Baseball Hitting Tips - How To Develop Hitting Power

Baseball Hitting Tips: Core Strength for hitters

When the muscles of the core are able to generate a large amount of power it will translate over into your performance. You will be able to gain an incredible amount of bat speed because the torso will literally whip your bat through the zone. As your core strengthens you rely less on your upper body strength and gain the ability to tap into your true power potential by using your leg, hip and core muscles.

Developing the ability to use these muscles is crucial if you want to perform to your true potential and beyond. A swing that does not utilize the core muscles will always under perform, no matter how good your hands are or how strong your upper body is. This is because the body’s core is the powerhouse. If the upper body is dominant in a swing, only 25-30% of power potential is being used. When you teach your lower body and core to dominant your swing and work in conjunction with your upper body, the ball will fly off your bat like never before. Most baseball hitting tips never even mention this concept.

The key is tapping into the lightning fast reflexes that are available to you in your body. Just because you weren’t born super quick does not mean that you cannot train correctly and develop Major League bat speed and reflexes. With these baseball hitting tips I’ve seen students improve their bat speed up to 15 miles per hour in just 8 weeks! That can add between 25-45 feet on a fly ball. That is the difference between a deep fly ball and a homerun or a lazy fly out and a bomb over the outfielder’s head.

This type of results are only attainable if exercises and drills are used that have a high carryover onto the diamond. Right now you may be saying, “Well, I swing the heavy bat. That is so baseball specific and is mimicking the swing perfectly.”

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but many baseball hitting tips are too baseball-specific, such as swinging a weighted bat, and will ruin your mechanics and actually make your bat slower! Never, ever swing a bat that is more than 15-20% heavier than your game bat. I don’t even like doing that as I feel it creates a longer swing as the weight reinforces poor swinging habits.

Baseball hitting tips - power developing exercises

So now you are asking, “If I can’t swing a weighted bat what do I do?”

The key is utilizing power movements that develop explosive power capable of transferring over into your swing.

Here is an awesome exercise to do just that. Be warned – it’s brutal!

Turkish Get-Up

Benefits

The Turkish Get-Up is a brutal, extremely effective exercise to increase strength, power and speed of the entire body. It places a very unique stimulus on the muscles of the core and shoulder, providing a tremendous amount of stability and strength endurance. This is also a tremendous conditioning drill.

Barbell Version

Execution

This movement can be performed with a barbell, kettlebell or dumbbell. I prefer the barbell version for baseball players. The barbell provides a resistance that is spread over a greater distance, creating a greater challenge for the muscle of the core and the stabilizers of the shoulder joint. Most will not be able to perform this right away with a traditional 45 pound Olympic bar as this is a very humbling exercise. Just start off with a bar of a lighter weight until you have built up the strength and coordination to work with the 45 pound bar.

1. Lie on your back on the floor. Hold a barbell in one hand extended in the air above you. Your elbow should be locked with your eyes fixed on your hand holding the weight.
2. Without unlocking your elbow keep the barbell in the air above you pointing towards the ceiling at all times. Roll slightly to the side of your free hand.
3. Try to get up on one knee into the bottom position of a lunge. The arm with the barbell should still be vertical and locked tight.
4. Now stand up completely, keeping the eyes on the hand above.
5. Reverse the movement and lay back down. Repeat. 

This exercise should be done explosively as possible. The goal is to try and go from Point A (lying down with weight overhead) to Point B (standing with weight overhead) as fast as humanely possible. This will train the body to act in an explosive manner, which is the key to baseball performance.

Baseball Hitting Tips - Key Points

• Keep the hand and weight underneath your body and point towards the sky throughout the entire movement.
• Elbow should remain locked throughout.
• Use the hand and feet to push the body away from the floor
• Create a mental image that the floor is “hot” and you want to get on your feet as quick as possible
• Maintain perfect posture at all times

Baseball Hitting Tips - Common Mistakes

• Letting the weight move forward, placing undue stress on the shoulder joint.
• Not using the legs or arms and trying to simply crunch up.
• Not using the entire body to perform the lift

Once you try this bad boy, you’ll quickly see how this will develop power, explosion & endurance.

To learn more baseball hitting tips and the secrets of the Major League swing click here for the best baseball hitting course.

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