Positioning the Feet to Hit a Baseball

Series Summary

Baseball is a sport played with a bat and a ball. In baseball, there are two teams of nine players each, and the goal of is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged ninety feet apart at the corners of a diamond. Offensive players take turns hitting while the defense tries to stop them from scoring runs by getting hitters out in a number of different ways. A player on offense can stop at any of the bases and try to score on a teammate's hit ball. The teams switch between offense and defense whenever the team on defense records three outs. One turn on offense for each team makes an inning, and nine innings make up a professional game. The team with the most runs at the end of the game is the winner.

Hitting a baseball is often referred to as one of the most difficult things to do in all of sports. While no one can hit the ball for you, there are a number of tips and techniques that can be followed to put you in a better position to put the ball in play. In this free video series, a hitting instructor will teach you about positioning basics before taking a swing in baseball. You'll learn how to create a solid base, how to hold the bat, and where to put the feet in a batter's box. You'll also learn about timing, how to move the feet properly, and how to rotate your hips in a swing. With these hitting tips, you'll be knocking home runs out of the park in no time!

Video Transcript

"Today we are going to talk about the basics of a swing and creating a solid base. Now when you're creating a solid base, what you want to do is, first start out, keep your feet a little bit wider than shoulder width apart. As you see mine are maybe 3 - 4 inches on each side, outside of my shoulders. This enables you to have free movement of your hips, of your legs, things like that. Now when we're going to come to, whether it's an open stance, a closed stance, straight away, it's more of a personal preference, it really does not have a lot of discrimination as to how good of a hitter you're going to be or making contact with the ball. I personally like a slightly open stance, which means that my left foot is just a 1/4 - 1/2 inch behind my right foot. I feel that this is more comfortable for me. Now the key to this, is making sure that you can bend your knees a little bit, you know you have up and down, all that and that you can rotate on your back foot. This is kind, this is what's going to create your solid base when your driving through the ball with your hand. The most important part of hitting is, the base right here. It's your quads, your hips, your abs. Making sure you can turn through like that. Those are the keys to creating a solid base."