At Home Drills

Hey, guys. Coach Rick, GameDay baseball here. I want to give you five tips of simple drills that you can do at home, that’s going to help out your game tremendously.

First tip is visualize tee drill. So instead of just setting up your tee and swing in swing in, swing in, which you would never take a swing like that in a game, let’s visualize. So we’re going to put a ball on the tee. You’re going to work through your whole routine. Imagine there’s a pitcher out there and I want you to track the imaginary ball and drive your ball off your tee.

Tip number two, this is our slow motion swing. Many young players especially, but even high school players, can’t take a good slow motion swing because they don’t know their swing well enough. To take a good slow motion swing means you know your swing. So let’s start practicing this at home. Just super slow. Feel what you’re doing. Feel everything you’ve been working on. Drive through that imaginary ball and try to feel everything. This is where you can really work on small aspects. Maybe it’s your launch position or staying inside the ball, or you want to work on that extension. When you slow it down, you can really emphasize what you want.

Tip three, our third drill. The importance of launch position is crucial. I want to land with my knob back to the catcher. But how do you practice this? Well, you can do this in your room before you go to bed. Just work on landing the launch. So load, step, load, step, load, step. Get that ingrained in your mind. You want to sink some weight into your backside. And when you step forward with your front foot, that’s when your hands are going back to the catcher. Feel that position.

Tip four, this drill is going to use the tee, again. We’re only going to use our backhand, our top hand, right? Our top hand is so important. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to set our tee up. We’re going to hold the bat on the top of the grip with your back hand. What I’m going to try to do here is I’m going to take a swing off this tee, and I’m not going to allow my chest to open up at all. So again, 50, 60%, 70% here. We’re not trying to crush this ball. What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to get our palm up. We’re trying to get on that bat plane early and stay on that bat plane as long as we can. Again, one-handed tee drill is going to feel a little awkward at first, but we’re not trying to fly open here. We’re trying to work our hands across our body, not even finishing the full swing.

Tip number five. Drill number five, you’ll be using your tee again and again. Guys, if you don’t have a tee, you can still do these drills. You’re just going to have to take dry swings, but you can still do all of these drills. But drill number five, we’re going to use that tee and we’re going to hit different locations. Okay? What we need to realize as a hitter is I have one swing. There’s going to be different pitches that I’m going to have to hit. But it’s one swing. It’s all a matter of where I hit the ball. So if I’m going to get an inside pitch, I’m going to take my one swing. But this is where I move the tee way out in front. Try to stay inside and drive that ball, pull side. The pitch down the middle, I’m going to put the tee right out in front of home plate, and I’m trying to drive this pitch center field. Same swing, different location. The outside pitch sometimes the hardest pitch for a lot of us, we’re going to need to move this tee far, almost back by the catcher, deep on home plate. And this is the drill that I’m going to hit deep and drive to the opposite side. But again, the same swing, different locations. Use a tee if you have it. If you don’t have it, you can still visualize and take dry swings.

Up your hitting game with these tips and resources for hitting at the top of your game. And if you are looking for some more hitting drills to hit with accuracy, consistency, and power, the Hitting Vault has a bunch of great drills for your game.