The world’s best hitting or pitching coach for you will always be YOU! If your coach has a “one size fits all” theory of hitting, run away from him. Find a new mentor if he tries to teach you how to move or how he did it. Lastly, find someone new if he tries to teach you how to hit without watching you play in games, either in person or on video!
At my Hit Doctor Academy, we have had thousands of players—college players, pro players, and even some MLB hitters, some of whom are among the best of all time! The key is that every one of my good hitters was original. I cannot think of any two players who looked exactly alike. I was a pretty good hitter but never in the Hall of Fame category, so I always tried to work with what my students brought me.
By the time a young player is 11 or 12 years old, his body has already told him how it feels comfortable, how it feels strong and balanced, and how it wants to move. The idea is not to cookie-cutter a hitter’s movements into yours but rather identify what you want the hitter to accomplish and watch what he does. Sometimes just saying “Hit me nothing but clotheslines or rising line drives” is enough of a cue to get an athlete to adjust his way and immediately produce the outcomes we are looking for. If not, it’s time to earn your keep! Do your coach instructor thing, which is: to identify how each hitter makes his outs and help him eliminate them! That’s a hitting coach’s job. If a hitter bats .300 he is considered a star even though he makes 7 outs every 10 at-bats!
As a hitting coach, you have to watch the player in quite a few games so you can identify how he makes his outs. Having done this for 50 years I can tell you hitters make their outs the same way over and over again for their entire career and nobody ever tells them what to do to stop making outs the same way all the time.
You see, hitters either hit the ball hard or they don’t. If they don’t hit it hard they are either “early” or “late.” There are 4 ways of being early and 4 ways of being late, and every player who ever played the game makes their outs at least one way by being too slow and one way by being too fast. Think about it. If a player was always too slow, the pitcher would throw nothing but fastballs and the hitter would always be late and would never get a hit. If a player was too fast the pitchers would throw him all curves and sliders and, again, he would go hitless.
Which brings us back to YOU, your own best coach. You see, I am just a “hitting guide.” Other people are “pitching guides.” We watch you play, identify how you fail or what you need to do better, and you take what you like and practice and hopefully get better. If you don’t, let’s try something else. If a new drill or a new change is right for you it will generally feel pretty good right away. If it feels a little uncomfortable but you get great results, then be uncomfortable for a while! In the end, your game outcomes will tell you how you’re doing.
BE YOUR OWN COACH!
Performance Goals
Want to know more about how to hit like a pro? Visit my website at https://thehitdoctorusa.com/
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