Zone hitting and Gary Ward.

we always talked about getting a pitch you know you can hit hard but never really talked about zones. last year we started doing a lot of skull work teaching the zones, cage work and doing individual questionnaires where each hitter identified their zones. i believe this questionnaire, etc. is on our website in the hitting handout.
we had to make some adjustments. early in the preseason - season our kids became way to picky about their zones and the count. we amde some adjustments - went back in and expanded some zones and we ended up setting a bunch of school records offensively.
i think it is a real good thing that needs to be taught - we'll do it again this year - but like anything else you have to adapt it to your own needs.
what is the rhythem adjustment drill? im always looking for anything new.
gary ward does have videos available. check championship sports products( i believe that is the name - if not its close) they have tons of baseball instructional videos. the ones we've found most useful for us is from the san diego state hitting videos. any of these would be good - gary ward has been very successful- but you have to adapt anything you get to your own philosophy or needs.
steve
http://www.leaguelineup.com/raiderbaseball

Rhythm adjustmaent is a drill where he teaches pull, middle and 2 strike oppo by setting up cones every 15 ft from the pitcher or maching..He uses it to get kids to stride at those intervals to achieve the three adjustments he says a hitter needs.I like alot of your hitting stuff. Personally i can't look outside first though..We gear ours to the middle 3 balls(7 fit across the plate is what i mean by that.) and make adjustment to count.We look away later..We never look in..Crowd and let it take care of itself..I've checked most your stuff out. Got a great program. I had one established, but moved to a big school with little..Building one again..

thanks for info. you can always learn. is he saying your stride should be different according to pitch location? we teach the stride is the same everytime. we really stress getting the front foot down before anything else happens.
we look high and we look out first. we very rarely get thrown inside. nothing wrong with looking in first. there are alot of right ways to do things.
steve
http://www.leaguelineup.com/raiderbaseball

raider i agree ....again. we teach stride is the same, getting front foot down 1st (seperating stride and swing) the only difference on inside vs outside is how far the ball travels into the hitting zone. obviously the outside pitch has to travel further (deeper) that is why we look away late in count (if it is breaking ball we are already "sitting back" and can adjust

ps where can i get more info on this "zone hitting"

I like the concept of looking outside because a hitter who is looking outside can adjust to an inside pitch but a hitter who is looking in and makes a full hip turn, etc. is going to struggle with the outside pitch. I realize that some people feel that really being able to turn on the inside pitch is worth pulling off the outside pitch at times.

If you look carefully at clips of Bonds you'll see that his hip turn at contact is consistent with a hitter going after an outside pitch even though he is fully capable of turning on an inside pitch.

We teach looking outside first because that is where most high school pitcher throw most of their pitches. We use zone hitting, but use different terms. We use the approach most use with a hitters count until we get two strikes. We are looking for the ball in the zone that we hit hard. If it is not in our zone we let it go. We would rather give up a strike that we can not handle than to hit a weak ground ball for an out.

good info guys. one of our big teaching words or whatever you want to call it is let the ball get "deep" we want to wait as long as possible to start our swing - not getting fooled, not blowing out on an outside pitch. we really work and teach our kids that they can wait alot longer than they think and still pull an inside fastball with power - looking outside first. if you look inside first you get into that ego - pull the ball mentality and get worn out by guys throwing on the outer half, breaking balls and changeups. i guess our 2 most important phrases are "get your foot down" and "let it get deep". letting it get deep does not lead to getting jammed because kids start their swings too soon to start with - the hips go to flying. we've found kids dont want to wait. we want them to "trust their hands". another key phrase. we dont pull balls foul down the pullside foul line. thats a no-no. thats starting the swing too soon and pulling out.
kinda off the subject but we've found that badminton birdies are a great tool in working on hitting breaking balls and changeups.
thanks for these unargumentive discussions. im no guru - i want to learn and pass that on to my kids.
steve
http://www.leaguelineup.com/raiderbaseball

raiderbb, that phrase "deep" is one of the best phrases we use. GLAD TO SEE YOU DO AS WELL.

No not striding to different areas, but it teaches striding according to how far out a pitch is from home plate. He says if you get the stride done by cone 1 it will teach the kids to pull etc. for the others..he waits till cone three for 2 strike hitting..Trying to let the kids make it get deep or almost on them...fastballs only. I agree the stride has to be to the same area for every pitch location.