When looking for someone to teach you how to hit a baseball or fastpitch softball make sure they are going to show you how to use your body and bat correctly. As most of you know over 99% of instructors, coaches and hitting camps teach things that cause a hitter to use mainly their arms. Because of this very few hitters use their body in their swing. This causes hitters to hit the ball much weaker, be less consistent and way off on their timing.
It is very important for parents and players to learn how the very best Major League baseball hitters and Team USA fastpitch softball hitters actually use their body in their swing. Hitters in baseball and fastpitch softball that learn to hit with their body the same way will see a significant increase in their power, how often they hit line drives consistently and have great timing. Because 99% of instruction consists of bad hitting cues very few hitters use their body in their swing, the ones that do use their body stand out from the rest.
I have a 14 year old student that three years ago could barely hit the ball out of the infield because he was being taught by his coaches and the High School coach to stay back, twist his hips, swing down and use fast hands. His dad said he was ready to quit baseball because he was hitting so bad. We worked hard on getting him to swing with the body, the opposite of what he had been doing. He and his dad worked on using his body every day and the results have been amazing. He went from being a hitter that was hitting so bad he wanted to quit, just because of bad instruction, to being the most powerful hitter ever in his Little League. He set the all time home run record with 22 during the regular season, he hit 5 more home runs in 3 games of all stars and he had a .750 batting average. He did all this while only weighing 90 pounds because he learned the correct way to use his body when hitting. Amazing turnaround.
In an elite travel team game on a High School field he hit a homerun well over a 350 ft fence that had a 20 ft wall. His dad said almost every parent came up wanting to know the bat he was using because there was no way he could hit the ball that far with such an effortless swing. He told them it wasn't the bat it was Mike Sedberry's swing. They still wanted to know the bat so the next time up he had his son use a wooden bat. He then hit the ball harder than with the metal bat but it never got more than 10 feet off the ground. In the video there is a train going by and you can hear it hit the wall between whistles. The ball hit 10 feet up the fence so hard it sounded like a shotgun blast. The dad said that really got the other parents buzzing because their kids were swinging out of their shoes like they had been taught and his son was barely swinging. That's because he was using his body NOT his arms.
This video is his homerun just swinging with his body. This Video is the double off the wall with the wooden bat. His first swing he pulled faster with his arms. He told me he stepped out, told himself to relax and just use the body, next pitch off the wall. Because he know's what he is doing in his swing he was able to fix it for the next pitch. This is so valuable.
Even most of the very best MLB hitters have no idea what they are actually doing in their swing. As discussed in an earlier blog, read Derek Jeter no stride swing update, in 2011 he changed the way he was hitting because the Yankee hitting coach told him not to stride, this would allow him to have fast hands and this would help him watch the ball longer. He worked on this all spring and into the regular season. With his new approach, using mainly his arms, he instantly became a below average hitter. After hitting around .200 the first 10 games and had no power he went away from the no stride and fast hands, went back to a stride and used his body more. He got his regular swing back and ended with a pretty good year hitting .297.
If he knew more about his swing he would never have changed. When his coach told him these new things he wanted him to do, he would have known there was no way it would work. Jeter could have told him why it would not work and then he could have avoided the slump that followed.
This seems to be a common theme among active and former professional baseball and fastpitch softball players. Almost every former player, coach and instructor at all levels have almost the same approach to hitting. They teach squish the bug, twist the hips, fast hands, swing down, stay back, get on top of the ball, etc. The best hitters do none of these, if they do any of these they will go into an instant slump. Most coaches, at every level from coach pitch to the Major Leagues, will "teach" what they have always heard themselves, without taking the time to study and learn what really happens in the best hitters swing.
There are very few instructors that truly know the way the best hitters actually use their body and bat in the swing. If you are interested in learning what an elite baseball and fastpitch softball swing really looks like and how it can make a tremendous impact in your swing and on your career call Mike Sedberry at 304-722-6393. With our video lesson, you will see what makes a great swing and you will learn step by step how you can achieve this. Knowledge about your swing is very important because when you get bad advice you will know why it will not help and you can ignore it so it won't put you into a slump.
We also work with teams or groups that want to greatly increase their productivity and have much more fun in the process.
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