What's up guys?
Coach Madden, official trainer, YouGoProBaseball.com and today we've got 3 things that you should
never do when hitting or 3 things that your coaches, I hear a lot of coaches say, that
are not true.
I've got Coach Nick Shaw here.
He played with the Brewers organization last year.
He was a lead off hitter, a great hitter.
He also runs a travel team, the St. Pete Stingers, and they're starting an 11u team this year
so if you're an 11u player in the St. Pete area or surrounding area, please check him
out at thebattersbox.co on Instagram or his website thebattersbox.co.
Now, at the youth level, I understand that a lot of you coaches are volunteers and maybe
haven't played that much baseball or have gone that far or are that knowledgable, you're
just helping out and are doing what you can and we appreciate that and we appreciate all
the help and support that you bring to this sport, but these 3 things, if you're doing
them, please stop, because they're not right.
The first thing that I always see is squish the bug.
Coaches say squish the bug, turn the hips, squish the bug, hips, hips, hips, turn the
hips.
What do you think about that?
How does it really work and what are you supposed to being doing?
So, they're telling them to squish the bug, which then opens this hip up, opens the shoulder
up, and everything flies this way.
Instead of staying inside the ball and trying to drive everything to the middle of the field.
Like I referenced earlier Bryce Harper and Mike Trout, if you watch them in videos, great
hitters, they're coming through like this on the toe, Bryce Harper is in the air, Mike
Trout is dragging the the back foot.
So please drive this back leg with your hands, instead of rotating around the ball.
The second thing that I always hear too is coaches saying swing down on that ball or
even have a level swing.
How actually should the swing be?
So the whole swinging down thing I believe is what they thought when they were talking
about the knob starts down to the ball and then the bat comes, however they translate
it different and actually think that kids should actually be swinging down or otherwise
swinging up or whatever they're teaching.
It should be behind the baseball, behind the baseball as long as you can.
It's not going to be a completely level swing because the ball isn't coming at a completely
level plane.
So we should be behind the ball and in the path of the ball as long as we can.
That's a great one and the 3rd thing that I always hear is get your elbow up.
Get that elbow up, get that elbow up little Johnny, get that elbow up.
But how does this really work?
So the elbow up thing is very common in little league as you said.
The first thing that happens is again, the bat starts to drop and we're tight as you
can see we come around the ball.
The first action for your back elbow is to get into the slot here so the further we get
cranked up here the further we have to go to get in the slot and you see what happens
to the barrel of the bat when we do.
So keep it tight here, right into the slot.
I don't know about you but I see a lot of big league guys but when they are up there
they kind of bring those elbows together almost like when they're getting ready kind of staying
nice and tight.
You do see a lot of guys getting up there pretty high but you can see when they get
that load and the elbow comes back, they're still a lot tighter and not up and back this
way.
Those are great points there.
I really appreciate it.
Again, if you're an 11u player in the St. Pete area you want to check out the Stingers.
Coach Nick is going to be coaching this year and don't forget to go check out his website
thebattersbox.co also his instagram @thebattersbox.co he's got some great stuff over there and if
you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button, click my logo right here, then click
the subscribe button.
Go check out my most recent video over here.
Leave Coach Nick and I a comment below and let us know which of these 3 things you've
heard before, which ones you do or don't do, and name some other ones.
I know there's some other ones put them down there I want to hear them.
We'll talk to you guys down there.
Thanks