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For Heaven’s Sake, Let’s Stop
Squishing the Bug When We Hit and Start Hitting With
Power!
A
Few Reasons Why That Old Teach Robs You of Precious
Hitting Power
by
Baseball Performance Coach, Bill Mooney
of the
BioForce Baseball Academy
Now
I realize when I talk about the old conventional
wisdom and myth about squishing the bug while
swinging the baseball bat in a negative light, I
might upset some people.
I’m not worried about upsetting people; I want to
help you become a better hitter.
Period.
Hang in there with me and follow my logic on why
this old teach actually hurts the power in your
swing and makes it difficult for you to adjust to
off-speed pitches.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not slamming the instructors
that use that teach. In fact, we’ve all seen this
teach on late night infomercials. And that’s exactly
what it is, just a teach. Some instructors believe
it is a hitting principle…or fundamental, but I’ll
show you it isn’t. These instructors are not bad
people; I just have found that using that logic of
squishing the bug won’t help you get better. And
here’s why.
Let’s Take a Look At Some Basic Hitting Mechanics
Now there are tons of books, DVD’s, and manuals on
hitting and pitching mechanics out there on the
internet, bookstores, and anywhere else you can find
these types of things. I’ll give you the quick and
dirty on hitting mechanics, and how the body works
when you hit a baseball well.
1)
First off, you need to have an athletic stance.
A well-balanced body will help you swing
aggressively and transfer your energy to the ball.
2)
To
transfer that energy,
you first need to generate some. How do we do that
in hitting? Well, getting your body weight going
towards the pitcher. Some major league hitters take
a big stride, others little or no stride. But, they
all get their momentum
going towards the pitcher.
3)
To
be consistent delivering the bat to
the ball, you need to keep that athletic stance in
place. The more you change your athletic stance, or
posture, while you swing, you leak energy and will
deliver the bat to the ball less consistently.
4)
There are only a couple of things I can think of
that the batter has control of during an at bat. If
he or she swings, and when they swing. So, our
fourth principle is your
timing mechanism. Your timing
mechanism is transferring your weight from back side
to front side. Your hands and shoulders should not
rotate before you transfer your weight to the front
side. For faster pitchers, you transfer the weight a
little early, for slower pitchers, a little later.
5)
My
fifth principle
is power. Once you’ve transferred your weight
forward, your hips should rotate before your
shoulders and hands do. This will generate
torque.
Torque is the separation of your shoulders and hips.
It’s like a big rubber band winding up. The big
muscles in the core of your body are winding up.
Those muscles will help you rotate your shoulders
faster and quicker which generates bat speed.
Funny thing though, when this happens, the better hitters
don’t have much or any weight on the rear foot. The
toe is touching the ground only. In some cases, the
foot is all the way off the ground. There’s no bug
squishing going on.
When you are aggressive with your torque, it will help you
firm up your front leg. A firm front leg helps you
control your momentum and also acts like a lever.
Something firm to hit against.
To me, squishing the bug says there is weight on the
back foot. If you look at the pictures above, there
is no weight on the back of the leg until well after
contact. The squishing the bug is an affect after
contact. A recoil after the energy has been
transferred to the front leg.
Staying back and keeping your weight on your back
leg is a very defensive approach to hit. I don’t
believe successful hitters are very defensive. They
are very offensive. They attack the pitcher. Heck,
the pitcher is attacking the hitter. Who’s going to
win that battle if one person is attacking and the
other is being defensive?
Isn’t it the great contact position we are looking
for anyway? If you get in that great position,
everything else will take care of itself.
To generate more power, you first need to generate
more energy. To generate more energy, you have to
transfer weight to the front leg.
I think the reason people teach the “stay back”
approach and squish the bug, is to stay away from
lunging. You know, that ugly swing where the hitter
looks like he is throwing the bat at the pitcher and
the body is lunging towards the mound.
The cause of the lunge is not the weight going
forward. A lunge happens when the hitter’s hips and
shoulders have already committed to swinging before
the ball is in the strike zone. Don’t commit the
shoulders and hips too early, and you will be fine.
Next time, we are going to talk about using this
technique of hitting to help you adjust to off-speed
pitches.
So, my suggestion is to not focus on the ending…the
squishing the bug. Focus on a great stance, attack
the ball with your lower half, make sure your
posture is steady and your shoulders and hands don’t
rotate before foot strike, and learn from your
finish. If your finish is well balanced, you’ve
probably kept your posture along the way.
Train like a champion today!
About the
Author
Bill Mooney
is the owner and lead instructor at the BioForce
Baseball Academy in Beaverton Oregon. Here’s what a
couple of former Major League Pitchers and Pitching
Coaches say about Bill Mooney and BioForce Baseball.
“Bill Mooney is one of few
pitching coaches in the nation who has been
Certified by The National Pitching Association and
Functional Fitness, Inc. I have found that Bill is
one of the finest young pitching coaches in the
country today. His knowledge and instruction are
the most up-to-date and progressive you’ll find.
With his knowledge, teaching skills and background
Bill does an outstanding job helping pitchers
perform at their peak and remain healthy.”
~ Dr. Tom House
Dr. Tom
House is a performance expert, Former Major League Pitcher,
and
Former Major League pitching coach. Current coach
and mentor to many star major league pitchers such
as Randy Johnson. Co-founder of the National
Pitching Association
“As
a former major league pitcher, pitching coach and
former coordinator of pitching for the Montreal
Expos/Washington Nationals, I am always searching
for information and instruction that can help me
improve. Most would guess that the best, most
informative teachings come out of the professional
game, but it has been my experience that the
instructors who have dealt with hundreds of kids
from all ages really have seen what works and
doesn’t work.
Such is the case for Bill Mooney and
BioForce Baseball Academy. Having watched him
interact and teach what we know today to be right, I
would not hesitate to allow him to work with our
pitchers. To place that trust in someone is the
highest compliment I can pay to a fellow pitching
coach. Without question, Bill Mooney is an
outstanding coach and one worth learning from and
training with.”
~ Brent Strom
Brent Strom
is a
former major league pitcher and former pitching
coach for the Houston Astros and Kansas City Royals
To find out more
about Bill and BioForce, go to the website
www.bioforcebaseball.com. To contact Bill, you can
email him at support@bioforcebaseball.com.
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