No Spacing - The Missing Link
Thu Jul 12, 2018 by Dr. Greg Rose
A hitter needs to create and maintain room for his arms to swing down the line of the pitch. There are several ways of losing the spacing needed to hit in a big zone or have the sweet spot of the bat traveling down the line of the pitch. The most prevalent is not having enough bend in the knees and the waist to create space for the back elbow to swing past the hips. The second most common is for the player to load his back elbow behind his back where there is no direct path back down the line of the pitch. Others are standing up out of the legs, straightening the back, or the pelvis moving closer to the plate. All of these take away the room needed to swing the bat efficiently down the line of the pitch. These problems also restrict the ability to transition the energy up through the body and into the arms and bat. Often they describe No Spacing as a feeling of being stuck or tied up on inside pitches.
The easiest way to diagnose this characteristic is from the down-the-line camera view. At Stance, draw a vertical line behind the players butt. Next, move the video to the Toe Touch Position and see if there is any space between the that line and the players butt. If the player has moved towards the plate (and the ball is not down and away), then the player is at risk of having No Space. You can also draw a line from the front shoulder to the front hip and then from the front hip to the knee. This should create enough room for the back elbow to swing freely past the back hip and down the line of the pitch. If the back elbow is loaded behind the players back and has to swing around the player’s torso then the player will be hitting in a small zone requiring perfect timing. Move the video forward slowly to contact and pay attention that there is room for the arms to swing past the hips even on an inside pitch. If a player is swinging the bat down the line of the pitch and hitting in a big zone you will see the arms and bat extended out through centerfield at Extension on both inside and outside pitches.