Posted by: Dave P () on Fri Mar 16 10:35:50 2007

> I have been teaching the rotational hitting mechanics to my players
> (13 & 14 year olds) for the last three weeks.
>
> I video recorded them and checked their mechanics.
> They appear to be doing well (despite a few imperfections) during
> practice.
> They would hit off the coach and they would hit off our two
> pitching machines.
>
> During a scrimmage game last night though, they kept missing the ball and some would fall back to bad mechanics.
>
> I am frustrated since I worked so hard with them.
> Even the ones that apparently kept their mechanics were missing the ball.
>
> Is this psychological or what?
>
> What drills can I do to get them to calm down and hit the ball?
>
> I am opened to suggestions.
>
> p.s. I do not yell at them so the stress is not coming from me. :-)

Hi Alex

What you saw from the first scrimmage is normal. It takes thousands of reps to solidify muscle memory and as the difficulty of the task increases the more likely an individual will go back to old habits as hand-eye coordination dominates muscle coordination. As for the ones that maintain mechanics they to will go back to old habits if not reminded to continue to fail using new mechanics until they start to see success. When you learn new mechanics it takes time and reps at each level of difficulty to attain success.

First you learn off a tee, then off soft toss, then off faster pitches, then off a machine and then finally off live pitching. The faster and more movement the live pitching is the more difficult the task.

Stress that you see is due to the difficulty of the task. Just think back to when you have a difficult task to handle at work or on a ball field the more stress is present just in doing the task.

Good luck and try to use this statement with the players. Work on doing proper mechanics and teach yourself to hit the ball.

Dave P