Practicing the one-handed or the one-arm drill helps you perfect swinging off the tee. You should use a plastic bat or a wood bat when teaching children the one-arm hitting drills. The reason we do not start with real bats is they are too heavy to be manipulated by children and it can start dipping and, worse, hurt the kids.

With regards to size of the bat – it depends on what works, really. You should know, however, that if you use a bat with a small diameter, then it will get more difficult to hit. A small bat and a relatively big ball could work – but if you are using a smaller ball and a small bat, then it becomes challenging pretty quickly: not a

The one arm drill is the best starting point when practicing the offense progression. The goal is to understand what each hand does when you swing.

The coach makes the trainees understand the mechanics of the swing by making them go down on one knee and make their swings. The goal is to make them understand, or at least try to understand, the movements their forearms go through to make the swing. A good swing employs the shortest path to the ball and that is your goal whenever you swing – which is what the one arm swing really teaches you.

Depending on what situation you play softball in, the distance may vary-in college it’s 43 feet. The first half of the ball’s travel towards you is the period you have to gather information. At this point, your eyes are gathering the information about the travel – checking the ball’s strike, watching the ins and outs, ups and downs and making calculations so quick you don’t even realize you are making them.

The second half sees the hitter getting ready to make a decision. It is easy to see here that the first half influences the second and plays a significant role in determining the quality of a hit.

Important information: a player only requires 15 feet to swing and hit the ball forward – the extra 28 feet is, in a manner of speaking, your arm-room’s leg room. It is important to understand this because a lot of players in the beginning tend to hit the ball too early. The greatest players can hit all fields using hard shots.

The forearm is the key – and you need to get comfortable with your one-arm swing before you can really get better at much else. For people finding it difficult to understand this concept, a good exercise to embark upon is throwing a Frisbee. It will show you immediately that the way to throw- and ultimately, the way to swing – is by driving your elbow forward first, before the rest of your hand follows. If your elbows are away from your body- or your wrists are out- the Frisbee will go in an alternate direction. The Frisbee will help you understand the principle of ‘Elbow Forward First.’

The One-Arm Hitting Technique

This basically consists of your trainee going down on one knee and working on four points of their swing: the shoulders, elbows, wrists and the follow-through. Your torso remains straight on the tee the entire time you are performing this motion. Players should understand the importance of not tiring mid-swing and letting their arms drop off and cause a dipping in their barrel. It will make it a lot more difficult to hit the ball on the tee.

Players should understand that the swing moves from high to low before making contact. When making your swings and follow-throughs, your torso stays in position, if you find your upper body moving along the line of your arm’s swing, you haven’t done it right.

Always remember: elbow and wrists, elbow and wrists – the shoulders are a given.

Start with the front arm relative to your kneeling stance. Once you have gotten some practice done there, you should switch to the back arm and keep your back arm and wrist firm so you can maintain the barrel higher than your hands and slightly above your head. If the player’s hand dips on and before the swing they would not be able to hit the ball on the tee.

The best way to have this grip is to focus on the little pad area on the edge of your palm, between your thumb and index finger. That is the point you want to apply the pressure on for a firm grip. Apply good pressure, but do not make it the clench of death.

You want to do this over and over, practicing in a small area, and it will feel like you are in the zone with a fly swatter. You have to maintain eye contact with both the ball and your intended destination for your ball. Keep your eyes on the tee and you know when the ball arrives there that you have kept everything in focus.

Quick Review: Tips To Improve Your One-Arm Hitting Technique

#1- Pay attention to your grip

Remember – you apply pressure when gripping the bat, but the pressure comes from your fingers, not your palms. Grip the bat with the part of your fingers where calluses form. Place your top hand against the bottom and let them line up in a straight line. You should not cross your hands. Hold the bat loosely – not tightly – and ensure that your wrists are flexible.

#2 – The relative position of your hand to your body

Your hands should be close to your body (2-3 inches away from your chest and between your shoulders.) Your elbows should be pointing downwards and your shoulders should be free and tensionless. You can use the Power Alley technique – moving your arms back and forth through your hands and shoulders – to relax your body as you get ready to swing.

#3 – The swing starts with the legs

Always remember – your swing begins with your legs and your hips. During this time, your hands and shoulders are still staying put. You should be resting and pushing off against the ball of your back foot as the softball begins to near the plate.

#4 – Keep Contact Opposite the Front Hip

For a down-the-middle pitch, the contact spot is opposite your front hip. This is the position where the player gives the maximum energy on their hit. If, however, your contact is intended for inside-pitch game play, this will occur much sooner, in front of your body and your hips should open up earlier than during the pitch down the middle.

#5 – Your Follow- Through

Your swing must continue past the point of hitting the ball and swing in its natural arc. After hitting the ball, you should let your arms extend, your wrists roll over, and end the swing with your hand close to your front shoulder and your chin grazing your back shoulder. Keep your weight on your front leg, back shoulder. Your hip and knees should remain aligned.

These tips should help the beginner hitter get ready for their offensive position and improve on their current hitting strength. One-arm hitting gets you ready for the offensive play and it’s all about mastering the power of the fore arm.

Sometimes it’s not that you aren’t good at hitting the ball when playing softball – it could simply be that your coach is not really communicating to you the important things to look out for and concentrate on during a game or training session.

In this article, we are going to keep it simple and break down the mechanics of a good softball hit into three easy to nibble steps, then work our way from there. Combine your understanding of the principles with your practice and your hitting will improve faster than you would expect!

What’s the Best Softball Progression for In-Game Play?

When you are playing – especially competitively – the best coaches will tell you that the offensive progression is always the best way to go. No matter how complicated and ‘trademarked’ your swing might get, it can be broken down to two rudimentary steps:

1. Above the belt, and
2. Below the belt.

This is a no-brainer, of course, but remembering this is the first step to understanding what goes into a good swing.

Although there are several areas to the swing, it is good for you as a beginner to understand three key phases or areas of the offensive swing. Once you figure these three out, your skills will improve significantly!

Before you go into the three phases of the swing, you – the player – must be in a good athletic position.  You should be standing upright with your feet far apart from each other to give you a solid base, good enough for you to swing.

The Three Phases of Your Softball Bat Swing

A sweet softball offensive progression is made up primarily of the following three things:

1. The stride: This requires you to get in position. Your left leg should be in front of and away from you, with the right bending inwards a little in readiness for the hip snap.
2. When you are at the hip snap (or, the pivot) point, you are now pushing your body in the direction of your left leg, with the right hip ‘snapping’ you in that direction.
3. The swing itself. At this point, you are totally rested on your left leg and only the tip of your right foot touches the ground.

A good coach quickly makes his team understand these terms so that communication can be easier and smoother going forward. That way, he can walk up to you and say, ‘hey, Mike, watch it – you are over-striding’ and Mike, understanding the term, corrects his balance for a better swing.

As soon as the learning softball player can understand where he/she is doing it wrong with the swing, they can make the corrections quicker, better and with an amazing presence of mind.

To reiterate: a good coach is one where his players can break down each part of their play and explain each part of their actions.

Getting Deeper Into the Components of a Good Swing (and the Mechanics)

Remember: the key to hitting beautifully is to understand the steps that go into a good swing. We will now take a more granular look into this.

By now you realize that the first thing to do is to step into the box and get in a good athletic position with a wide enough base to keep your balance.

Have a good grip on the bat handle, and lift it up so the bat now rests over the back of your shoulder. Align your knuckles on the bat, grip it properly but allow for a little fluidity. If you are properly positioned, you should look like a towering letter ‘A’ with your elbows down. Is that how you look right now? Awesome!

With your elbows still bended, lift the barrel of the bat from your shoulders. What you are doing right now is putting the bat in its launching position. A little note here: your end goal should be to put the bat in the best launching position possible, and to do this you should ensure that the bat can follow a good arc by swinging from slightly above your shoulders instead of vertically with your body.

When the ball is hurtling towards you, you should be positioned thus: your knees slightly bent, your bat in the position of best possible launch, your shoulders slightly hunched and pointing in the direction of the pitcher. Your eyes should be focused on nothing but the ball. Your arms should be comfortable.

The muscles that take care of your hitting are all in the front. Your pectorals, the torso, your inner thighs and your wrists – the whole works. They are in the front parts of your body. If you find yourself using a lot of the muscles in your lower back and back shoulders, then you have gotten the posture wrong. It could be bad for your health and also lead to subpar hits.

A good coaching tip for when your players are using the wrong muscles is to use relaxing techniques. When players are stiff and nervous, they tend to employ the wrong muscles during their play.

Your barrel is ready to swing when your stride heel is completely on the ground – this is usually the left foot for most people. As soon as the stride heel is planted firmly in the ground, you can now take your swing.

There is some debate about which stride is better: the pre-stride or the traditional stride? I find that either stride has its utility and we cannot honestly argue in favor of one over the other. The key is to be consistent, no matter the stride you choose. Do not swap around strides too much – it’ll leave you the worse for it.

When you take the swing, you will notice your hips actually snap open. Actually, this is not something most players will notice –why should they, after all? They are in the heat of a glorious swing! But if the swing is slowed down, you can see it – a slight lifting of the heels and an opening snap of the hips as the barrel comes whooshing through the air.

Depending on where you want to aim your ball, it’s a useful technique to imagine a flashlight around your navel level beaming out. When you swing, allow the muscular contraction from your lower abdomen work for you: swing your body in the direction you are aiming for with your arc and follow through on it. This might take a while, but you will get it soon enough.

Timing is essential. You need the ball on time to hit the ball powerfully enough to hit it significantly enough. If you hit too early or too late, you lose power in your swing.

With your swing, too, there are three phases: contact, extension, and the follow-through. At the time your bat barrel hits the ball, you have not actually extended. The extension comes right afterward when you stretch your hands to the max before continuing the swing to the other side of your body on the follow-through.

These are the keys to making a good swing. To perfect your swing, you will need a lot of practice, of course, with a large number of contact drills, front-toss drills, tee drills, side-toss drills and actual battling practices with other team mates.