Our hitting system is different from any other program I am familiar with. Instead of forcing hitters to hit and move a certain way, we focus on identifying how each hitter makes his outs and then prescribe drills that will eliminate some of those outs. By the time an athlete is 11 or 12 years old his body has already told him how he wants to stand, how he wants to move, etc. So it is important not to change that but rather to work within what he already does. Our system has worked with 100% of the kids we have worked with ! We know that if a hitter hits .300, he makes 7 outs every 10 times at bat.
When a hitter fails he is either too fast or two slow. There are 4 ways of being too fast, and 4 ways of being too slow, that’s it. Every hitter has at least one way of being too fast and one way of being too slow. Once we identify how a hitter makes his outs we can draw from a huge drill database and prescribe drills that will hopefully eliminate at least 1 of his 7 outs thus allowing the hitter to hit .400!
For example, one way of being too slow is Uppercutting. There are 17 causes for Uppercutting. Depending on which of the 17 causes are prevalent we can draw from a huge database of drills and prescribe drills that immediately improve the swing! We honestly believe that we have done that with pretty much every hitter we have ever worked with but if we could work with a .300 MLB hitter we would only need to do half that well and he would be a Hall-of-Famer (.350).
The keys to our Hit Doctor System are:
- We must see game at bats in order to make accurate assessments as to how the hitter makes his outs in games. Amateur players very seldom swing the same in games as they do in lessons when the pitcher isn’t trying to get them out. Our job is to help the hitter improve his performance in games. Who cares what he can do in a cage? You must train based on the game At Bats.
- Each hitter has 13 physical preferences as well as visual skill differences. By the time a player seeks out instruction his body has already figured out how it wants to move. Changing that to a “new way to stand, move, and swing” is almost always wrong . Any cookie-cutter system makes most hitters worse, not better.
- It would be easy if we could tell every player to hit like “so-and-so.” Unfortunately that is a recipe for disaster. No two great hitters look alike, they are all originals.
They are doing what their bodies tell them to do. Their body preferences and visual skills are all different, plus many of their skills are off the charts exceptional!
Be yourself.
I have worked with hundreds of thousands of hitters and they were all different but I can honestly say I think they all got considerably better because we coached them individually .
Want to know more about how to hit and pitch like a pro? Visit my website at https://thehitdoctorusa.com/
Get exclusive expert training drills from the founder of The Hit Doctor USA, Coach Joe Barth.
📝 Sign up now and get your first insider tip right in your inbox!