Posted by: Coach C () on Thu Mar 13 07:51:14 2003

I have a player on my school team that again is
> stepping in the bucket on her stride. I experienced this last year and to combat it we
> widen her stance (no stride) for all hitting drills. It seemed to help. I get her back after a summer and fall of ball and she is doing it again. Does anyone have any drills or suggestions to cure this? She has gone back to a more narrow stance and is taking a huge stride, (something else for me to work on).


Stepping out is not necessarily bad if their is no weight transfer during that step (Roberto Clemente, Magglio Ordonez are a few that have done this), but clearly with the length of stride problem she must be bailing out and forward. My advice is this...widen the stance somewhat, but instead of having her stride forward with the lead foot, have her step back with the back foot. This should put the weight more on the back foot prior to the swing and develop more of a rotational axis. The legs stabilize the rotational forces in the trunk and should not be used to drive forward. When we go forward we impede the turn.

Good Luck