It costs me $10 per session in the building, so please have your player come with $15 for me at the first building practice – I will use this to pay for the bulk of our time upfront so that I do not need to waste time collecting and noting money before each practice.

Practice Agenda 01.07.17
1. Stretch
a. Static -Elbow cross, shoulder pull, interlocked hands up, nose on knee.
b. Dynamic – Knee hug, heel hug, deep shuffle squats, forward deep lunge with bat above head, 30 second plank, wall stands.

2. WM Throwing, Fielding & Tagging

3. 84’ 10 ¼” – We will set up a target 84’ 10 ¼”, a coach will stand 43’ feet away from home and throw a pitch to players at Homeplate. We will time and judge throws to the target. Each player will throw 3×. Why? We have 2 catchers, but I want to see what else we have so that those two don’t always need to catch (if possible). Talk about foot work and equal and opposite arms.

4. Talk about hitting technique evolution.

5. To be successful at hitting, you need 5 things – timing, tracking, mechanics, strength and mental. You need all to succeed, so you need to focus on all areas.

6. Discussion about hitting technique – A kinetic chain is the notion these joints and segments have an effect on one another during movement — when one is in motion, it creates a chain of events that affects the movement of neighboring joints and segments. My technique, and what I think should be OUR technique is as follows:
a. Back heel weight transfer allows us to stay balanced and transfer the weight stack to the top of the back hip.
b. Upon weight transfer to back foot, we start front leg gradual leg kick.
c. At top part of leg kick, we transfer load to top of back hip.
d. Don’t think about hands, but vertical stack is heel > hip > hands.
e. Hands coil at hip load, coil like snake, opposite of tension.
f. Tension at apex of load – right before heel touch muscles between shoulder tense up, think of a rubber band pulling the barrel behind your back. Note when the bat is cocked and ready, the bat should be at near 45 degrees and the view from the front should be the bat is in middle of head.
g. Front-side mechanics, front elbow is bent at 45 degrees and at chin level.
h. Back elbow is pointing down as we fire back shoulder and back hip to ball.
i. Front palm down, back palm up throughout the entire swing INCLUDING follow-thru which should end with hands near chin level.
j. We don’t pivot on back foot, we leverage off back foot.
k. Our goal is connection infront of body, in front of plate.
l. Think DAMAGE at all times.

7. Tee work – to work on OUR hitting technique:
a. Flamingo- Front leg 90 degrees hold for 3 seconds, plant heel, explode.
b. To ball, Thru ball – not away from ball or up. Load, to contact point, and extend thru. Crucial to get off back foot and front elbow is up by mouth, front hand pointing toward 2B position (righties), extends up palm up palm down.
c. Click Stick – casting or extending arms before contact point is power death. Bat needs to click at contact, soft-toss tennis balls with click stick bat.
d. Step up – start back with both shoulders facing tee, step with front leg, step with back leg, plant heel, leverage off back foot.
8. Gauntlet – 3 minute intervals – Wall sits, jump rope, 3 sets of 10 pushups, leg plank, 3 up and down wrist rolls, 3 sets of 30 second DB raise. Those who make it thru, hit in net.

10. Finish with one of the following:
a. Soft-toss challenge – one batter, 3 soft-toss wiffleballs. Fielders lined up by twos. If hit ball gets past 1st set of fielders and doesn’t get caught in air = 1 point. If ball gets past all fielders = 2 points, if ball gets stopped by first fielders or is caught in air by any fielders, or hits side walls = out. Most points win.
b. Gotcha – 2 teams, 1 target, first side throws, upon ball release, other side throws, hit target, next teammates steps in to throw. First team all the way through wins.