Hitting a home run is a daunting task. You’re talking about launching a ball at minimum 325 feet! With so many factors involved, we’re here to break it down for you.
All It Takes is One Swing.
A home run. A fair hit that allows the batter to make a round about of the bases without stopping and scoring a run. Bringing it home. Bringing your team a win, glory, and fame by hitting a grand slam home run is every batter’s dream. However, home runs just aren’t that easy. In fact, they’re actually pretty hard. There are so many factors that determine whether the ball a player hits is going out of the field. Things like: Bat speed, bat weight, squaring up the ball, etc. We’re here to provide players, new and old, with useful information and insider tips on how to hit a homerun. Players who have been practicing for a while will also find new insights as well.
So, how can you hit a perfect home-run every time you’re at the batter’s plate?
You Need To Know HOw To Properly Grip A Baseball Bat
First and foremost, learning how to properly grip a baseball bat a very important factor. We completely understand that everyone has their own way of holding a bat. To help you out, here's how you can find your perfect grip.
FigurinG Out Your Stance:
First, you need to figure out your dominant hand and your lead foot. If you’re right-handed, then your lead foot will be your left one and vice versa.
Placing the Handle:
Now, according to your stance, place the head of the bat right in front of your lead foot. Next, grab the handle with your non-dominant hand.
Arranging your Fingers:
Wrap your bottom hand index finger (knuckles pointing up) around the bat keeping your 3 bottom fingers separate from your index. Trying holding it with your fingers as much as possible, keeping it away from the palm of your hand.
Wrapping Your Dominant Hand:
Next, place your dominant hand above the non-dominant one and place your fingers on the handle similarly. Try to keep your second knuckles as lined up as possible.
Keeping a Light Grip:
Ensure that your grip is as light as possible. Starting with a tight grip from the beginning can cause pain and fatigue to your fingers. As you swing, your grip will get tighter naturally and automagically.
The more relaxed you keep your grip, the harder you will hit the ball.
Knowing How To Hit A Baseball Farther
Once you’ve perfected your grip (see above), you might be asking yourself how do I hit a baseball farther? Of course, hitting the ball hard (we've covered that too, see below) is one of the steps you need to practice as well. Here are our recommendations that will help you hit farther:
Training: How Strong Do You Have To Be To Hit A Home Run?
Having adequate strength to propel the ball farther is crucial to hitting a home run. We're not saying you have to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but you do need some muscle. Building up your muscles in the gym - both your arms AND LEGS. (Don't be that person, work on your legs). With a good foundation (legs), and a strong-core highly increases your chances of launching it out of the ball park.
Picking the Proper Stance:
Much like grip, the better and stronger your stance is, the better you will hit the ball. Remember the part where we talked about having a strong foundation? This is where that comes into play. Your legs give you the majority of the power you're going to need to hit home runs. Your feet should be planted on the ground firmly. Feet slightly farther apart from your shoulders. You want to create a proper balance. By creating a proper balance, you can harness all that power into hitting the ball.
Using the Right Bat For You:
Finding the right bat can be difficult. Luckily, we've written that up too. (Aren't we pretty great? Take this moment to sign up for our newsletter please! We'd really appreciate it.)
Using the right bat is very important. Whether you swing a composite or aluminum bat, youth USA bat, or BBCOR bat, we encourage you to ask others to try their bats out to find out what gives you your perfect swing.
Making Contact with the Ball at the Right Spot:
We are obviously making it sound easier than this daunting task actually is. So many variations of pitches, not to mention pitch speed. The equation to hitting a home run in words is precisely this:
You need the ball to hit with speed AND have it perfectly line up with the sweet spot on your bat.
The sweet spot you ask? It's typically 4-7 inches down from the top of the barrel. Normally, you should hit your ball at the lower two-thirds of the baseball. This will ensure the balls you're hitting, shoots out at the correct launch angle, covering both height and distance.
Knowing How to Hit a Baseball Harder (ADvanced)
Now that you've nearly perfected gripping your bat, and making good progress with launching a baseball farther, you should now practice hitting the ball even harder. However, this begs the question: ‘How do you hit the ball harder?’
Simple, to launch the ball even farther, increase the power.
However, there are some extra tips you could use:
Focusing on Weight Transfer (Smooth as Butter):
While maintaining a good balance is important, focusing on weight transfer as your swing is equally important. Transferring all the power from your legs to your arms through the bat and into the ball takes a lot of work. But it happens in such a quick exchange of motion. When you swing, you want it to be as fluid but as fast as possible or what we like to call it "smooth as butter."
Perfecting your swinging form will allow for maximum torque when you hit the ball.
Stay Inside The Baseball:
Pitches are never constant, but whatever the pitch don't let it come as a shock. You've probably heard your coach or someone tell you, "stay inside the baseball." What this means is, you want to keep your arms as close to your body as possible when swinging. Keeping your arms close to your body while swinging keeps all of the energy loaded into the bat as you unleash it onto balls.
Continue Adding Momentum After the Hit:
MAJOR ROOKIE MISTAKE ALERT! Most players often stop the momentum of their swing as soon as they hit the ball. In order to pack more power into your swing, you need to continue adding momentum as much as you can, by following through. Don't stop in the middle of swing, instead, take it all the way. This adds exponentially higher amounts of power and momentum to the balls you'll be swinging.
Finally, HITting a Home Run
Great, you've made it this far. You're almost there, we can already smell hot dogs and popcorn from the baseball stands at Yankee Stadium. We're also ready to see you launch balls out of the ball park!
If you’ve trained your body to hit farther and harder, you're already half way there. Here is your step-by-step guide to hitting home runs.
Properly grip the bat, remember light finger grip and away from the palm as much as possible. All the good stuff happens automagically during your swing.
Hold your bat in front of you where it should be at shoulder height. Keep your elbows at the same height as your mid-chest.
Take your stance with your feet facing in front of you.
We recommend keeping 60% of your weight on the back of your foot.
Relax your elbows and knees. As we already explained do not tighten any muscles. Your elbows and knees should also be slightly bent.
Pay attention to the pitcher closely. Carefully see when he releases the ball. Maintain eye contact with the ball and always keep your eye on the ball when you swing.
Turn your back knee toward the ball when you take a step with your front foot. Ensure your feet are firmly grounded.
Start your swing as soon as the pitcher releases the ball. It should start from your hips and should transfer power to the front of your body. Pivot your back foot with the toe so you hips turn towards the pitcher.
Guide the bat and aim towards the ball with your lower arm, keeping your arms as close to the body as possible.
Bring the elbow of your dominant hand closer to the chest while your wrists keep swinging through the ball.
Keep swinging through the ball after you’ve made an impact. This will help you gain momentum as we already explained. FOLLOW THROUGH!
It Takes Some Mental Preparation:
Obviously we know hitting a home run is no easy task, so encourage mental preparation! You need to be believe that you can do it, just like you believe that you'll be in the major league one day.
Conclusion:
And there you have it! Of course, there is another important element that we missed on purpose! It’s practice. You've heard it a million times, practice makes perfect. While our recommendations have worked for the hardest working individuals, it's not guaranteed.
Don't follow this blindly if you don't want to, change it up. What matters is that you're comfortable doing it. Find what suits you better, gets you launching the ball farther . At the very least you'll be batting the ball down the field more comfortably.