Improve Bat Speed With the One-Handed Hitting Drill

UC Irvine associate head coach Pat Shine demonstrates a One-Handed Hitting Series, a drill used by the Anteaters during batting practice.

Pat Shine demonstrates the One-Handed hitting drill by breaking down the major body movements involved. Pat Instructs to aim for the inside half of the ball while keeping the elbows towards the inside of the body.

TRANSCRIPT

Pat Shine: My name is Pat Shine. I'm the Hitting instructor here at UC Irvine Baseball. What we're going to talk about here today is basically some routines that we do almost on a daily basis. We're going to start with doing one had drill series, where we're just swinging the bat with our top hand then our bottom hand. We want to emphasize to our hitters that hitting is not really a game of strength. It's really a game of quickness. And we want to increase our bat speed by being able to do that. We just want them to have the ability to just use their hands. So to begin with we just set up the T, maybe a little bit higher than our waist. Choke up a little bit so we're not doing a real heavy bat. We don't want it too low. We don't change our posture to get to that pitch. So we want to be able to stay tall. All you're going to do is be nice and relaxed and go through a little bit of rhythm. We're just going to incorporate our stride. All we're trying to do is with our top hand is just to basically go down on that baseball, with the emphasis of our elbow getting in close to our body. That's going to keep us inside the ball. And one thing we've got to tell our hitters is that ball's not going to jump off the bat like it will with two hands. So don't try to create that feeling. If you try to do that you might start opening up and start using your big muscles and your shoulders, and that we want to avoid. Just a little bit of rhythm. Just nice and easy. Top inside half of the ball. Just feel your elbow get in there, in close to your body, and we're going to do the same thing with the bottom hand. The emphasis with the bottom hand is to keep your elbow kind of inside your front hip and your elbows going to stay down. That's going to keep ya short and going to get you flat. You're just going to want to start your swing with your hands and make sure you finish with you hand. A common error on this drill is to do a really good job of getting to the baseball and then what they want to do is they want to finish the swing with their shoulders and they open up. Don't allow them to do that. Hitters don't do that. So what you want to try and do is try to think about keeping your chest towards that opposite side hole as a target so that you finish with your swing and you're not opening up. Boom. And then again, it's just nice and easy. You just pull down and just hit that top inside half of the ball.