What's going on guys, Coach Madden, YouGoProBaseball.com
I'm here with Doug Bernier from Pro Baseball Insider, former major-leaguer
and he's going to talk about today a couple of his favorite hitting drills,
hitting drills you used to do to work on your swing yeah to be a big league
hitter did you do these drills in the big leagues uh yeah I did okay what do
you got okay well I actually have three for you today the first one is I like to
start my day just getting loose and getting my hands going getting my hands
active I talked about this before I had a problem when I kind of started to
compete when I got in the box and I when I tried to grind a little bit more at
the plate I got really stiff so I'd get in the box on man I'd really just hold
on to that bat tight from my upper body you know in my upper half I would get
really tense and really tight grip my teeth you know as a hitter you can't be
like that the best hitters look relaxed they kind of have a whip-like effect
with their bat they're not super super tense and so this drill helped me just
to kind of get the feeling of what it was like to get the bat through the zone
so I would start off with the tee you can do it with a tee or flip I did it
both ways and I would just kind of sit back here step through and swing and
what I was trying to feel I was only trying to do it about 50% and I just
wanted to feel my hands work like I feel that whip-like effect and using the
walkthrough drill was where I started and that was a good way just to kind of
start my day hitting wise I got a question for that on that one
well I saw when you demonstrated you were want if the tees over here you're
walking through this way are you really worried about your hips at all or you
just kind of come in straight and I'm doing more hands this is more of a hands
thing I feel like it's just gonna kind of happen naturally I'm not too focused
on you know getting perfect mechanics or anything like that I'm kind of just
trying to wake my hands up and just not and into and not be super tense like I'm
just trying to relax the hands and just kind of let them happen and that's all
I'm trying to do so the mechanics might not be per
all of that it's just more of kind of waking my hands up and feeling those
hands just relaxed and kind of width to the ball and are you doing a big big
step as you're coming up or it's just cutting nice and small how's that work
that's kind of medium I mean I kind of just I'm facing like if the tea's right
here I'm just kind of facing facing the tee I guess a little bit and I just take
a step with my right foot and then just go into it and then hit and it's the
same thing if a coach is flipping it to me front toss I kind of take that step
and then as soon as I'm taking that step he's gonna flip me the ball so I'm gonna
just stand here I'm gonna flip you're gonna flip the ball and then I just hit
having to approach up the middle up the Middl yeah just keep everything up the
middle what do you got for number two number two loti I was taught coming up
use my hands swing down at the ball you've kind of heard that there's
probably you know there's a lot of guys that talk about that they had probably
similar problems you know as I did I mean that's how I was taught you know
and when I first got into pro ball the video access wasn't as good as it is now
you know so I just kind of took that advice and ran with it but I did have a
top down swing I did have a push swing and that was really hard for me to
overcome after a while I mean I had that swing for you know 20 years so trying to
you know work through those problems and make it make an adjustment to my swing
was difficult the loti was something that it was a
drill that helped me when the when the tee was set up low let's say the ball
was like this high if I didn't have good mechanics and I just came down to the
ball I was hitting a lot of ground balls in
the cage I was topping a lot I wasn't able to really hit the ball for much
power so the goal of this drill was with the with the ball being set up low I had
to use my legs to get down and use my back knee in particular force that into
the ground so now my bat path is on the same trajectory as the ball as it would
be in the game and now I'm working through the baseball trying to hit a a
good elevated line drive to the back of the cage so that was a really good drill
for me it forced me to use my legs and my swing to get underneath the ball and
drive the ball with authority how often were you doing that one and how many how
many reps would you do a talent I would probably do about 15 swings of that so
I'm not killing myself I'm not overdoing it but I'm probably taking somewhere
between 10 and 15 swings I want to try to hit as many balls hard as I can up
the middle and if I could just do that over and over again I felt like I was in
a good place you're doing that every day every day every day I'm doing those
first two every single day what about third one third one okay like
I said I was taught use my hands be a hands hitter well so we all know about
how the swing works and everything how kind of the hips in the lower half lead
the swing right well I had everything going at one time and that was a hard
thing for me to break so a drill that I like to do to help kind of develop that
feel of trying to separate the the lower half from the upper half of my swing was
just the fully open drill so I would have a tea here or I would do it off the
tee or off soft toss and I would face let's say you at home you're on the
camera you're flipping me the ball I am completely facing you and I have my
bat just resting on my shoulder from here I'm gonna kind of bend into my legs
and turn and then from here I'm already in a position where my my upper body is
torque differently than my lower half so I'm here and then I'm swinging and
working through this way that really helped I could feel the tension in my
front side and it was more of a it was kind of like turning that rubber band a
little bit where I could feel that upper body really work through the ball and
that was that was a good way for me to feel the difference between my upper
half and lower half in my swing separation is huge I know at least from
in the pitching perspective I was a pitcher you know that that was something
that you know I had to focus on to four-velocity
and also just using my body well like using the the creating energy and
transferring it through the kinetic can you talk about how you were trying
to use that as far as like you talked about earlier in the second drill like
being into the ground being into your legs how are you trying to create energy
were you more thinking about your legs or your hands in the swing can you touch
on that a little bit yeah so I felt like that when my lower half was strong I
would focus on my legs but when my lower half was strong I felt like I became a
better hitter and yeah I want you know I want to have the proper you know kinetic
chain and I want to work in the right sequence but for me it wasn't about
power it wasn't about trying to hit the ball
further or look really good in batting practice but when I had proper
sequencing and I was well-balanced I was able to be more adjustable in my swing
so I felt like I could handle more like a wider range of velocities and I was
able to handle more pitches within the strike zone so that allowed me to be
able to handle more pitches better and so that's why I wanted to be you know I
want I really focused on my lower half that's a great point knowing what type
of hitter you are to work on same thing with hitting drills you know you got to
know why you're doing them right not every hitting drill is for every single
player right exactly like just because you know like Mike Trout does a high T
drill or something that doesn't mean that you should do a high T drill and
that will turn you into Mike Trout it's every player needs to know their
deficiency or what they struggle with and then use an appropriate drill that
will help you in that area so yeah knowing that is so important knowing
what kind of hitter you are is so important I know everyone wants to hit
for more power and that's that's awesome and it's fun to be able to crank balls
out and batting practice but that doesn't always transfer into the games
and it might you know while you're facing guys that aren't throwing very
hard but as you work your way up and you start to face you know better pitching
that that long swing doesn't always play and so if you're a small guy like me
yeah you might run into some homers but don't sacrifice for
50 points on your batting average so you can go from six to nine homers like that
doesn't make a big deal at all so know who you are as a hitter and try to be
the best version of that that you can be that's a great point last question
before we end this video you talked about being strong in your legs talk
about the amount of work that you had to put in in the gym and in your swings
practice wise you know were you were you working on this stuff you know once or
twice a week maybe 15 minutes a day how much work were you putting in in the gym
and on your swing to make it to where you made it okay well in the gym I was
in the gym I would do four days a week in the gym so I would go Monday Monday I
did lower body Tuesday upper body Wednesday lower body or sorry Thursday
lower body Friday upper body Wednesday would be just a car like cardio day
active recovery day and then I would do something light on Saturday Sunday I
would take completely off so I was in the weight room like you know trying to
get strong trying to get a foundation I did that all throughout the offseason
and then I made a decision I feel like during the season you have to either
make a decision to lift or not to lift because the worst thing you can do is
take three months off and then decide in middle the season hey I'm gonna start
lifting again and then you're sore for the next week like so you know so you
got to make a decision on that but yeah I was I was always in the weight room
cuz I feel like it made me stronger and anytime I could feel a little bit
stronger in the box with my bat I think it gave me a little mental advantage so
that was big guys I hope you guys liked it you can check out Doug on pro
baseball inside our great YouTube channel make sure you subscribe he's
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hitting fielding anything baseball related we'd be happy to help answer
them and thank you Doug yep appreciate it don't offer you guys
in the next video