Hitting - Contact and Follow Through

Introduction

The biggest issue with a poor follow through is it's often a sign that the hitter has stopped his swing prematurely. We want to increase bat speed and we swing the bat and as we contact the ball we want to drive through it. If we do that then we need a complete follow through to let our arms stop the bat naturally. A good follow through is a result of a good hard swing, if you don't have a good follow through then your cheating yourself out of a good swing.

Palm Up - Palm Down on Contact

Follow Through

The two points I want you to remember from this section are:

• Drive the bat through the ball. Act like there are 2 baseballs right behind the ball your hitting and you need to drive through all 3 to hit the ball hard. Try to continue to increase your bat speed during contact, don't stop the forward thrust on contact.
• Get in the habit of watching the ball to the point of contact and then keep your eyes on that point for a split second before you look up to see where it has gone.

Drill

In this drill we're going to place a soccer ball (check this drill) on the tee and we are going to take a good swing and hit the ball. The difference I want you to feel is how you have to swing through the soccer ball to get it to jump off the tee. You can't simply swing to it, you must swing through it. We need to get into this habit of swinging through the ball and completing a good follow through.

Conclusion

When is a home run a long fly ball out? Many times it's when you put a good swing on the ball but fail to accelerate and hit through the baseball!