Two Tips For Hitting Off A Batting Tee

Hey, what's going on everyone? So answering questions about hitting off of a tee today because I get this question a lot. A lot of players ask me, and it's not just hitting, it's fielding, it's pitching, how can I get better by myself if I don't have someone to throw to me or if I don't have someone to hit me ground balls, if I don't have someone to catch for me, how do I get better? And there's lots of ways to do that. We've made videos on fielding, on how you can do ball and glove drills, how you can use rebounders. When it comes to hitting, it's the same thing. Not everybody is going to have someone that they can hit with. If you do have someone, that's fantastic to have someone to be able to throw to you, flip to you, but not everyone does. And so what do you do if you don't have someone to help you? Well, you can use a batting tee. Now there's some people that will say, oh, batting tees mess up your swing. I get that a lot. Don't use a batting tee. Listen, I think the batting tee, like anything, it's not the only tool that you should use. If you're only hitting off of a batting tee, then that's not good. But I do think a batting tee can absolutely help you get your swing better. And especially again, if you don't have someone to hit with, it doesn't mean you just don't hit. You can still get your work in. So a couple of things to keep in mind when it comes to hitting off of a batting tee. Now what I really like probably most about the tee is that if I'm working on my swing, right, I'm working on something. Let's just say we're working on getting to our spot. So for me, I say that our spot is when our lower body is coiled and ready to hit and our upper body is coiled and pulled back. And so if I'm working on getting into that position right there, right, and there's no static positions in hitting. So there's no point in hitting where we're just going to be sitting there static. We move through positions as hitters. But if you were to take a freeze frame of a video of you right as your front foot's about to hit that ground, you're going to see, if you watch elite hitters, right, the really good hitters in the major leagues, they're going to be loaded with their lower body, pulled back with their upper body, and in that position right there, coiled hips, pulled back, rear arm behind hand, knob of the bat usually facing somewhere near the catcher's feet, in good posture, chest over, butt out, right? Right as that front foot is about to land. They're going to get to that position and they're going to get to that position on time. And if you struggle getting there, well, using a batting tee is an easy way to work on that. I can get up there and I can work on getting coiled, getting pulled back, getting into that position and then hit. And if I have a phone that I can record myself on, I can easily get my work done all by myself. I don't need anyone else. I need a tripod, a phone, and a tee. And I can go back and look at my swings and see, was I in that good position? Or was I in bad posture? Was I striding out? Was my rear arm coming down too early? Was I not pulled back? Right? There's all these things that you can look at, again, all by yourself. So I think the tee is highly, highly valuable when it comes to hitting. And that's only one aspect of it. So any mechanical thing, it doesn't have to just be that you're not getting into a loaded position on time, but any mechanical aspect of hitting, you're able to focus on that, especially if it's new for you. Because if it's something that you're trying to do for the first time, if it's a correction you're trying to make, well, you don't want to jump in there facing somebody throwing batting practice at you. You want to be able to simplify the drill, take the difficulty down, and then progress up. So we learn the move off of the tee. And then once we show that we can do that consistently off of the tee, well, then we can progress back to flips or to batting practice and then into the game. But we don't want to just jump right into the high-difficulty game. We've got to lower the difficulty. A tee is a great way to do that. And again, another thing to keep in mind when you're doing this work is make sure that you're moving the tee around, that you're not just hitting the ball in the same spot every single time. So with this tee right here, this is the heavy-duty tee by Rucket. This tee can go down as low as 24 inches. It can come up to 46 inches. So I can work on the high ball. I can work on the low ball. If I'm going to work on a ball right down the middle, also keep this in mind, because I see this happen a lot with younger players, is they don't know where the contact point should be. So if the ball is right down the middle, contact should be made basically just in front of your front foot. So when my front foot lands, right, we talked about that spot position. Once that foot gets down into the ground, that tee should be basically just in front of my foot so that I can make contact right there. Now the further away and down the ball is, the more we can back the tee up. But we don't have to back it way up. We're just talking slightly back. And the same thing for the more the ball is in, we're going to push it slightly more out front. It doesn't have to be way out there. So if this is down the middle, and we're going in, we can move it right there. If we're going away, we can move it just slightly back. Right, so we're just talking about a few inches. But the important thing is, is to move the ball around. Don't just hit in the same spot every single time. So move it up, move it down, move it in, move it out. So hopefully that helps. If you want to check this tee out, down in the description box below, I've got a link. If you click there, it's going to take you over to Rucket Site, and you're going to be able to get a deal off the tee. I love this tee. I can, again, a lot of versatility. You can go down as far as 24 inches, up to 46, really low center of gravity. So it's one of those tees where if you do hit the tee, it's not going to fall over. And it's also super durable. So we have our players, I mean, we have hundreds of players in here a week hitting, and we still get the same tee. So it's lasted through hundreds and hundreds of hitters that have taken thousands and thousands of swings, and it's been great. So if you want to check it out, again, click the description box down below. Hopefully this helps you out. Again, the important thing is make sure you're getting your work in. You're not always going to have someone that can help you. Doesn't mean you don't practice. You can get practice in, plenty of practice, and work on things that are really going to help you in the game all by yourself. So that's all we have. Thanks for watching. Subscribe to the channel, hit the notification bell, give it a thumbs up, all that good stuff. We'll talk to you later.