Softball Flaws and Fixes - Dead Hands

Suzy Willemssen: Hi! I am Suzy Willemssen and I am Head Coach for the 18 under Blue Jays Gold ASA Junior Olympic Fast Pitch softball Team. Today, we are discussing common hitting flaws and some fixes. What we are going to show you now is some softball drills for dead hands; very common belief in Fast Pitch softball is that we don't have a lot of time, so we almost have to be a statue and try to hit the ball. Well, all great hitters be it baseball or softball has a common characteristic of some type of movement. Something that will help them get in sync with the pitcher and you need some type of movement with your hands to get things started and preferably we want to do this is as the pitcher is coming.

So the softball drill that Megan will be demonstrating for us now is what I like to call rip it and tip it and in fact if you look at the best major league power hitters you will see some similarities in what they do with their hands and how they really get the hands coming back nice and cocked and coming through then it give you more power. Now yes in Fast Pitch Softballs, we don't have quite as much time to do that but you do need to do something. So again here is rip it and tip it a fix for Dead Hands; something to help your players get their motion started, help with their timing so they can hit the ball square and hard.

What Megan is doing right now is, she is cocking the bat and it's going to be pointing towards where you -- the second baseman, is going to be plane and she brings it back leading with her back elbow and so she is getting good separation and then she starts to swing with her hips and then the hands comes through. This is a great thing also to slow down; sometimes people get a little too rest with their swing. So you can see she is going slow and then go and really getting a good power, a good line on that point again. This is rip it and tip it; getting some motion and your player swings with their hands, so it can get some more power and distance.