Don't Use Your Hips | Baseball Hitting Drill (Pro Speed Baseball) 

You are most welcome! Good luck out there! ~Michael Pro Speed Baseball

I feel the same way. I thought I was the only one

51 still playing and learnt more this year then before about hitting. As soon as one thinks he knows all one knows nothing. Well done still playing at 60

@@somekindaguy100 Do some front arm only swings. After a while you'll have mechanics like Ken Griffey Jr.

Hey Judah, you're most welcome! Glad the lesson made sense and helped out. Definitely makes a big difference understanding the specifics versus just blindly saying, "use your hips." Thanks for the comment!

@@ProSpeedBaseball You're welcome, already I have had three games and have greatly improved my batting also I'm a pitcher for my team and this is my first year dong it and your pitching videos have helped a lot to! Thanks!

Doing front arm only swings will teach proper mechanics and you don't have to think about anything, the big muscles will automatically do what they're supposed to do.

Thanks Daniel, will do! ~Michael Pro Speed Baseball

Thanks Christian! ~Michael Pro Speed Baseball

Hey hey! Sorry I'm a little late to the party, but congratulations! Great Stuff! If you're anything like I was, I had a hard time feeling my legs running around the bases after launching one out! Nice work, hope things are still going well! ~Michael Pro Speed Baseball

You dont now shit

Thanks Ian! ~Michael Pro Speed Baseball

did you even watch the video lol

Why bother thinking about anything? Front arm only swings will force your body into Griffey-like mechanics.

I'm not this guy but, from watching his videos he focuses more on bringing your hands to the ball. There was a tee drill where you load/stride then stop to look at your hands and then look at the ball and then swing. Focus on bringing your hands to the ball. It will help you get familiar with where your hands need to be. It seems like when we start thinking about a specific body part it's better to think about another that is more simple to move. Like, this video is about hips but it's really about legs.

@Jarrod Boyer Very well said Daniel! Thanks for helping Jarrod out! Jarrod, he is spot on, if you focus on your physical hands, a lot of things will fall nicely into place. I believe Daniel is speaking of the Swing Plane Secret video that you can check out here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-a_tJvSCvgRE.html The main point is to focus on the core issues. If we do this, we can eliminate all swing faults! Thanks for the comments guys, hope all is well! ~Michael Pro Speed Baseball

I'm 15 now playing high school baseball and I had the same exact problem. Basically, you need to wait on the ball more and make your swing more compact. Your swing is trying to extend in order to hit the ball, which then causes chopping. The drill that got me out of that was front toss, just doing it over and over again. I hope you end up fixing it.

Hey Luke, thanks for the question! We use V1 Home and Kinovea. They are both available for free and they are great! ~Michael Pro Speed Baseball

A batting tee

The hinge is for me is the most complicated thing to teach Once you hinge A lot of success comes out of it From Longer time in the hitting zone

Hey Andrew, First of all, as far as hitting goes, upper body strength is not important, and has nothing to do with driving a baseball with power. The big muscles of the upper body are not used in swinging a bat. Trying to use them will actually slow your swing down. So don't think that hitting the gym and building up a big chest, shoulders and biceps will translate into power in your swing. It's okay to build up your upper body, however I would put more focus on building strength in your core, legs, forearms, and hands. These are the areas that generate bat speed. The faster you can get your bat through the strike zone, the more force you can put into the ball. This equals the distance the ball will travel. You don't have to be the biggest, strongest guy out there to hit the ball hard. I have seen skinny guys practically knock the cover off the ball without stepping one foot in a gym! These guys simply know how to swing a bat fast enough to get the job done. I have hit balls far that surprise me because I did not swing hard, or try to muscle it. A quick swing should feel effortless. If you feel uncomfortable with your swing, you may have a stance that is off balanced. Make sure you are in a good athletic stance in the batter's box. Legs shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent. Balance your weight on the balls of your feet. Your toes should be pointing in the same direction. Hold the bat in a way that feels comfortable for you. The handle should not be squeezed in the palm of your hands. It should be held gently inside your fingers. Stay loose, calm and relaxed. Avoid having thoughts about hitting in your mind. Your swing must be natural. Thinking leads to a mechanical swing, and you are more likely to over do something which will throw off your bat path. Get as much hitting practice as possible! Hitting off a tee is best because it will help you develop a short, compact swing. This will improve bat speed. Be sure to utilize a batting cage when possible and most important, practice with live pitching. To drive the ball, your bat barrel must intercept it directly on it's incoming path. Hitting above, or below the ball path will result in unpredictable outcomes. Contact should be out in front of the plate. Avoid reaching out. Let the ball come to you. Hitting involves timing. You want to start your negative move as the pitcher begins his wind up. Watch the ball out of his hand. Stride nice and easy, keeping your eyes on the ball. When the toe of your stride foot hits the ground, start your swing. The key to remember is keep your hands back in a strong position as you stride forward. This creates separation that will help you build torque. Along with building strength in the muscles used for hitting, you must also become efficient in your hitting mechanics. This will take time. Don't get discouraged if it seems like you are not doing better. Record footage of your practice and in game at bats. Use the footage to locate problems. I analyze my hitting videos with a app on my phone called Coach My Video. The app allows you to look at your swing frame by frame which is extremely helpful. Lastly, hitting is a work in progress. I am speaking from experience. It took me 2 and a half years of training to master the correct way to swing a bat. I am still leaning and making adjustments. Hope this was helpful. Good luck!

Hey Andrew, thanks for the comment! I would highly recommend checking out our Hitting System at ProSpeedBaseball..com We have free lessons available on the site that go through the entire swing from setup to finish. This would be a fantastic place to start out or freshen up so you can see the swing as a whole picture. The whole point of the program is to take the guessing out of what's right. Being efficient is what you're looking to do, hard work on the right stuff is what will get you there! If you have any questions on anything specific, just let us know! ~Michael Pro Speed Baseball

+LTKNT Bro, you are a complete legend. Sorry I missed this response I guess I didn't see the notification. Thank you for all of that. I'll put it to good use

The hips do not work independently, so what you are saying is the hips should open up before the hands. There is no "front hips". There is a front and back hip. Well I think you have a miss-interpretation. 1) If the front foot lands "open", then that imitates a walking motion, as if you are walking away from the catcher. This is because it encourages an exaggerated weight shift, not against the front leg, but over the front foot. 2) That also means your front shoulder is flying open with your front foot, and you can not cover pitches on the outside corner. Wherever your front hip goes, so goes your front shoulder! The bat path will actually leave the hitting-zone early if the front shoulder flies open in a very rotational, circular motion. 3) The result is an extreme loss of power, because the backside isn't driving the hands into the pitch, but instead the power leaks away with that open hip, and the back hip is more akin to towing dead weight behind you. So good luck driving the ball. The hands stay connected to the shoulder as rotation starts, initiated by the back knee and foot just as he is doing. The amount of rotation is determined by pitch location. If the pitch is on the inside corner, or down the middle, the full rotation occurs. If outside, then the back knee, belly button, shoulders would orient toward RF. What is key here is that the rotation of the backside delivers the back elbow to the back hip, or elbow slot, elbow at the pant seam. At that point, the hands are released for the swing. If you could see the video in slow motion, so it goes, and the arms form a "power-box" maximizing force with the backside rotation, and hands actually driving into and through the pitch. The arms are not straight, fully extended, at contact. More like the shape of a house and roof. What is important about that is two things. First, the shoulders and hips can tilt, getting the bat down on the plane of the pitch early, the bat-head entering the strike-zone all the way back by the back leg. That allows a margin of error in guessing speed. The bat-head travels flat through the hitting zone, short to the ball, long through the ball. I would suggest you guys learn something and listen to this coach because he knows the mechanics and physics more than almost all of them. Hitting and Pitching is physics! Pure and simple physics. Philippines National Softball Teams Coach

@Jason Little Thanks, hitting and pitching are exercises in physics!

My coach calls it the "chicken wing" and it makes your hands/back shoulder drop

I'm talking about the coaches that make kids put the back elbow up above their hands. I'm not saying the elbow should be pinched to your ribs, it should be back not up unless you have very strong bat control you can hit however really like how all the pros have different stances.

There are plenty of annoying cliches' thrown about in little league practices/games. Most of them are based on wishful hopes from parents/coaches. The 'elbow up' is trying to counter an epidemic problem in young swings... bat drag caused by the rear elbow creeping forward past the bat knob and finding the belly button. You know the look... back arm folding under the front arm resulting in the elbows getting closer and closer together thru the swing dragging the bat thru the hitting zone and loosing power. Less power, lower accuracy... strike out city. Problem is coaches and batters don't understand the real solution: KEEP THE SETUP ELBOW GAP THRU TO CONTACT. So, the back elbow just needs to be above the front elbow at setup(like in this video), then keep that distance the same. Amazing things happen if you do this. The rear arm will form the power 'L' at contact (slow-mo any mlb hitter and you'll see the 'L'); the front elbow will begin to rise, even get up around the shoulder/chin (slow-mo any mlb hitter and you'll see the high forward elbow); the hitter will begin to rotate his body thru the swing rather than die at 3/4's and the arms extending straight out loosing tons of rotational power AND the swing will get 'ON PLANE' (forearm and the bat are inline as you'll see in this video @ 6:44).

King. As usual like telling a batter to raise his/her rear elbow up parallel or above the shoulder which places the hands in a crap shoot hitting position, they are doing so based purely/entirely on personal opinion probably acquired from another inexperienced, unknowledgeable so called do gooders which is why ninety percent of our athletes have been and still are receiving wrong messages.The majority of Baseball teaching and instruction is basically brought forth to aspiring athletes based on personal opinion. although there are numerous people/coaches etc out there who are keen students of the game of baseball and other sports. Nuff said. Great BaseBall-N Don Ervin Former pro player in the Philadelphia, Philly's org. ame392002@yahoo.com

The bat head also has a tendency to follow what the elbow is doing. The elbow cranks down, and the bat head drops below the intended bat plane. Instead of straight to the ball, the bat-head comes down in a loopy swing path. I think the coaches think it gives lift to the swing. This technique puts everything in proper timing, and using his shoulders and hips drives the hands and bat-head down toward any low pitch to maximize a flat swing path. That high back elbow will often cause the bat to come up out of the proper swing path early at the end of an upper-cut.

Fahim Islam your coach is right too. Watch big league swings.

Hey Ryan, I actually used to use this same terminology a long time ago when I first started teaching. Over trial and error, focusing on the back foot is immensely easier for players to execute. However, every athlete is different, if back knee towards pitcher works to keep your mechanics right, stick with it! Thanks for the comment! ~Michael Pro Speed Baseball

@@ProSpeedBaseball Maybe back foot is easier than teaching them to dance like Elvis?

@Michael Goronsky Don't grip the bat in the palms of your hands, but in your fingers. Middle knuckles more lined up. Sounds like you are choking the sawdust out of the bat.

@Michael Goronsky Also, the ball should come down at a depth about equal to your front foot for hitting to CF, and about at your belly-button for hitting to RF

Search on RU-vid for Stay Through the Ball Pro Speed Baseball, and check out that video! It has some great drills to show you how to release the bat without using the upper body to "drag" the bat through! ~Michael Pro Speed Baseball

+Pro Speed Baseball thank you

Michael Jordan haha

0.00

Because he don't use hips

When you're used to thinking about your hips, it takes a little time to get your mind off of them. No big deal though! Like anything else, just takes some time and reps! ~Michael Pro Speed Baseball

Hitting is physics. Just follow the logical physics. He is an excellent teacher of physics.

Three years late but how’d it go??

Yeah, don't use the hips in the thought process.

His back hip is leading his hands to the ball. A true rotation. That is where you get power. Not some fake rotation twisting like Chubby Checkers.

Flexibility! For example the stride of the front foot, if closed, automatically keeps the front hip closed. Anything over 45 degrees and the front hip opens up. When you load, at toe touch, the body performs a "contra-movement" of the hands moving away, stretching, as the toe touches down. It isn't limited completely by biomechanical connections. So you think perhaps he should have included hand-path, load, perhaps the various weight shift loads, position of back knee to back foot, chin orientation, and hitting to the opposite field in this video?

Of the backside. That allows the hip to come forward in a true hip rotation. Notice by going up on the back toe, the back hip comes forward a full 90 degrees, maxing power.

ROBERT, It all starts from the ground up and sometimes back down depending on the body mechanics/movements to be executed, the knee pivot raises the rear foot heel up off of the surface, frees the hips, allows for proper weight shift which allows them to pivot into action during this body movement which in turn brings the shoulder tilt over from their slightly tilted, left side for right handed batters, right side for left handed batters into the necessary tilt so as to allow the batter to be able to bring his/her barrel down into a level plane with/into the downward flight of the incoming pitched ball. I mention Tilt due to the fact that during the stroke approach to barrel to ball contact, the shoulders do not/should not rotate, the shoulders have/should have an up and down tilt on a lateral axis all on a vertical plane. the hip movement coin siding with the shoulder tilt movement is termed as "HIP TO SHOULDER SEPARATION" in hitting as well as Pitching these hip and shoulder separated sequential body movements are what transfers the body's momentum from the lower body into the upper body which when executed properly with good timing is where/how power is generated. Hope my comments are helpful. GreatBaseBall-N Don Ervin ame392002@yahoo.com

Hey John, thanks for the comment! Focusing on the pelvis could also work, however hitters could technically still fire the pelvis and not fully use their hips in the swing. This can be seen by the lack of rotation in the back foot. Some hitters might not run into this issue thinking "pelvis/hips," yet for those who do run into this issue, focusing on the feet will ensure that the hips are used fully in the swing. As far as "squash the bug" is concerned, if you check out the STB video we have on the RU-vid Channel, and follow the parameters for the backside rotation and implement rotating the back foot, hips will be used wonderfully in the swing! As an added note: This video focuses in on the back side, we have another video coming out in the near future showing how if the front side is used properly along with this, an optimal weight shift and hip turn can be accomplished which aid the back foot getting up higher and even coming off the ground a bit! Thanks again for commenting! ~Michael Pro Speed Baseball

So actively turn the foot to passively turn the pelvis? I guess we'll just have to disagree here. If the player can't find a way to move the pelvis first, check the drill they are doing. Focusing on the back foot will ensure the back foot heel and the leg will rotate inside the hip therefore minimizing hip rotation. Why not just work smarter on the part of the swing that actually matters most and have better drills. I believe this idea will force unnatural movements that eventually will keep hitters (especially smaller hitters) from having optimal power production.

Hey John, sorry it's been a minute since getting back! I can definitely see what your saying! The issue here is it's extremely tough to get every relevant detail into every video. (Pretty much they can all be picked apart... I pick mine apart all the time!) Turning the back foot can't passively turn the pelvis due to how they work anatomically. They are both actively needed to turn. Of course this is to a certain extent, they can both turn independently to a certain degree then they require each other for a full range of motion. This differs from person to person based on flexibility. I could have done a better job explaining how the front side compliments this movement by the straightening out of the lead leg as this pushes the lead hip through. (we have a video is post coming out on that soon as well) The main purpose of this video is explain the foot hip connection and how it can be used to maximize the use of the hips with simple key. If the foot fully rotates, the hip on the corresponding side will fully rotate. Yet, you're spot on, if the lead hip isn't engaged and the hitter literally only used the back side, the hips wouldn't be fully used! Thanks for keeping me on my toes and commenting. I always appreciate the critique! ~Michael Pro Speed Baseball

@@jkw8585 I for one do not think the pelvis rotates actively in a twisting format. That would create an emphasis on rotational forces and take away linear aspects of the swing. Backside rotation as shown supplants the front hip, forcing it out of the way. The hands are driven to the ball by the back hip rotation, not pulled by the front hip. The front hip is neutral until the hands are fired.

Quasimoto44 Centrifugal forces are the forces at work in a swing. The baseball swing just like all other swings is really just a series of turns which are loaded by the separation of the hips and shoulders. The actual swing starts with the hips and ends with the hands which is why any active “driving” or “firing” of the hands towards the ball can be a very bad cue. The hands are the “wheels” of the swing, they don’t move themselves.

Some guys squish the bug, some don’t. I got about 7 homers on my channel and I squish the bug in most of them. I think this guy means well but isn’t very good at conveying his message

"Squish the bug" is an entry level concept to get young hitters to learn to rotate their hips. The problem is that it doesn't address weight shift. In a proper swing, the back foot will rotate, but weight is shifted to (not over) the front foot. Most young hitters have to unlearn "squish the bug" as they mature as they continue swinging off the back foot. You'll notice his back toe is just barely touching the turf. At impact, there is very little weight at all on the back foot.

@@AJTramberg I agree with you Aaron. I was being facetious with my initial post

Aaron Frampton I think teaching young hitters to lift their foot off the ground at contact is more detrimental than teaching them to simply turn. Also the “in a proper swing” part made me chuckle

Aaron Frampton Soto just hit a ball about 500 feet and hit foot never left the ground. Improper swing tho I guess 😂😂😂

i know right... the guy was being so misleading... i only watched the video for a minute and then i just stopped it. How are you gonna title the video "don't use your hips" when he says "use your hips, DON'T THINK ABOUT IT MENTALLY WHEN USING YOUR HIPS WHEN HITTING.just don't confuse the public and continue to be misleading. BE SPECIFIC !!!!

JAY, IF YOU WILL THOROUGHLY/TOTALLY VIEW HIS VIDEO YOU WILL SEE WHERE HE EXPLAIN'S IN DETAIL WHAT HE IS GETTING AT, YES HIS INITIAL COMMENTS ON NOT USING THE HIPS ARE SOMEWHAT CONFUSING TO THOSE OF YOU WHO DO NOT HAVE ORGANIZED/PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE . GREAT BASEBALL-N DON ERVIN AME392002@YAHOO.COM

Jiron Cummings its click bait, simple answer

😂😂😂

I am a professional coach, and I think the labels should be reversed!