Does the swing you worked on actually show up in the game? Every coach has said some version of it: "He looks great in the cage, and then it's gone on Friday." Most of the time that isn't a talent problem. It's a practice problem.
Blocked practice
Blocked practice means the hitter does the same thing, rep after rep, and nothing changes. Here are a few examples:
- Hitting off a tee with a game bat
- Hitting off a fastball machine
- A BP round where every pitch is away and the hitter goes the other way
- Inside flips, over and over
Blocked practice has a job. When a hitter is learning a new move or making a big change, a practice that stays the same lets him figure out what it feels like and do it right a bunch of times in a row. That's where we start.
The problem is that it doesn't stick. A swing that looks great in blocked practice often falls apart in the game, because hitting is reactive. You don't know what's coming, and you have a fraction of a second to decide. A swing built only on the same pitch over and over breaks down when the game hands it something different.
Random practice
Random practice means something changes from one rep to the next, like the pitch type, speed, location, the job, or the bat.
Once a hitter owns the feel of a new move, we start testing it. We add a little randomness at a time. When the new swing breaks down, we back off until it holds, then push again. The hitter moves from blocked to random one step at a time, so the change actually shows up in the box when it counts.
Hitting is a random skill
Pitchers don't tell you what's coming, and they don't always throw strikes. So why is almost every pitch in a normal BP round a strike down the middle?
The best hitters aren't the ones who repeat the exact same swing every time. They adjust. They cover different locations, hit the ball at different contact points, and make small changes late in the swing. Good hitting means solving a different problem on every pitch.
Ways to add randomness
- Mix the pitches. Throw different pitch types and locations in random order, and change the count from pitch to pitch.
- Change the target. "Around the world" means the other way, then middle, then pull side, then middle again, changing every swing.
- Give each rep a job. If the hitter repeats the same job every swing, it turns back into blocked practice, so change it every rep.
- Hit and run: a ground ball away from the middle of the field
- Move the runner: the right side on the ground, or deep
- Infield back: a ground ball up the middle
- Infield in: a fly ball deep enough for a sac fly
- Change the equipment. Use bats of different weights and lengths, and balls of different sizes and weights.
Why it works
With random practice, the brain has to solve the problem fresh every rep instead of running on autopilot. It works a little like lifting: the body adapts when the work is hard enough to challenge it. This idea has been in motor learning research for decades. William Battig first described it, John Shea and Robyn Morgan tested it in a classic lab study, and Richard Schmidt's textbook Motor Control and Learning covers it.
Use blocked practice to learn the move. Use random practice so the move shows up in the game.
This post is our take on the blocked vs. random practice section of Driveline Baseball's Hacking the Kinetic Chain - Hitting.
Want to see where your hitter stands? Book a Proteus testing wave with EXPI.
Responses
Be the first to respond.