Jason Heyward Practices Perfect Hitting

Throughout his high school playing career Jason Heyward was always recognized as a prodigious baseball hitting talent. This recognition and the hype that began early in 2010 with his debut in the Major Leagues have proved to be legitimate.

Heyward has lived up to his reputation. He began his professional career by hitting a 3 run, home run on the first at bat of his MLS career for the Atlanta Braves against the Chicago Cubs. He has followed that first strike up with 7 more home runs and a batting average of .276 for the season.

Heyward has started his MLS career this way because throughout his youth league and high school playing career, he has practised perfect hitting mechanics.Below is some video of Heyward hitting at different stages as he advanced in the youth leagues, 2004, 2005 and 2006.



From the video we can see that Heyward from as early as 2004, has been taught and understood how to create power in his hitting by using his large body parts such as the hips, torso and shoulder and combining this with perfect timing.

On this site we call that the Kinematic Sequence. The kinematic sequence can be described in almost any hitting or throwing sport. By rotating the major body parts in sequence the hitter is able to create bat speed. The hitter starts in the wind up position, bat above the head shoulders and hips rotated away from the pitcher. He then begins the kinematic sequence by planting his front foot and unwinding in sequence, first the hips, followed by the torso and shoulders, then arms and finally the bat.

Each subsequent body part rotates quicker than the previous one until in the end the bat has accumulated all the speed from the sequence and can strike the ball with power created from the movement of the whole body and not just the arms, wrists and hands.

Lets break down Jason Hayward's swing and take a look at his mechanics and kinematic sequence.

These first 3 pics show Heyward at the load position in 2004, 2005 and 2006 (left to right). Notice how as he gets bigger and stronger he continues to maintain that loaded position of shoulder and hips facing away from the pitcher. This stance prepares his body like a compressed spring to release all the energy necessary.

As he moves through his swing we see that Heyward takes a step forward and drives with his hips first rotating them to face the pitcher while his shoulders, arms and bat remain behind. His shoulders and arms are beginning to rotate at this stage. By rotating his hips first he is using their rotational speed to increase the speed of his shoulder rotation which will follow.

Just before ball contact Heyward has now rotated his hips and his shoulders and now only the arms and bat need to hit maximum rotation speed. Each large body part has built on the speed of the previous one and thereby increased his bat speed. To get maximum speed he still needs to complete the swing by following through. His bent arms allow him to hit through the ball and follow through to maintain balance and control.



As we look through the video and the images, we notice that Heyward practiced perfect mechanics from as early as 2004 and probably before. His batting coaches made sure he used proper technique throughout his career. From 2004 to 2005 and 2006 and on to his MLB career he has continued to put together his swing using the kinematic sequence of events.

Of course there are other factors in Heywards past and possible future success. His size and strength (6'5", 240lb) are definite bonuses. However a powerful hitter will need to use all his most powerful muscles to have a long and successful and injury free career. In fact Heyward currently has a small groin strain but this is more likely the result of stretching for an outfield play rather than anything to do with his hitting. We hope to see Heyward continue to impress and as long as he maintains the perfectly practised mechanics we expect he will.

Practising perfect mechanics is an important element of training for any sport. It is very difficult for a good young athlete to change his bad habits after practising them for many years. Video analysis can help to pick out these bad habits and correct them at an early stage allowing your athletes and kids to practice good mechanics, avoid injuries and improve faster.

Video Analysis of Baseball Hitting

The only way to win in Baseball is to get some hits. Looking at the statistics of Major League Baseball, where most of the best players and hitters in the world play, we can see that hitting is more difficult than it looks. Babe Ruth for example had a career hitting average of .342, while this 2009 season Albert Pujols leads the MLB on hitting average of .333.

This means that Babe Ruth only hit a base hit or home run 34.2% of the times he was up for bat, while the best hitter in the MLB this season, Pujols has only hit 33.3% of the times he has been at bat. These hitting averages for the best players seem low, but we should also consider the challenges of hitting a baseball pitch and understand that hitting averages over 30% are in truth very good.

Here are some of the challenges:

1. The pitcher can throw a fast ball, slider, curve ball and many other variation. The hitter needs to read the pitch correctly to get a good hit.
2. As a strike will only be called if the ball is pitched in the strike zone, this is the best zone to swing the bat through. However the pitcher can try to fool the batter by pitching a ball that looks like it will go through the strike zone but then fades away or drops out of the zone.
3. Once the batter is able to make contact with the ball, he still needs to find a gap in the outfield so that he can run to first base and score his hit. This requires timing and control to get the ball into the gap.
4. Of course the ultimate is to hit a home run. This requires timing and power to hit the ball far enough and high enough to clear the outfielders and the fence.

Improving hitting mechanics can help a player improve his hitting average. Here we will take a look at some video of a young hitter at practice and discuss some of the important aspects of hitting.

Our hitter here is practising by hitting balls that are tossed up to him and therefore may not be falling in the strike zone but we can still examine his hitting technique.

The video camera in this instance has been set up so that we get a side on view of the hitter, this allows us to examine his stance, hips and shoulder rotation as well as take a look at his bat swing plane. Another aspect of this video that we like is that it is high definition. Unfortunately because the capture rate was around 30 frames per second it can be difficult to see the bat swinging through to track the swing plane but we have made our best effort to track this.

Taking a look at the swing itself, we can break it down as follows.

1. Our hitter loads up on energy for his swing by rocking back onto his back foot. This allows him to get ready to swing his bat at the ball.
2. He steps forward a little with his front foot. He does this to get good position on the pitch (or in this case toss) and to open up his stance and allow his hips to rotate through.
3. He rotates his hips and shoulders through to make contact with the ball.

Steps 1 and 2 in this case look good. Our hitter has setup well to hit, and he has moved his front leg toward the ball to open up his stance to get a good hit.

In order to create power though, we want to remind you about the kinematic sequence. We discussed the kinematic sequence when we talked about Tiger Woods' golf swing. The kinematic sequence is the sequence of events that creates the bat speed. To create good bat speed the hitter needs to rotate his hips, shoulders, hands and bat in that order, with each following segment moving faster than the previous segment.

Here is how it works. The hitter loads up to hit as can be seen in step 1. He then steps forward to open his stance. His hips now need to rotate through toward the ball, but his shoulders should remain behind. By rotating his hips and leaving his shoulders behind he creates potential energy. The shoulders then follow the hips, as the hands and bat are now left slightly behind and with potential energy. Finally with perfect timing the hands follow and then the bat, to hit the ball in the strike zone and with power and control.

In golf, the ball is not moving and so it is easier to practice the kinematic sequence. In baseball hitting the ball can be pitched with much variation and it can be much harder to get this timing correct. However in baseball we once again have a smallish strike zone as well as a a hitting angle of only 90 degrees (between 1st and 4th base), therefore the kinematic sequence must be employed in the same way.

We took some snap shots of our hitter at key moments to examine his hip and shoulder rotation more closely.In the first image we can see our player setup correctly. His weight has been moved to the back foot and his bat is nicely positioned


His pelvis alignment can be seen with the blue line, while his shoulder alignment is represented by the red line. At this point, prior to loading and before the actual swing starts, his pelvis and shoulders are aligned.



In this second image, we can see that our player has now rotated through and is ready to make contact with the ball. In this case we can see that his hips (blue line), shoulders (red line) and bat (white dot on yellow trajectory) are all already lined up. The timing of his kinematic sequence is a little too fast, his shoulders, hands and bat have caught up with his hips too early. To create optimal power, his shoulder rotation should be following his hips, his hands should be following his shoulders and his bat following his hands. The result of this mistiming is that our hitter will strike the ball early and with less power.

Our player though does swing through a nice arc with his bat (yellow trajectory). We can see that he keeps his arms extended through the swing. This allows him to increase his bat speed and follow through with the hit.

In a final thought, our player has a good swing. He loads up nicely, steps toward the pitch and swings his bat through well. His sequence timing may be a little too quick, but this may also be because the ball is being tossed up to him rather than pitched and he has to reach for it outside the strike zone.

Baseball hitting and pitching lends itself well to video analysis, because the athlete is standing in one spot and hitting or throwing. So get your cameras out and make sure to follow the rules for setting up to capture good video for analysis and you will be able to analyze your hitting or pitching in much the same way as we have done here.

We would like to thank Mike and Aaron Kocourek for this video.