Please help me with my daughter’s swing 10u

[Toansem]

Please help me with my daughter’s (10 yo) swings. She completed her first season with 10u spring rec team and will do summer for the first time. (She started with 8u rec spring of 2020 and abruptly ended the season due to Covid‘s sheltering in place. We only returned this year so it was almost a fresh restart.) I don't know much about softball so any tips would be greatly appreciated. The actual swinging starts at 15 sec. Thank you.

 

[Hawk_]

Honestly... not bad at all for a little one.

 

[Eric F]

She looks strong and athletic, and uses her body better than a lot of new/young players.

However, her swing is primarily arm-powered, with her arms swinging the bat around her torso. I'm seeing her pull her hands down and flatten the barrel behind her in order to swing the bat parallel with the ground, at the level of the ball. We have sometimes referred to this as DBSF (Drop the Barrel, Swing Flat). As we see in your DD, the DBSF pattern also typically includes bat drag. These are not part of a high-level swing. When she starts facing faster pitching in the future, the DBSF pattern will start making it harder for her to deliver the barrel to contact on time.

One of the things we want to do is take the arms out of the swing, and power the bat with the much more powerful muscles of the lower body and core. The rear shoulder delivers the hands, and the hands work out-from the rear shoulder, with the bat pivoting around the hands. Turn the barrel around a hand pivot point. Here's a video I like for learning about these ideas...


Another important concept is a tilted swing plane. In a good swing, the plane of the swing is not parallel with the ground, it's tilted. The tilt will vary depending on the location of the pitch - higher pitch, less tilt/lower pitch, more tilt. Also, the swing plane works in parallel with the angle of the shoulders, and perpendicular to the angle of the spine...


One of my favorite softball hitters exemplifying these ideas...


All this said, she's young and the road ahead is long. 10yos aren't expected to have swing mechanics that match the best in the game, but using the best in the game as a target to work towards, we can keep the hitter improving on a path that will keep her successful as she develops and faces more challenging competition.

 

[Dabears17]

@Eric F - Good to see you using my favorite 3B as one of your examples. What do you think of Matt Antonelli's stuff? My DW works with hitters some on DD's HS team and has been using some of Matt's drills.

 

[Eric F]

@Eric F - Good to see you using my favorite 3B as one of your examples. What do you think of Matt Antonelli's stuff? My DW works with hitters some on DD's HS team and has been using some of Matt's drills.

Matt has a lot of good info, IMO. I haven't seen anything of his that I object to.

 

[Toansem]

Thank you for all your inputs. I’ll study those videos and hopefully be able to understand and help her with the tips.
Is part of her bent front leg also due to not using her hips to drive the ball but her arms?

 

[Eric F]

Thank you for all your inputs. I’ll study those videos and hopefully be able to understand and help her with the tips.
Is part of her bent front leg also due to not using her hips to drive the ball but her arms?

Yes. She is very upper-body dominant, and hasn't learned how to swing with her lower body.

 

[Toansem]

I tried to get my DD turn the barrel and use her lower body more. The ball is being driven farther than before. She also reports her outer right thigh hurts the next day. please comment if her swing is better or worse than before. Thank you.

 

[Shawn]

No scap pinch, no unloading. The spirals can’t stretch if both ends aren’t used.

To much arms, not enough hands/forearms.

She loads and then unloads.

 

[Cornbread]

Front toss swing looks better than tee swing. Tell whoever is front tossing to slow down! Let her get ready to hit then flip it. She’s having to rush everything. She overloads in the tee swing and gets stuck on backside. Start with this simple but very effective drill