Swing hard

Fast forward to this years HS season

2018 lefty slap hitter took dad's advice. Went from frosh "B" team player to starting Soph "A" Monumental difference. Hitting close to .500 with very few cheapies. Numerous doubles and a triple (still bit slow of foot).

2016 righty still even keel smooth swing. Much stockier than 2018. Yet too old to listen to pops. 16 for 51. ALL singles.

IMO - Swinging hard and with intent = More squared balls

I prefer "swing fast", "swing quick", "quick hands" as swing thoughts, not "swing hard".  

But yeah, swing as fast/hard as you can and still keep your head on the ball.

Many kids don't want to swing and miss and as a result don't swing as hard (or angry or intent-ful) as they should. Somebody on this board taught me that player should swing as hard as he can while still maintaining solid mechanics.

You want a mixture of mechanics and strength.  The stronger you are the more you are able to maintain proper mechanics with a higher bat speed.  If you don't have strength but great mechanics then you will hit the ball but it won't go far.  If you have strength but poor mechanics then when you hit it it will go far but I wouldn't get my hopes up on doing that very often.  

Swinging hard is great but swinging hard with intent is even better.

We use the coaching point of "swing fast". I think there is a fine line between swinging hard/angry and what we call "muscling up". A muscled up swing is not as loose and fluid and tends to slow down a bit. I think the most important thing you lose by swinging hard and angry sometimes is your hands. Wrists seem to stiffen and causes an all arm swing. Keep in mind the higher the level of talent, the harder a hitter can swing and still stay loose and fluid and continue to use his hands. This is why the hard violent swing works for players like Harper, who are the most talented hitters on the planet. 

What matters is the bat speed. Some look violent like trout and some relaxed and fluid like Griffey.

I taught my kids to swing hard (within proper mechanics) until two strikes and then the focus should be on contact. 

The other part was to try to find mistakes (pitches that they could drive) early and not swing at pitcher's pitches until two strike. 

There's a program in PA that preaches losing your balance after the swing. The players on the 13u team were the Red Land team from the LLWS. After looking into it, they preach the best hitting philosophy. INTENT proceeds CONTENT. What happens after the swing is finished has 0 effect on the hitter (losing your balance, etc.) because the ball has already been hit. You should swing as hard as you can for maximum bat speed, which determines how far the ball goes. 

Just to clarify, the program doesn't preach or necessarily advocate losing balance after the swing as a goal unto itself. It simply allows that it's ok if it happens as a byproduct of a fast swing with intent to hit it as hard as possible. It doesn't HAVE to happen, but they recognize that younger kids in particular don't have the core strength to decelerate like older guys do, so instead of putting an artificial constraint on a kid (stay balanced), they allow a "residual fall" after contact, rather than slow the swing down (or rollover top hand) prematurely. Looks different in the cage ("survive the winter"), but when the ball is flying in a game no one is looking at the batter anymore or trying to correct what they see as "off balance". My boys made the 1.5 hr trip to train with them all winter and has made a huge difference in their performance this season. 

I have seen very few hitters that are off balance and successful at hitting...I don't know anything about red land but I doubt there is no concern for balance at all. 

MLB players are off balance AFTER CONTACT all the time. Key is the swing is not defined as a static position that requires some predefined post-contact position. Instead, be an athlete - make an athletic move is what is preached. To do that, you will be "centered", as in the body's center of gravity. Think the opposite of using a balance board as a training tool. No way you can be athletic and drive the ball using your legs/hips to create ground forces that translate up through the core into bat speed by worrying about staying balanced on the board. Bottom line is if you're worried about staying balanced AFTER CONTACT, you're not getting everything you can out of your body and your swing.

Another way to think about it is if there were a brick wall 2 feet behind 1st base, would you run full out through the base or would you slow down ahead of it? You would slow down unless you want to slam into the wall. Now think of the wall as that static balance position AFTER CONTACT. Would you put that wall right behind 1st base or move it way back (or remove it) to where it is irrelevant? Personally, I'd make it irrelevant so I can go as fast as possible and hit the ball as hard as I can.

Fair enough, I use the breaking bricks line all the time, on board. I love aggressive hard swings. I just don't know that by swinging as hard as you can actually helps create bat speed or helps you barrel up. 

If you measure those hard swings (as they do) on a regular basis using exit speed velo, you can see how it helps create bat speed. Barreling up is developed and measured in other intrinsic ways by the program. The speed/accuracy tradeoff is actually shown in studies to work better when swinging at 100% See below.

Sometimes moving faster can make you more accurate. Although the general rule is that we trade speed for accuracy (or vice versa) when we make aiming movements, there are a couple of exceptions. Dick Schmidt and his colleagues have shown that when we move very rapidly to begin with, speeding up can make us more consistent in timing a movement (Schmidt et al., 1979) and in where we end the movement compared to our target (Schmidt & Sherwood, 1982). This research suggests that faster might be better if the action requires us to move rapidly in the first place. For example, you need to swing an axe quite forcefully if you want to chop wood, so working to improve the speed of your swings might increase the accuracy of your blade placement on the tree or log. This does not mean, however, that you should go out and swing as hard as you can. Such a strategy would likely result in sloppy and very dangerous performance. Instead, it means that you might improve your accuracy if you work to gradually increase the speed of well-controlled swings.

2019&21 dad, I agree I should've detailed the philosophy a little more, but yes I do agree with their "swing as hard as you can". You must be an athlete in the box and not a mechanical robot. When facing pitchers that throw 90-100mph hitters must turn fast and get their hips in motion early. You'll hear them use the term "We roll ankles", 90% of MLB players after their swing have a rolled ankle and finish with one hand. The rolled ankle represents the quick and hard rotation of the swing sometimes or sometimes not resulting in a residual fall.

Most great hitters don't swing as hard as they can.  They swing as hard as they can while maintaining control.

I would be reluctant to listen to anyone that teaches losing balance.  But if a hitter does lose some balance it should be towards the plate. 

In a perfect world a hitter would reach 100% max swing, but the problem is that leads to over swinging and losing control.  So it can take a good hitter and turn him into an easy out. At 98% or even less they are great hitters. I actually think most of the greatest hitters, not all, swing at around 90% of max. Or at least something less than max.  Must remember that max is a different number from one hitter to the next.  So a great hitter's 90% could create more bat speed and power than another hitter could reach at 120%.

Does pitch count in the AB impact the strategy/choice of "max swing" v "balance"?  Would think so.  Hitters counts = aggressive cuts / 2 strikes = covering more of the plate (Ichiro approach)?  Green light/yellow light?  Thoughts?

Is this conversation reminding anyone else about pitching?  So, if I read the two conversations correctly, it is hit and pitch as hard as you can with control.  If you try to hit or pitch as hard as you can you are likely not going to have the control you would if you backed off a bit?  Is that correct?

ted williams said that he was 100% with the Hands but liked something left in the hips. he was big on using the hips but prefer to go like 80% with them to have more control.

Good points PGSTAFF. And I think we're on the same page pretty much as you stated that if you do lose your balance it should be "towards the plate". Exactly!!!! The program my boys trained with teaches a "willingness to stay over the plate" and allow for what they call "a residual fall" over the plate. There are thousands of clips of great MLB hitters making this exact move out there if anyone wants to look them up. 

I don't think anyone is teaching to lose balance on purpose for that sole reason. The idea is to not let the thought of staying balanced AFTER CONTACT artificially limit your bat speed leading TO contact.  This leads to the possibility that you might lose your balance over the plate. So be it. Idea is to be more of an athlete, rather than a robot trying to achieve some arbitrary in-swing or post-swing static position, which is what the obsession with balance creates in young hitters (along with slower bat speed). Idea is to avoid over-coaching and allow hitters bodies to move with the intent to hit the ball hard (preferably a line drive) by being on time and on plane. That is the bottom line. 

As the program notes, it is also important to note the differences between task (line drive or sacrifice GB/FB), organism (amateur or pro?), and environment (BP or game?) to allow for different approaches. But generally speaking, if you tell a young hitter to swing at 90 or 98 percent of max they have no idea what that means in real terms. But, if you encourage them to swing as hard as they can, and applaud their effort when they inevitably swing and miss (everyone does) or lose their balance, you make them more of a "free moving, dynamic athlete". Then it is much easier for them to eventually dial back a hair (to 98/90%) if necessary after they have developed, but the aggression has to come first, then it can be refined. It is part of their adoption of a growth mindset, that takes into account where the hitter is in his/her development and works on "what he/she needs to know, when he/she needs to know it". 

Good dialogue. I like anything that challenges commonly accepted dogma in an effort to learn something new and get better. Thanks.

it also depends on the kid.

there are Kids who always give 110% effort. those guys do every throw all out and miss all over the place and might benefit from slowing it down a Little. most Kids in These days however seem to be more the opposite, they will swing and throw rather "half assed". I always want to kill the ball but I'm amazed how many Kids there are that are Content with waving weakly at pitches.

those Kids definitely Need to be pushed a Little to swing harder.

I would guess that 7-8 out of 10 Kids are rather in the "half assed" category while 1 or 2 are just fine and one is that Psycho kid that goes 1000%.

Dominik85 posted:

it also depends on the kid.

there are Kids who always give 110% effort. those guys do every throw all out and miss all over the place and might benefit from slowing it down a Little. most Kids in These days however seem to be more the opposite, they will swing and throw rather "half assed". I always want to kill the ball but I'm amazed how many Kids there are that are Content with waving weakly at pitches.

those Kids definitely Need to be pushed a Little to swing harder.

I would guess that 7-8 out of 10 Kids are rather in the "half assed" category while 1 or 2 are just fine and one is that Psycho kid that goes 1000%.

From my experience, this is fairly accurate.  Note that I am talking younger ages, not HS(yet).  

No matter how often you preach to be a "yes/yes/no" hitter, be aggressive, still many will weakly throw the bat at the ball after waiting too long to realize it's a strike.  

Overall, I preach swinging/throwing fast and hard a lot.  My belief is that you have to throw hard in order to learn to throw hard with control.  If they slow up too much, then it just gets harder to throw harder, and throw harder with control.  Perhaps I am wrong, but that's how I approach it.

All good points.

if you have a hammer and want to drive a nail all the way in with one swing, would you swing that hammer as hard as you can?  Or would you swing it as hard as you can accurately?

we used to actually do this with old bats and spikes into a wooden pole. We would set the spike at a fast ball plane and have hitters try to drive it in. Many bent spikes along the way, but I think they learned something.  You can't accomplish much with a weak swing.  Your not accurate enough with an over swing. 

PGStaff posted:

All good points.

if you have a hammer and want to drive a nail all the way in with one swing, would you swing that hammer as hard as you can?  Or would you swing it as hard as you can accurately?

we used to actually do this with old bats and spikes into a wooden pole. We would set the spike at a fast ball plane and have hitters try to drive it in. Many bent spikes along the way, but I think they learned something.  You can't accomplish much with a weak swing.  Your not accurate enough with an over swing. 

With all due respect I don't think it's all or nothing. I think you can swing very hard and swing with accuracy. It just takes a willingness to fail in the beginning, and a growth mindset that allows you to keep consistently working at it to get more accurate with hard swings. To illustrate my point let me take your hammer/nail example a step further. I'm sure the  subjects in your hammer/nail example hadn't practiced this task very much, if at all prior to trying. What if they did practice it consistently with intent for a long time? Do you think there would be as many bent spikes? I'd bet there would be a lot fewer, and I'd bet many of them would be driven all the way in! 

I would train a "game swing" or in your example, a "work swing" in the cage environment on a consistent basis so I could swing as hard as possible and still be "on plane" to the nail  in a game environment when I have one shot at glory! That nail is going yard baby!

In all seriousness, this is one concept that I feel is often missed in training. Too many amateurs (and hitting coaches) try to emulate MLB cage swings (stay inside the ball, swing down and hit a GB to oppo side) and don't try to emulate MLB hitters' game swings when they are at full cut. There is a huge difference. Of course there are situational in-game circumstances when you want to git a GB to 2B or a flyball, etc... but generally speaking we want to get a hit (preferably an extra base hit). Statistically, a line drive swing produces a hit with the most frequency. So I'd try to train a game swing in practice that gives me the best chance of hitting a line drive in a game. To do that I'm gonna swing hard and try to be on time and on plane as long as I can. It also matters how you swing the hammer, but that's a story for another thread...

Don't confuse what I'm saying to mean you don't swing hard or attack. Hitting is an act of aggression.  I like your idea of having younger players swing hard.  However, at some point frequency becomes very important.  Also important to be able to handle high level pitching.  Again it is my belief that most every great hitter's swing is below max effort.  Some smooth easy swings create more bat speed and better leverage than other max effort swings.  In fact, some hitters will be closer to max effort until they have a strike.  

That said, I think getting young kids to swing as hard as they can is much better than just trying to make contact.  Have to experience max effort before you can stay below it a notch. But staying that notch below it should add consistency. IMO

PGStaff posted:

Don't confuse what I'm saying to mean you don't swing hard or attack. Hitting is an act of aggression.  I like your idea of having younger players swing hard.  However, at some point frequency becomes very important.  Also important to be able to handle high level pitching.  Again it is my belief that most every great hitter's swing is below max effort.  Some smooth easy swings create more bat speed and better leverage than other max effort swings.  In fact, some hitters will be closer to max effort until they have a strike.  

That said, I think getting young kids to swing as hard as they can is much better than just trying to make contact.  Have to experience max effort before you can stay below it a notch. But staying that notch below it should add consistency. IMO

Absolutely. Love your point of hitting is an act of aggression and frequency is very important. Want to encourage quickness/power to win that battle at the point of contact without fear of inaccuracy (swinging and missing) or losing one's balance after swinging. In the program's vernacular a swing and miss is simply an "unexpected event" that shouldn't dictate swinging slower or waiting to identify a strike before swinging. Against elite velocity, if you do that, you severely limit your chances of success. And if I'm a pitcher and I can blow a fastball by you why would I throw anything else?

Like the link in the OP states "Slow contact swings force hitters to decide early, which reduces a hitter’s chances of making good decisions and ultimately results in a low probability of hitting the ball solid." Anticipate swing (green light), put hips in motion early, turn fast, be an athlete and make a move to error correct (scapular pinch on inside pitch/late movement) if necessary, and don't worry if that takes you off balance AFTER contact. 

In other words, just because you're swinging hard with intent, doesn't mean you can't adjust to elite off-speed or breaking balls. Just have to have a plan for how to use the body (and the ground) to adjust (flex through w/front leg) and practice it once you've demonstrated you can hit the fastball authentically. 

Interesting findings below contradicting what folks might think (baseball dogma) regarding the speed/accuracy tradeoff.  Turns out with regard to very forceful movements and timing tasks like hitting a baseball, there is an inverse relationship! In other words, the faster you swing, the less timing errors there will be. Now this doesn't address spacial errors (i.e. movement), but we can be athletes and make moves to adjust to the movement of the ball. In every other sport we applaud this kind of athleticism at high speed - why try to limit it in hitting a baseball? With the advent of slow motion video being so accessible these days, many forward thinking hitting coaches (Tewksbary, Justin Stone, John Peabody, Jordan Dean...) are starting to advocate just such an approach. It's about time.

http://www.pelinks4u.org/articles/darden/SPEED_ACCURACY.htm 
http://danielson.laurentian.ca/drdnotes/2206-5_schmidt_ch06.html
http://hp-research.com/sites/default/files/publications/Schmidt%20et%20al%20(2001a).pdf
http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all-products/movement-system-variability