Best Hitting Technique to Increase Bat Speed

By Mike Huber

Is Bat Speed Important?

Fast bat speed is the skill that hitters are now focusing on and seeking out new ways to accomplish the fastest bat speed possible. Keeping alert to and learning new batting techniques is what training is all about. A fast bat speed is important in both baseball and softball and it can definitely give the hitter a jump on the competition. Increasing your swing speed is the key to hitting the ball harder and further but some hitting techniques have limits as to how fast a hitter can swing the bat, merely because of the laws of physics. Baseball scouts love to see bat speed at their combine and showcase camps. When it is recorded on paper, it is the one hitting skill that really stands out for the scouts.

How to Increase Bat Speed

As a way to increase bat speed, hitters are beginning to take a closer look at rotational swing mechanics because it has been proven to increase the speed of your swing and thus, the rate of bat speed. Many hitter training systems and consensus coaches have adapted to a technique that combines linear mechanics with rotational mechanics as a way to increase the speed of the bat. In some cases, this combo technique has been proven to increase the average bat speed by 20+ mph.

Combo Technique Explained

The part of the swing that helps swing speed rise is the pushing off of the back leg before rotating the hips into the ball. It has been proven by radar guns, that this technique out performs the old techniques of the past. Put a ball on the tee and take the combo hitting technique for a test drive. Radar guns don't lie. Then watch the flight of the ball, it also doesn't lie. Hitters and coaches around the world of baseball are buying into this combination technique. This technique makes sense, initially, and is backed by a substantial amount of statistical proof to support it. But, does that make it the best technique for increasing bat speed?

Popularity Doesn't Come Without Limitations

Is this combo technique too good to be true? One hitting specialist's answer is yes! The scientific answer to this is also yes. Even though the test results don't lie, they are deceptive. Why? Because each time a hitter uses the technique, he or she should show improvement until they reach their maximum potential. Like the saying, "Practice makes perfect." The deception is that there is a limit as to how fast a hitter can swing the bat using that method, thus lowering what should be, the hitter's maximum potential.

This technique, that combines linear mechanics with rotational swing mechanics, really doesn't work to bring each hitter to their maximum hitting potential. The reason is because hitters are taught to hit the ball when it is out in front of them. The hitter is taught to launch a linear attack off the back foot to meet the ball in front, then follow that up with a powerful rotational hip action. Sure, speed increases, but the forward movement toward the ball has wasted time and resulted in a limit to power and speed.

Once the hitter makes a move or slides forward to the ball, he needs more bat speed to make up for wasted time. So really it is all a wash in most cases. The increase in bat speed made up for the lost time; meaning that the hitter can only get so much better.

The Key is the Right Swing Technique

In reality, the key to a finding a hitter's maximum potential is to teach them a hitting technique that increases both time and speed. The problem with introducing a swing technique that uses only rotational swing mechanics is that most trainers will claim that you can't gain bat speed without linear body momentum when starting the swing.

Their theory has been proven wrong over and over again, but most coaches and trainers just won't listen and take the time to try it for themselves. Using rotational mechanics to produce maximum power and speed has been scientifically backed and proven by those who study martial arts. Several rules that are common in martial arts and the laws of physics can be applied to real life baseball and softball hitting scenarios.

One such technique has been perfected and tested for well over 10 years. Teams and individuals who have been trained in the all rotational swing method have been astounded by its power from the very first swing. The rotational swing method has aided teams and individuals of both baseball and softball in breaking over 80 batting records and winning many championship games. Testing of this method has consistently produced batting average and slugging percentage increases of up to 200 points.

The all rotational swing method is the only hitting technique known to product these results in only two steps and in as little as three lessons. It is the only hitting technique known to produce increased batting average and slugging percentage, simultaneously. To date, using a hitting system that consists of only rotational mechanics has not been beaten by linear or combination hitting system.
 

If you are a baseball or softball coach or hitting trainer, I urge you to try this out for yourself. I truly believe you will be amazed. You can learn more about the all-rotational hitting technique at http://hubiemagic.com
 

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What You Should Know About Pitching Grips

ByNathan E Gotch

Each and every pitcher has to understand pitching grips so one can enjoy unparalleled achievements. An extensive feel for pitch grips is the only path to be undeniably prosperous at the higher levels of competition. In a number of conditions, high school players will throw three separate pitches including a fastball, changeup, or curve ball.

Even the best highschool pitchers are only able to throw 1 or 2 pitches with regularity. College or university pitchers are more advanced than highschool pitchers because of their capacity to throw many pitches with reliability. The most effective strategy for highschool pitchers is to study the pitching grips of university players.

College baseball pitchers will normally throw three or more pitches routinely for strikes. Due to this, college or university pitchers are highly effective and substantially more hard to hit. As soon as baseball pitchers are capable to control their pitches, they will often start to see boosts in their strikeouts, ground balls, flyouts, and in addition complete confidence level against the opposing batters. It's vital that you understand while very young, that the fastball is the most effective pitching grip in baseball.

All developing pitcher ought to work on his fastball before moving onto some other pitch grip. Working on the fastball is crucial for acquiring arm strength. For developing players, place emphasis on your fastball, and then in time make an effort to approach a quality changeup. The two-seam, cutter, and 4 seam are different versions of the fastball. A cutter will move similar to a slider, there is however virtually no wrist action. A cutter cuts far away from a right-handed batter, and into a left-handed batter.

A two seam fastball is the exact opposite of a cutter. A two seam is gripped with your index and middle fingers on top of the seams. You are going to throw this pitching grip with whole arm acceleration and yet applying force with the index finger. This will likely force the ball to tail into a right-handed batter. Start focusing on the changeup when you have figured out your fastball. Pitch the changeup frequently and over and over again to improve reliability.

Another approach will be to throw long toss with the changeup because it will help you to acquire fastball arm velocity any time you throw it. You have got the choice of using a number of different changeup grips including the palmball, vulcan, or even circle change. As soon as you have built regularity with both of the fastball and changeup, then you can definitely begin working on some kind of breaking grip along the lines of a curveball or even slider.

Sliders and curveballs are excellent for striking batters out, but will help to make your various other pitches more efficient. The most effective baseball pitchers in the MLB can regularly throwing at least several various pitches. If deciding on a curveball or even slider, it is best to develop your choice based upon your arm slot. A curveball is probably more effective for a higher arm slot pitcher, although a slider can be more effective for a 3/4 pitcher.

I hope this was useful and keep up the good work.
 

Want more pitching grips advice? Be sure to visit this page: http://www.theulitmatepitcher.com/pitching-grips-complete-guide/
 

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Best Advice a Spiritual Coach Should Give His Athletes

By Mike Huber

The most important pieces of advice a coach can give a team is teaching them how to tune into their spiritual selves. Too often, a coach wants too much control over their team and this eventually causes athletes to rebel or hold onto negative emotions. When things go wrong, players who harbor negative emotions may lash out at others or themselves, and more often that not, lose their competitive edge. The biggest destructive force that a coach and his or her players have to learn to deal with is their own ego and how they handle adverse situations or conflict.

One key to dealing with adversity or other challenges is a coach teaching the team to look beyond the ego. Ego is manifested externally and to look past it one must look inward, to their spiritual self. In competitive situations, this is not easy as the ego is at its strongest during competitive events. The more a person practices, the easier reaching the spiritual self becomes. The spiritual self must become more powerful than the ego in order for you to find it when you need it. Some people are born with a strong spiritual self and find dealing with negative emotions to be easy. If you are reading this, you are probably not one of the lucky few. You have to learn how to become strong, spiritually, especially if you plan on being a coach to athletes.

Spirituality is not the same as religion. To put it simply, spiritual is being in tune with your soul, another word for spiritual self. It is the opposite of anything material, physical or tangible. Being in tune with your soul means you are aware that you are a part of something not of this earth, something bigger and unseen but you know it is out there somewhere. Knowing of its existence and belief in its power gives you the strength and wisdom to handle any situation in a positive and calm manner. Another benefit to knowing and strengthening your spiritual self is that when you are in tune, you are more successful at every type of challenge you face throughout your life, not just in competitive situations.

A spiritual athlete is a very powerful influence on the team, even though he may fly under the radar. These are the team players who are able to keep a broken ship a float. They have the ability to see beyond what the eyes can see and take advantage of what is not seen on the surface, while protecting themselves from negativity. Spiritual athletes tend to have meaningful goals that are positive, win-win situations for themselves and the team. They see obstacles as an opportunity to learn, build character and strength. They know that by overcoming obstacles, they are rewarded with opportunity.
Therefore, a spiritual coach who is successful at teaching the team about their spiritual selves, will have a powerful edge over the competition. A coach who is open and aware of the power contained within the human spirit, is a coach who is happy, fulfilled and successful. Building a spiritual team is the best way to build a winning team, even if the scoreboard shows a loss.

The spiritual coach who builds a spiritual team will usually have smooth day-to-day routines that involve hard work, dedication and focus. A spiritual team needs fewer disciplinary actions and the setting provides a more enjoyable experience for the whole team.
 

Coach Huber is a spiritual coach for baseball and softball players. He wants to help more players by certifying coaches to teach his hitting and confidence training courses. Spirituality is a part of the program. If your interested in learning more, go to http://hubiemagic.com.
 

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A Beginners Guide to Pitching Mechanics

By Nathan E Gotch

Every pitcher must understand pitching mechanics in order to be successful. Without proper mechanics you will be unable to throw high velocity, unable to throw accurately, and will likely suffer from long issues. As a pitcher, you must work to prevent such complications, so that you can succeed to the best of your ability.

So how do you develop good mechanics? First, I'm going to give you the honest truth. Developing great mechanics will not happen overnight and it's going to take an incredible amount of hard work. As long as you stay dedicated, you will undoubtedly improve.

Step One: Balance Point

This is one of the biggest mechanics misconceptions. You should NOT reach a point of balance at the peak of your leg lift. In fact, your weight should already be heading towards home. Examine any hard throwing pitcher and you notice several things at the peak of their leg lift:

• their weight is already shifting
• their drive knee is inside their drive hip
• their lead hip is already driving towards home
• and they are never perpendicular in a traditional balance point position

Obtaining a balance point is an old school way of thinking, and should continue to be.

Step Two: Back Leg Drive and Stride

The second most important element of your pitching mechanics is the back leg drive. Without back leg drive you will be unable to achieve stride speed and length, which are both responsible for velocity potential.

The key is to focus on driving towards home. Often times, pitchers will over collapse their drive knee, and consequently losing power or velocity. Never collapse your drive knee past the drive foot. If you are, then you are losing velo.

The only way to achieve effective stride speed and length is through an effective back leg drive.

Step Three: Hip to Shoulder Separation

Hip to shoulder separation is the significant mechanical piece to increasing velocity. According to the National Pitching Association, hip to shoulder separation is responsible for about 80 percent of potential velocity.

This separation occurs at foot strike when the lower half should be completely open towards home, and the upper half should still be closed. This is the ideal position. The greater the separation between the two halves, the more velocity you will be able to generate.

Obtaining more hip to shoulder separation should be your number one priority because it is the key to velocity.

Make sure you use a camera every time you're trying to improve your mechanics. This enables you to slow down and analyze this very complex motion.

Like I said earlier, just never give up. Developing great mechanics takes time, but the rewards will be amazing.
 

For more pitching instruction, be sure to visit: The Ultimate Pitcher

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How to Increase Your Pitching Velocity

ByNathan E Gotch

The techniques in this article are meant for athletes who are old enough to begin a weight training program.  Use caution please.

There is no doubt that every pitcher wants to increase their pitching velocity. Velocity is essential to your success, and it will give you the confidence you need to succeed at the higher levels of competition.

The thing is, if it were easy, then everyone would be doing it! Increasing your velo takes dedication and hard work. Day-in and day-out. But besides hard work, you must also be guided in the right direction.

So how do you actually increase your velocity? Increasing velocity is the result of many training techniques combined together. These are efficient pitching mechanics, a proper strength training regime, effective conditioning, and excellent arm health.

There is no single factor alone that is going to give you the velocity gains you're looking for. Let's start with pitching mechanics, since it is the most important.

The majority of your velocity potential is a direct result of your ability to produce effective mechanics. Effective mechanics can be defined as a pitchers ability to utilize their body as a single unit.

The keys to increasing your velocity through mechanics is through avoiding the traditional balance point, focusing on back leg drive, generating stride length, having adequate stride length, hip to shoulder separation, and external rotation. These are only a few of the factors, but are predominately the reasons why some pitchers are able to generate more velocity than others. Work on these aspects.
The second most important element is pitcher-specific strength training. A proper training regime is essential to velocity and preventing injury. Every pitcher must avoid exercises that are potentially dangerous for the rotator cuff including barbell bench press or military press.

Focus on developing the lower half of the body, but at the same time, you must continue to promote muscular balance. You should focus on compound exercises such as deadlifts, squats, and dumbbell bench press. These exercises target multiple muscles with a single movement, and most importantly, train your core.

After strength training, you must understand how to condition your body. It's simple. Pitching is EXPLOSIVE, and therefore you should train to be explosive. That means you should only utilize anaerobic exercises, as opposed aerobic. These include sprints, plyos, agilitys, and bodyweight exercises.

The last important element to increasing velocity is through proper arm health. You must train your rotator cuff muscles through lightweight exercises (2.5-5 pounds) about 2-3 times per week.
As you can see, increasing your velocity isn't an easy task. It's going to take hard work, and most importantly, it's going to take TIME. Don't give up!
 

Want more pitching instruction? Then I highly recommend you visit The Ultimate Pitcher: http://www.theulitmatepitcher.com/
 

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Great Throw for Young Pitchers

By Ian McIntyre

When cultivating your skills as a pitcher, it's great to build a repertoire of simple pitches that promote skills and can lead to more advanced throws. The following are three basic throws that will help you find rhythm as a pitcher and promote good technique for future instruction.

Pitching is considered one of the most difficult activities in sport. There is a reason that a strong, shut-out capable pitcher makes big dollars, and that's because the talent and dedication that goes into being a strong pitcher is only matched by how dominant those skills are on the mound. Think about it this way, if a pitcher is truly capable, and given the right circumstances, they could in fact defeat another team on their own, entirely.

Before no-hitter dreams, however, the basics must be grasped. While the raw talent and drive to practice cannot be taught, a young pitcher can learn the tools to succeed. Such as, the basic pitches that can be molded into a particular style and open the way for the more advanced pitches. Able to be practiced in a wide field or at your local batting cages, these are some of the grip mechanics for our favorite basic pitches.

Fastball

The fastball is the bread and butter of a young pitcher. Master the most basic of throws in order to upgrade to the more technical or uncomfortable grips. A basic, 4 seam fastball begins with crossing your index and middle fingers perpendicular across the seams of the ball that form a horseshoe. Place your thumb beneath the ball on the leather in the middle of the second "horseshoe." Make sure that there is space between your hand and the ball, and keep your grip on the ball slightly loose. Friction holds a pitch's speed back and makes the ball leave your hand slower, keep loose to make sure that ball flies as fast as possible.

3 Finger Changeup

The change up is the classic off-speed pitch for throwing a batter off their game. A seasoned batter could read the changeup as a time to swing for the fences, but a young batter will bite at just about anything and a changeup is a great way to get them frustrated and swinging. Lay three fingers perpendicular on the stitches as you did with the fastball above. Touch your thumb to your pinky underneath the ball and hold the ball deep into your hand. The more contact with the ball, the slower the pitch. Throw with all the same fastball mechanics, the differences in grip and pressure on the ball with crank down the speed and catch the batter off guard.

Basic Curveball

The basic curveball is a stellar throw for getting a young pitcher comfortable with more advanced techniques. Line your top two fingers on the seams, and your thumb on the top/back seam. Then, remove your index finger so that you're gripping with your thumb and middle finger. Use your index finger to guide as you finish the throw; otherwise, simply rotate your thumb upward and snap your middle finger downward as you throw. The curve should be basic, but effective. Wean yourself off this pitch as you get into college ball though, a batter worth his salt can see the lifted finger on delivery a mile away.

Practice!

Throw at least twenty of these pitches a day. If you need space or training partners, head to you local fun center and hang around the batting cages. There's going to be a batter training there who will be willing to square off against a real pitcher. Also you could rent out a batting cage for pitch training, as well as batting. The right setting or opposition will make your practice that much more fruitful.

If you are looking for a Fun center with a batting cage near you in the Bakersfield, CA area, stop by Camelot Park today. You can also visit their website at http://camelotparkbakersfield.com.
Come to Camelot Park in Bakersfield, CA & see all of the rides & attractions. they have go karts, mini golf, batting cages, arcade games & much more!
 

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