Question
Hi Joe,
I have ordered before the introductory Super 8 hitting along with another dvd. My 13 yr old son has develop a bad habit and I need help to break out of it. As the pitcher delivers his pitch my son has develop a bad habit of bringing his hands/arms down. When he is in the batting stance his bat is on his shoulder and when the pitcher throws his pitch he brings the bat down to his waist. It is so frustrating telling him over and over again to stop it. He tells me he can’t help it. I’m just about to give up and I don’t know what else to do. I’m gonna ship him out to you lol.
Any advice would be helpful.

Regards,

Rick

Answer

Hello, Rick

I can understand your frustration with the situation. But while this is a common occurrence among hitters, it can be corrected with work, specifically with our baseball workouts off season video.

First of all, players usually drop their hands because they’ve been taught to swing the bat level. In order to do this, he has to drop his hands to hit the low pitch.

Second, your son must believe that he can make the adjustment, but only with hard work.

Know this, unless he makes this correction he will never be able to maximize his hitting stroke.

Also, in a reflex action it takes an 11 to one ration of good swings to correct all the bad swings. So this will not happen immediately, only as he works to replace his bad habit with the good stuff.

Here are some suggested drills:

1) Tighten up the bat pressure on his shoulder in his stance, and be sure to maintain this bat pressure during the “drive” (pivot)phase. He can use this in all his drills. This allows for him to know that his hands are staying up during the process.
2) Almost all hitters collapse on the back side when they drop their hands to hit. For example a right-handed hitter’s body action is counter clockwise (front shoulder comes up and hands come down). One drill to correct this is the “Over Correction drill demonstrated in our Combo Drills DVD and also on back of our Super 8 Hitting System Poster. This is one of the best drills to build the habit of keeping the hands strong. It works, but he must do this consistently.
This is a toss drill. The tosser tosses the ball above the strike zone and the hitter hits it like a tennis serve. This forces the hitter to keep his shoulders level. It also trains him to hit from over the top rather than under.
3) Use this same technique with a mat and SpeedBat™ instead of a tosser.

Finally, in response to your son’s statement in your email that he “can’t help it”, my answer is “Yes, he can”. But he is going to have to replace this habit with work. It’s not really something he can think about as he is hitting against live pitching. He must train his body with many correct strokes.

Hope that these suggestions are a help. Also, check out our baseball workouts off season video for more help.

Best wishes and good luck,
Coach Joe Brockhoff