Posted by: coach13 (halour@netscape.net) on Tue Jun 13 07:32:40 2006

> I have a 12 year old with pretty good rotational swing mechanics, but he is currently anxious and consistently starts his swing too early. If he is just slightly early, he swings through the ball and pulls it just foul at 3rd base, with a good rotational swing. If he is way too early and recognizes it, he slows his upper body, but his hips are already spent and his front knee is locked, causing his swing to go linear. On middle/in pitches he'll get jammed, and on low/away pitches all he can do at that point is drop the barrel on the ball and he pops up to the right side. I am looking for suggestions to help him with his timing.

Hi Chuck

A timing drill that I use that has been quite effective is using tennis balls. Here is how the drill works. The coach throws tennis balls so that they bounce off the floor up to the batter. The batter times his inward turn with the bounce of the ball on the floor.