Lower Half / Hip Coil Load Drill

We have all seen the young player who swings hard and finishes with their feet flat, their heels having never left the ground, without any good hip rotation.  We ask them to look down after their swing, and they see their feet pointing into the opposite batters box.  But how do we fix this?

Some players simply use all arms and fail to generate much of any power from the ground and their hips and legs.  In our first practice, I have already seen this in a few of our 13 year olds, and I knew I wanted to try and teach this in a new way.

Last winter, my son trained with Jamar Hill in Anchorage, and Jonny Homza was working out with some of his fellow White Sox organization teammates.  They were working on coiling into their back hip and launching into balls, hitting them with some serious torque, high into the Dome netting.  Jamar also noted that my son’s swing could benefit from more lower half “coil”, so I started to ponder the idea of “hip coil” in the load portion of the swing.

Coach Cathcart (Baseball Doctor) does the best job I have seen, online, demonstrating how to practice a good “coil” and load.  We will be incorporating these drills into our cage sessions, emphasizing sinking into our back hips during our load, without closing our front shoulder to the pitcher, while minimizing head movement, and leaking out on the back knee.

Justin Stone is a master of explaining / diagnosing swing flaws and, in particular, how to properly address the issue of failing to get the most out of our lower half.  His continuous pitch drill does a great job of addressing this issue.