---Message to Parents From Coach Nick
---If you are looking for BatAction Replacement Balls or Power Bands Click Here

Baseball & Softball Swing - Confidence Vs Mechanics

By Todd Thomas

I was at a high school level ball game recently. Of the two teams playing, one was filled with a group of very cocky players. They were cocky and CONFIDENT. What's interesting is that the players on this team had some of the worst baseball swings I have ever seen in my life. But they were confident as all get out.

It's an interesting phenomenon to observe that a player can have horrible mechanics but have supreme confidence(cockiness is a good word to describe here) and still be able to hit the baseball successfully. Alex Rodriquez successfully? NO! No, as I watched the game none of these players really scorched the baseball but they did swing confidently at it and put the ball in play often finding holes and blooping hits all the way to a 14 to 2 win.

These players' potential to play at higher levels is limited with bad mechanics. Ultimately, they will reach an end to their success(and subsequently their confidence) as they move to higher and higher levels of baseball. These were high school players. Obviously, they are going to have some success at the high school level. Reaching the collegiate level is probably out for most of them because of their technique, but one or two of them may reach that level. Then that's probably it. I once had a collegiate player over for some training and his mechanics were awful, but he was playing Division I baseball. Why? More than likely he was extremely confident up until this point but now was crashing and burning at the collegiate level. He also had a load of natural ability that had carried him this far too. However, he had reached his peak and I remember telling him that if he has sights on playing professionally he needed to change what he was doing mechanically. And he did have the desire to play pro ball.

However, even if a player works on and gets mechanically sound, I believe that any player(no matter what age) will struggle if they don't learn how to be confident. If they are not confident and their new mechanics aren't "working" for them, then they will blame the mechanics or the teacher or both and will keep searching for that "perfect" way to swing to insure success. When what they really need is confidence training in order to raise the game and to be successful.

So is learning the proper mechanics the "answer" to being a good hitter? I teach the mechanics of the best players in the game and I am supremely confident in what I teach. Let's say however that I took a player from the team of confident hitters with bad mechanics and we started working on fixing his mechanics. IF he is able to sustain his confidence, look out. He should excel in a big way.

What if though(and this probably goes higher the younger the player is) the player starts "thinking too much" about executing the proper swing mechanics? What if he starts over-analyzing his swing and trying to hard to make things happen with his new swing? Questions and doubt may start building within him after a bad(weak) hit or a strike out. He then starts asking himself, "Am I doing it right?" "Am I performing my mechanics correctly?" If the results are not there, then the player will assume that he is not swinging "correctly" and there begins the process of over-thinking, over-analyzing, and confidence shrinking. And I believe the downward spiral of his hitting results and confidence will continue to fall.

What's interesting as I think about the team of cocky confident hitters is that I don't think they realize that they suck. Their mechanics that is. They seem to have no idea how "bad" they are and they play as if not to care. They are just confident. On the contrary, they are pretty good because they THINK they are in spite of what they don't know.

So which is more important? Confidence or mechanics? It seems from my observations that confidence with bad mechanics can still have a degree (albeit limited) of success. YET, good mechanics with zero confidence and playing scared seems to have no chance to succeed.

Hmmm?

Todd Thomas is a Baseball Coach and Professional Hitting Instructor for Mike Epstein Hitting. Coach Todd's personal hitting website is http://www.HitItHere.net. Coach Todd also enthusiastically endorses http://PlayMyBestBaseball.com as a place where baseball and softball hitters can master the Confidence, Composure, Focus and Consistency of their game so they can reach their full potential.

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

BatAction Demo Videos on Youtube