Posted by: RQL () on Wed Dec 31 17:51:57 2003

I am currently coaching a 9 and 10 year old team. We have been working on preswing movements to get into a proper loaded position. My questions is, would you teach a young hitter to load the same as a college or professional hitter? Or should they use a simplified version?
> >
> > If you were working with a 9 year old that had never received any instruction on the rotational swing, how would you describe the load to him?
> >
> > Thanks in advance for any help.
> >
> > Have a great day.
>
> My suggestion would to you is to keep it simple. Most young hitters do not even understand what you mean when you talk load. I run a training facility and I talk to them about the different types of loads but the one I stress or teach mainly is the slight inward turn of the front knee. I tell my hitters to simply lift up the heel of the front foot and slightly turn the front knee to the back knee. This allows the front hip to coil ever so slightly. When striding I teach them to take their hands straight back across their chest with a small inward turn of the front shoulder. By doing so it puts them in what I like to call " the power position" or "launch position".
>
> The biggest problem I run into when teaching young players the load is they generally have a tendancy to straighten their front leg which causes them at times to stand tall and to transfer most of their weight to the back leg. So make sure that when you teach the load that your hitters are keeping their legs flexed until contact at which time the front leg should be fully extended or almost fully extended.
>
> Hope this helps

>>My daughter is doing just that,front leg straightening and weight back on leg,I saw it on film to pick it up.I think posture at the waist straightens and takes the weight away from plate when this happens ,keeping the head and shoulders leaning a little towards the plate with the bent legs helps keep body in right position.
The problem with my son is that he is loading fine but also letting the bat start coming back out of the load so that at toe touch his bat is almost pointed at catcher,I do not know how he hits the ball as well as he does like this but it is causing some problems with consistency I believe.Any ideas on fixing this on a 9y.o.