Defensive Baseball Training Aids

With this baseball hitting and fielding video, repetition is the key to making the specific area of practice instilled as an instinct rather than just a reaction. This is why most coaches have their teams do the same drills over and over again at each practice session.

Most players know the typical routine when it comes to practice. First there are the stretching exercises and then the warm up laps. Then it comes times for the drills. Some of the drills are geared for specific positions while others everyone participates in.

Batting practice is for every player just like playing catch. These are done by the entire team at every practice.   Note in this video that the pad is on a platform between the pitching machine and the batter and that the pitched ball will not always be in the exact same spot as with pitching machine alone.

This new idea creates an instinctive reaction and the batter will make a choice to swing or not instinctively, just as in game like conditions.  Then there are the position specific drills that are just for a few players. The pitcher and catcher play a modified pitch and catch drills that will help hone both of their skills to a razors edge.

The infielders and out fielders practice the drills of catching fly balls and grounders then making the throw to the appropriate base which is designated by the coach with the scenario he has but in place.

On the ground balls, fielders are taught to get in front of the ball and go down on one knee to block the path of the ball. If they miss the ball with their glove then it should hit their body so the ball does not pass them by which would allow the runners to advance to another base in most cases during a game. This is a relatively simple drill to do correctly until the wayward ball occurs. By dropping to one knee to soon, the player is not able to react to the bad hop ball and it eludes him.

This is when the ReactionPro® pad comes into it most usefulness. By drilling the fielders with repetitions of bad hop balls, they will learn to react properly to a ball whether it is a wayward ball or not. The teams that have made the practice of the bad hop ball as this baseball hitting and fielding video demonstrates, the players will be better prepared for the games where this type of reaction by the ball occurs. The net result is your players will become better hitters, and fewer runs will be scored against your team.

Click: HERE to purchase your ReactionPro® pad or get a special deal on three at the same time.  Keep one at home to train your kid with and donate a couple of them to the team.

With baseball hitting, nothing seems easier in the game until you actually try it yourself. With the top big leaguers only being successful 3 out of 10 at bats, the difficulty can be measured.

In game like situations the ball can go anywhere. This includes the easy 100 mph fast ball in the strike zone, the curve ball down and away or inside and down to the change up that is only 70 mph and of course the occasional wild pitch. For each batter, each pitch is a dive into the unknown until it is over.

The rules of the game do help the batters out a little by only making the strike zone in a region that the batter can actually hit the ball. The main problem is being patient at the plate waiting for that pitch that is actually hittable. The pitchers will taunt batters with throws that are close, but just out of reach hoping they will swing.  If the batter fails, they are out after 3 swings, but if they can make that split second decision correctly, they may get a free pass to first base.

Practice of the wayward pitches is what is needed so better judgment can be made by the batters. This is the reason coaches are now placing the ReactionPro® pad 20 feet from home plate. When a ball is thrown from a pitching machine, it trajectory is changed and becomes unpredictable. This sets up the scenario so practicing the two strike hitting situation can occur repeatedly. This can be over and over again until the batters feel comfortable knowing they will not know where the ball will be, but ready to pounce if necessary.

As this video shows, the ReactionPro® pad when used with a baseball pitching machine will absolutely sharpen the hitters reaction to the varying pitched balls.

Baseball hitting is all about quality practice with game situations as many times as possible. Being properly prepared is not a fluke or occur by accident, it is planned.

The reason players look for baseball training tips is to help them improve their techniques while playing the game. There are general tips and specific tips on key areas of the game.

Everyone that has played the game of baseball has had at least one tip drilled in their head from the very first time they walked onto the ball diamond. This is “keep your eye on the ball”. This tip works no matter what you are doing in the game, whether on offense or defense.

The situations when this is hardest to do are the pop up or fly ball, the fast ball, and the bad hop ball. The fly ball is difficult because the size decreases so much. But after time and practice, you can develop this skill of anticipating where the ball will be. The same goes for the fast ball. The ball is traveling on a predetermined path without any interference so the trajectory can be determined.

This is not so with the bad hop ball. The hopping ball changes trajectory and many fielders lose sight of it. Many are just not properly prepared for this because, until lately, there was no way to repeatedly practice fielding the bad hop ball.

Today, players can take advantage of a new piece of baseball practice equipment called the ReactionPro® Pad. When a baseball makes contact with this pad, its trajectory changes unpredictably. This is when the repeated practice helps players develop their agility and hand to eye coordination to react to the ball instantly. No longer will your players be standing there during a game watching the ball pass them by because of a bad hop.

The baseball training tips come into play after hours of practice on keeping their eyes on the ball.

To have fastpitch hitting practice, you would need to have pitchers capable of throwing the baseball over 90 mph. This consistently is possible with the pitchers from the team, but the number of pitches it would take from each pitcher to give all the batters the practice they need each day would leave the team with no pitchers for the game.

Coaches have done what they can to supplement the number of pitches available for batters by throwing hitting practice, but they usually cannot match the speed and accuracy that is needed for real game-like situation. To help improve batting practice with the fastpitch balls, the introduction of the pitching machine is done. This gives the batter consistent and repeated practice at making contact with the fast ball. Making contact is the main focus of this type of hitting practice, which it does very well. The pitching machines can repeatedly throw the baseball in the strike zone at high speed.

This was about all a coach could do to help prepare his team for the games. The realistic setting of practice with the pitchers was inadequate, which limited this type of practice.

Last year, a coach kept looking at the defensive fielder’s tool that was purchased for the team. When the ball hit the pad, it would react differently each time. This initiated an experiment that involved placing the pad in the flight path of the ball from the pitching machine to home plate. This experiment resulted in unpredictable pitches for the batters to practice hitting, and the patience not to hit when it was out of the strike zone.

This was the realistic game-like situation the coach was looking for to help his batters learn patience at the plate. The side benefit was that his pitchers were saved for the games and do not become sore from batting practice.

More and more teams this year are using the ReactionPro® pad as part of fastpitch hitting practice that has improved the game effectiveness of their team. Could your team use this advantage?

The baseball training aids that are available on the market are there to primarily help teach and develop the basic skills that are needed to play the game. Included in these aids are special gloves and bats, along with nets and balls attached to bungee cords. All of these will help teach the fundamentals so young players will develop.

Many of them can help young players prepare for the games by improving their hitting and fielding. The one practice aid that has always been elusive is the bad hop ball. In game situations, this is the ball that makes contact with a gopher or mole hill and bounces in an unpredictable way.

To help with this, the ReactionPro® Pad was developed. This pad is specially designed to make the baseball react differently each time it makes contact with it. With this pad incorporated into a team’s practice schedule, they will have better hand to eye coordination and agility when reacting to not only the bad hop ball but any ball hit their way.

Some coaches have also started to use the ReactionPro® Pad during batting practice. This helps the batters learn patience at the plate because the pitch will be unpredictable and not always in the strike zone.

The two reasons for practice is to help develop the fundamental skills so the game can be played and to hone these skills with game like drills. This miraculous training aid can help develop both levels of these skills as it is one of the best baseball training aids to come along since the mass use of the pitching machine in the early 1960s.

The hitting tips most batters receive are considerably better than past years when all a batter was told was to keep their eye on the ball and hit it. At first it sounds easy, but then factor in that the baseball is traveling close to 100 mph and the bat is just over 2 inches in diameter.

The fundamentals in hitting the baseball start with the right bat. Many think that a heavy bat will help them hit the ball harder. This is true only if you make contact with the ball. Make sure the bat that is chosen is one that the batter can handle and is comfortable with.

The stance at the plate should be with both feet and shoulders parallel with the plate and your chin tucked in. As the pitcher releases the ball a slight backward swing should begin. If you feel the ball is hittable and in the strike zone, then a downward stoke while stepping forward with the foot that is closest to the pitcher should be taken. At all times, the batter should be on the balls of their feet. Resting on your heels will slow down the reaction time to the point that the ball will have already crossed the plate before the batter can effectively swing at the ball.

The hardest part of all of this is the judgment of the ball if it is in the strike zone. To help with this, coaches have introduced the placement of the ReactionPro® pad in the path of the ball that pitching machines are throwing at their batters. With the pads just 20 feet away, an instant reaction is needed to judge if the ball is ion the strike zone or out of it. With the ball changing direction closer than that in a real game situation, the batting practice is more difficult than real game situations.

These few hitting tips can help improve any batters chances when they are playing in a game.

For baseball training equipment, there are many different ones for each of the fundamental skills that are necessary to help improve a player’s ability when participating in a game.

There are many different types of bats to help batters. This includes the stick bats to help challenge the batter by reducing the sweet spot on the bat. There is also the sweet spot bat that has an exaggerated sweet spot to help teach batters to better control the way they hit the ball. There are pitching machines that help batters get the repetitions they need to develop this difficult skill of making contact with the ball.

When it comes to fielding, the number of practice aids is somewhat limited. Coaches have always done grounder practice to his infielders and pop fly’s for both the outfielders and infielders, but that was about it. As much as coaches tried to hit the gopher mounds to create the bad hop ball, they could not do it consistently. This is where the ReactionPro® Pad comes into play.

This practice pad creates a wayward ball each time the baseball comes in contact with it, independent of its location. Whether it is on the practice field, in a gym, or even a garage, this pad produces the wayward ball each time. Best of all, because there are no moving parts, this pad never gets tired or breaks down. It is always ready to help players to develop their skills with hand to eye coordination, agility, and increase their reaction time to the ball.

The ReactionPro Pad is the newest and best piece of baseball training equipment available to help players practice the most elusive game-like situation there is, the bad hop ball.  Now you may also use the same equipment for hitting drills.  See our previous articles.

Click this link to read another article about: Baseball Training Equipment

Spring time is here, and so is baseball practice. Every year at this time, preparations begin for the new baseball season at every level. The major league teams go to Arizona and Florida to have their camps. The minor leagues, along with the pony and little league players, stay in their respected regions and start practice on the warm days when they occur.

Like all early season practices, there is a heavy emphasis on conditioning to help get the players back into being physically strong and ready for the rigors of the season ahead. Properly honing of the senses and instincts is a part of this early training in the season. To assist coaches and teams with this is the multidimensional ReactionPro Pad.

When this practice pad was first introduced, it was only used to help infielders with stopping the bad hop ball when it occurs in game situations. The unpredictability of the ball’s path help with hand to eye coordination and the development of the instincts to react to the ball instead of thinking how to react.

This last year, the use of the ReactionPro Pad was expanded to help batters with the unpredictable pitches. With the pad placed 20 feet from home plate, the batters are able to practice patience at the plate after those long winter months of resting and being anxious to swing again.

By training on both the bad hop ball and the unpredictable pitches early in the spring training season, teams are better prepared for the start of the baseball season when it arrives in a few months. By then, the instinct to react to a wayward ball in any situation is already ingrained in the players’ minds.

The more realistic a baseball practice is to a real game situation, the better prepared the players are to make the right move when it counts during a game.

The youth baseball hitting drills of today are just a little different than years gone past. There is still hit and run practice along with the infield to help simulate game-like situations, and practice from the coach throwing the ball to the batters. What was missing was constant and continuous practice against unpredictable pitches.

To help solve this dilemma, many coaches are taking their ReactionPro® Pads when fielding practice on the bad hop ball is over and setting them up as part of hitting practice. Just like in fielding practice, when the ball hits the pad, its new direction is unknown. This is an ideal situation to help batters to practice repeated unpredictable pitches.

To save the pitchers on the teams for the games, a pitching machine is used for this hitting drill. The ReactionPro® Pads are set up 20 feet from home plate on sturdy tables. When the ball hits the pads on the tables the hitters have a split second to react to which way the ball is going. This set up no longer allows the batter to assume the ball will be in the strike zone. For this reason, they will have to demonstrate patience at the plate for a throw to be in the strike zone and let the balls outside of it go without swinging.

Once the ball hits the pad, the batter has a 0.04-second decision whether to swing or let it go. Repeated practice like this will help develop every batter’s hitting instinct to a fine honed edge. The actual game situation will be much improved since they will have three times as long to react than in practice.

When youth baseball hitting drills include the ReactionPro® Pads, there will be more runners on base and less strikeouts for your team.

Click this link to watch one of our other baseball hitting drills videos.

Every teams’ baseball hitting equipment has to include bats, baseballs, batting helmets and home plate. There are also accessories that help batters like batting gloves, shin guards, and the latest thing, the ReactionPro® Pad.

In a typical batting practice session, the batter knows that his coach, fellow team mate, or the pitching machine will throw a majority of the balls in the strike zone. This is to help develop hand to eye coordination and confidence that is supposed to translate to hits during the game.

The batters are ready to swing at every pitch that is thrown at them because of this. This approach is great for practice on hitting the baseball, but does nothing for judging if the ball should be swung at or not. The instinct instilled in this kind of practice is to swing first, judge later.

With the addition of the pad to your batting practice, an entirely new approach to this skill training has been found. The batter cannot assume the ball will be in the strike zone. This way the instinct to swing must be made with an instant judgment if the ball is in or near the strike zone. This simulates a real game situation more closely than any other way to practice hitting.

With the ReactionPro® Pad being placed 20 feet away from the batter, their reaction to a ball outside the strike zone has to be done with only one third the normal time allotment that it takes in a game. This follows the best practice theory of making practice harder than real life game situations to improve the performance of the player when it counts.

This is why more and more teams are adding the ReactionPro® Pad to their list of baseball hitting equipment.