Posted by: Joe Hernandez (coach2hit@yahoo.com) on Tue Jun 27 15:05:12 2006

> > my son is a good hitter,he is 9, he wants to lunge sometimes,is there any good drills,to help him stay back on the ball
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> A drill that I use that corrects this is this. Take a glove and push it down the bat until it is near the barrell head, have your son throw the bat behind him where the catcher would be. If your son lunges when he does this drill it will be very difficult to throw the bat behind him. Since most of his weight will end up on his front foot.
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> Hope this helps

Hi Hilour@nescape.com,

You say your son is a good hitter and that it is only "sometimes" that he wants to "lunge". This is key, because it is not a consistent problem or a habit that is imbedded in his muscle memory. He is hitting good, so be careful of trying to "fix" something that is not "broken". Remember, he is nine years old and you want to be careful of not "over-instructing".

It is very typical for young children to fall into a habit of releasing forward too soon, even when they take a short stride. A good tip-off is when they swing but seem to have to hold up and then restart. But this is not your boy's problem...he only does it sometimes. When? Perhaps it is just on certain pitches, or with certain pitchers (those with a s-l-o-w delivery, hence he gets eager).

I'm not big on "drills" done in isolation. It's one thing to use a drill to learn a fundamental move or aspect of hitting, it is another thing to constantly use different drills in a robotic-kind-of-way and then try to string it all together to teach the fundamentals of hitting. Sports science shows that the sooner you get "sports specific" the better. In other words, try to teach your son how not to lunge while actually swinging the bat.

Try the following while having batting practice...just have him hit to the opposite field for a while(!)...it is a very simple method and automatically it will make him "stay back" and wait a bit better. The added advantage of this is that it is very sport specific and it is done sequentially as part of his swing. If you don't get results with this after really giving it a try, then an alternative "cure" is for him to try to keep his front shoulder pointing at each pitch until he feels he cannot wait any longer before swinging. Keeping his shoulder pointing at each pitch will aid in preventing him from opening up (uncoiling), too early.

Try both of these techniques and see if one gives you better result than the other...or perhaps together it will do the job. Just keep it on the upbeat, with lots of encouragement, don't make a big deal about it and remember that it takes a lot of repetition to learn a new habit, more when you need to break an old habit. But like I said, it does not appear to be a big problem...he is still learning. Even the pros don't do everything "right" in their swings...many will on occasion still lunge.

My Best,

Joe Hernandez