Ever began coaching a team and wondered what to work on and in what order? Where to begin? How fast to progress? Considering the complexity of becoming a great hitter, these are tough questions.
These problems are solved for you in Building a High Level Swing: A Step-by-Step Coaching Guide to Training Great Ballplayers for Baseball and Fast Pitch Softball.
The good news is that becoming a great hitter is not reserved for a preordained few. By following the BRS training plan dreams of being one of the best at hitting a baseball or softball really will become a reality!
Whether you are a coach, a player, or parent looking to coach your son or daughter, Building the High Level Swing walks you through the process, systematically, for creating a swing built for power and productivity which will dominate at high school and college levels.
In the Building the High-Level Swing series (Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4) Building Rome Series (BRS) defines a proven process, a functional path, or "road map" for the training of baseball and fast pitch softball players. A process which coaches, parents and players of all ages can believe and have faith in, even through the proverbial highs and lows associated with sports skill development.
Building the High Level Swing is the most detailed, all inclusive guide to hitting ever written. Hitting terms and the various hitting strategies used by accomplished hitters are precisely defined. No hitting topic is left uncovered, including today's productivity maximizing optimization of ball exit speed, attack angles and launch angles.
Universal Fundamentals
To become a great hitter, the first task is to figure out what expert performers' do that makes them so good. The single biggest problem with developing hitters trying to learn to hit is their lack of understanding of what they are trying to achieve. If the inexperienced hitter has poor concepts they will simply get better at doing the wrong things.
BRS has done this work for you. Building the High-Level Swing, Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4 identifies and describes what the best hitters do. These movements, executed by all great hitters, are classified as Universal fundamentals.
Fit to Player Techniques
The swings of successful hitters vary substantially in many non-universal aspects. Each player has different strengths and weaknesses, physically and mentally. Some swing styles are more natural and a better "fit" for some hitters.
A primary goal of Building the High-Level Swing, Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4 is to adjust the multitude of these non-universal techniques to be a good Fit to Player. BRS examines contrasting hitting strategies and a wide range of swing options, and then recommends how to best fit these choices to the individual athlete to maximize success.
The Plan
In Volumes 1 and 2 the architectural plan follows the creation of the chain of energy from its beginning, as the hitter makes the first move out of their stance, then link by link all the way to the end of the kinetic chain as the hitter completes their swing upon follow-through. Upon completion of Volume 1 and 2 the hitter will swing with their personal maximum bat speed.
In Volume 3 Increase Productivity the architectural plan identifies methods, with each method "building" on the prior, to increase the percentage of hard hit balls and base hits. Volume 3 Increase Productivity begins with Timing. Then the hitter constructs Basics for Quality At Bats, Locations, Off Speed and Movement, and finally Mental, Strategic, and Situational approaches. The goal of Volume 3 is to bring the maximum bat speed to the ball more productively.
