It is important to remember that perfect practice makes perfect play. If the players are not swinging correctly then all they are doing is reinforcing bad muscle memory. Bad muscle memory means there will be "holes" in the swing, which translates into offensive outs and increase player frustration. Perfect practice creates proper muscle memory, which means more hard hit balls.



What we do is set up multiple unique hitting stations around the field and divide the team into six groups (try to keep only two players per group). To get 400 swings in one hour, using six hitting stations, will give the players 10 minutes at each station. The pitching machine station can only provide about 40 swings in the allotted time. This leaves us with 360 swings for 5 stations; therefore, you must average 72 perfect swings per station per player.

Here are some example hitting stations:

1. Overload / Underload practice swings: 5 sets of 10 overload and 10 underload = 100 swings focused on bat speed. Practice swings without a ball develops good balance and proper swing mechanics.

2. Ball location hitting tee drill: 2 sets of 10 outside, 10 middle, and 10 inside = 60 swings concentrating on hitting location and driving the ball to all fields. Working off a tee adds the element of hitting the ball without ball movement so the batter can focus on another element, in this case driving the ball to all fields. By removing the ball movement a batter can develop good balance and contact point location to be able to hit to all fields.

3. Semicircle soft toss drill: instructor soft tosses 10 balls from the front, 10 from the side, 10 from behind, 10 from the side, and 10 from the front = 50 swings focused on hitting the middle of the ball. This drill adds the element of a slow moving ball with the batter concentrating on hitting the center of the ball at the bat-ball contact point for line drives into the outfield.

4. Wiffle ball short toss: 3 sets of 10 outside, 10 middle, and 10 inside = 90 swings focusing on getting the whole swing together but with the ball moving at a slower speed than during the game. With a short distance, the coach can position the pitch at different positions within the strike zone to provide additional batting practice for hitting to all fields.

5. One handed tee work: 3 sets of 10 front hand only and 10 back hand only = 60 swings concentrating on hand movement through the hitting zone. The front hand guides the bat through the strike zone and the back hand provides the power to the swing. This drill isolates the hand movement through the hitting zone.

6. Hitting practice off a pitching machine: 40 swings concentrating on timing the swing. By using different dimple balls from different manufactures, provides variation in speed and pitch location to simulate different pitcher's ball movement. It is very difficult to teach hitting mechanics with a machine, but can be very effective with batter timing.

There is nothing special about this set of stations other than you can get a lot of swings very quickly and isolate the individual hitting mechanics. We will use different station drills throughout the season to provide variety and work on specific skills.

What I want to encourage is that you, as a coach, think about how to maximize the number of swings per practice by sub-dividing the players into smaller groups and use multiple hitting stations. What drills do you know that fall into these broad categories? Okay, switch them in for variety.