with Tony Abbatine,
Founder, Frozen Ropes;
2018 USA Softball National Team Coaching Staff - overseeing the mental and visual skills;
Has worked with the New York Mets, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Colorado Rockies, and the Los Angeles Dodgers as a player development department consultant;
Adjunct College Professor, Sports Psychology, St. Thomas Aquinas College;
author of numerous articles on player development featured in: Sports Illustrated, ESPN, USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Baseball America and various television media.
Build an elite level swing by keeping things simple! Efficient swings have few holes for opposing pitchers to exploit. Tony Abbatine offers a clear progression of hitting drills to develop top-tier baseball or softball hitters.
Coach Abbatine provides several drills important to developing consistency while minimizing over-coaching and over-complicating hitting. This drill series does a great job of isolating various swing flaws, helping players understand the best fixes available while maintaining a commitment to the full process of hitting.
Utilizing Drills
While drills can be an important part of practice and development, coaches have to understand how to use them effectively to truly help the player develop to their maximum ability. Coach Abbatine presents a quick overview of his hitting style, and then goes in-depth about how he uses drills to teach these principles. Each drill that Abbatine shares has purpose, and every one builds on the drill before to give players the greatest chance at development.
In addition to offering a proven teaching style, Abbatine also shares details of how to best evaluate hitters. These techniques are critical for evaluation in the recruitment process and in player development.
Barrel Control Drills
The core of Coach Abbatine's hitting philosophy is getting the barrel to the ball. He introduces a three-drill progression he uses to help teach barrel control - an essential element of hitting. The Punch, Rifle, and Sword drills each take the swing one step further until the hitter is taking almost a full swing, focusing on controlling the barrel.
Hitting Drills
Coach Abbatine opens his library of hitting drills to the viewer. While his drills address all aspects of the swing, most of them help the hitter to keep things simple. Using this resource, learn how to develop a complete hitter that is dangerous even against the most effective pitching. You'll see:
- Selfie drills that allow hitters to work individually, warm up, and develop coordination.
- Body Control drills to help hitters develop consistency in their mechanics from stride, to launch point, to finish.
- Hand position drills that help hitters develop an appropriate launching point and barrel control.
Abbatine provides an informative resource for developing hitters that is simple and educational. This video is great for both novice and professional coaches, as well as any player seeking improvement in their hitting!
56 minutes. 2018.
SD-05327B:
with Tony Abbatine,
Founder, Frozen Ropes;
2018 USA Softball National Team Coaching Staff - overseeing the mental and visual skills;
Has worked with the New York Mets, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Colorado Rockies, and the Los Angeles Dodgers as a player development department consultant;
Adjunct College Professor, Sports Psychology, St. Thomas Aquinas College;
author of numerous articles on player development featured in: Sports Illustrated, ESPN, USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Baseball America and various television media.
The first and possibly the most important part of hitting success is the visual ability of the batter. The visual component of hitting involves so much more than 'see the ball, hit the ball.'
Tony Abbatine explains the mechanics and strategies to put your players' eyes in a better position to see the ball. Through 10 drills, he shows you how to improve athletes' ability to see pitches, pitch rotations, and pitch locations to become the best performer possible in the batter's box.
Visual Mechanics and Strategies
Learn the mechanics and strategies that will allow your players to see the ball earlier, longer and clearer. For example, you will learn how to relax the eyes to pick up on more visual cues that the opponent's pitcher gives out. Coach Abbatine suggests a few physical mechanics that may be making it more difficult to see, and gives easy-to-remember cues to put your eyes in the best position to see.
Visual Drill Work
Limited space and resources? Coach Abbatine teaches three easy-to-use visual drills that can be done anywhere. Learn to catch without moving the head, and allow the eyes to do the work with No Look drills that force hand-eye coordination to advance. J-line drills force hitters to recognize and actively train the eyes and brain to react quickly to pitches.
Visual Cage Work
Combine vision work and hitting for the ultimate visual benefit. Coach Abbatine introduces seven drills that incorporate the skill of hitting while the focus stays on the eyes and seeing the ball better. Make a foundational drill that you already do, like hitting off the tee, more realistic and effective! Abbatine also shows some variations of flips and tosses that will give them more of a visual component.
A perfect mechanical swing is almost worthless if you don't have good visual skills. Coach Abbatine gives you the visual strategies and drills to help players see better without having to visit the optometrist!
70 minutes. 2018.
SD-05327C:
with Tony Abbatine,
Founder, Frozen Ropes;
2018 USA Softball National Team Coaching Staff - overseeing the mental and visual skills;
Has worked with the New York Mets, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Colorado Rockies, and the Los Angeles Dodgers as a player development department consultant;
Adjunct College Professor, Sports Psychology, St. Thomas Aquinas College;
author of numerous articles on player development featured in: Sports Illustrated, ESPN, USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Baseball America and various television media.
At the higher levels of baseball and softball, physical skills don't separate the good from the great players; it's the player's mental skills that are usually the greatest differentiator. Most coaches don't spend enough time on mental skills, often because they don't understand the mental game or how to teach mental game.
Tony Abbatine, who is also a professor of sport psychology, guides you through the understanding of mental dominance. He provides proven techniques for reducing stress and anxiety and also shares what Hall of Fame-level players do mentally to create the best chance to perform.
Weapons of Mental Dominance
Coach Abbatine introduces you to the nine "Weapons of Mental Dominance" that help players identify their personal readiness for success. These techniques are the building blocks of a routine that allows players to perform at their best, even in the most pressure-packed situations. He provides specific approaches to improve players in the areas of controlled breathing, mental imagery, positive self-talk, and goal setting. These are all techniques that coaches know are important, and this video provides easy cues and teaching points that will benefits players and coaches of all experience levels.
Abbatine also gives details regarding the negative thoughts that can prevent players from achieving their full level of success. He gives tips for time-tested techniques that rid the mind of those harmful thoughts, as well as approaches for replacing them with mental skills that increase the opportunity to dominate.
Additionally, you'll get vehicles for goal setting, performance analysis, and techniques for self-coaching that will allow players to feel fully prepared and sufficiently confident to let the body perform at the highest level. There is a clear relationship of how a strong mind and controlled emotions can produce the best physical performance!
Dealing with Pressure
Where does pressure come from? Coach Abbatine answers that question, and many others, as he explains how to re-frame pressure. When you understand that humans create the 'three evil sisters' you will start to understand how we can get rid of them too.
Team Physics
Team physics is a phrase to describe team chemistry. Coach Abbatine turns the idea of physics around on the coaches, saying that they must model what they want out of their athletes. Learn the attributes of successful coaches, and how you can better lead your athletes.
Baseball and softball are often defined as being 80-90% mental; taking advantage of these proven performance techniques from Coach Abbatine is an absolute must!
69 minutes. 2018.