A slump is one of the worst things any baseball hitter will experience. Between the lack of hits, and the self-doubt about your ability to perform, it is one of the most mentally taxing experiences players are faced with in the game today. We all have been there when it starts with a swing and miss on pitch you expected to hit 400 feet. This is typically followed by, ?Why did I miss that, what am I doing wrong?? Next thing you know, you 1 for your last 25 and you are still searching for the answer. The good news is, that ends today!
If you have decided to join me today, then you will never have to answer that question again. By the end of this article you are going to have a sure-fire plan to end your baseball batting slump for life! Believe or not, most batting slumps are not a result of anything mechanical. Mechanical adjustments are relatively easy to make. A few baseball batting training sessions, and wha la, you have a better swing. Saying that, a player?s confidence level and psychological state can send even the best players into hitting droughts.
Take for instance one of the most prominent professional hitters of our time. Alex Rodriquez had been near non-existent in most playoff games up until recently and his counter part Mark Texeria was hitting under .250 to start his career with New York. Do you remember when Miguel Tejeada lost his cool and threw all of his bats over the top of the dugout? And more recently, a player I work with that will be signing a professional contract shortly, has begun to question his abilities at the plate after 9 years of success at the professional level. What is about hitting that causes players to have prolonged periods of doubt?
On the whole, it has to deal with what a player?s primary focus is. From a young age players are taught that the sign of a good season or a good player, is the statistics that are attached to their name. As a result, every at-bat carries the stigma of success or failure. Now if you had an infinite amount of at bats, one failure or one success may not seem like much. However, players will usually only get 3 to 4 at-bats in a game, which means each at bat will affect the outcome drastically. Why do think players play so much more relaxed when they get a hit in their first at bat? The pressure is off for the day and everything after that is a bonus.
If a player doesn?t get a hit in his first at-bat, the pressure begins to mount. Each successive at-bat piles on top of each other and before player?s have a chance to take a breath, each at-bat becomes the make or break moment of their career. Whether they begin swinging at every pitch they see, or take pitches right down the middle because they are afraid to get out, they enter a emotional state and loose their ability to make good decisions.
You see, the mind can only be in one of two mental states at once. There is the emotional state, which is result oriented and typically leads to making less than desirable decisions. Then there is the logical state where you are able to see the issues around you objectively and see all of the angles in effort to find the best solution. Unfortunately, most player?s will spend the majority of their career in the emotional state which leads me to Mental Baseball Training Technique #1: create positive proactive action steps that help you correct the now!
Unfortunately, most player?s will never make a it past, ?I?m not going 0 for today? or ?I am going to get a hit this time around?. Sorry sport, contrary to what mom says, pure determination and telling yourself you are going to get a hit just won?t cut it! What will cut it is telling yourself very specific positive action steps that you can perform on your very next swing. For instance, if you are having trouble dropping your back shoulder, you shouldn?t tell yourself, ?Don?t drop your back shoulder!?. Don?t is a negative! Instead, try drive your backside harder, or drive your hands down through the zone. Always be in the process of solving your problem and moving towards a solution instead of running away from your mistakes!
This small, but powerful mindset shift will keep you constantly learning the past, but focused on how you are going to improve for the future. This leads me to our next topic, which is the power of proper goal setting. Most players make the mistake of creating goals that will take an entire season to either meet or not meet. This is crazy! Goals such as hitting over .300 with 10 home runs and 45 runs batted in are great, but they don?t give player?s any gauge of what they need to accomplish now to make that happen.
This brings me to baseball batting slump breaker number 2, live in the now with your goals! Every action should carry three very specific goals you want to accomplish. For instance, three goals I had for myself when I played were: drive you backside hard, drive you hands to the inside part of the baseball, and finish towards the field of play you want to hit the baseball. Some might even say these are three positive action steps I needed to accomplish every swing! I knew that if I accomplished these three goals every swing, then at the end of the year I would end up with the statistics I was aiming for in the first place. The bottom line is you will not be able reach any of your long term goals if you don?t accomplish the ones you have today!
If this sounds a little to easy, you would be right! For starters, if you are the best, you will only succeed three out of ten times at the plate. This means no matter how hard you try, you are going to face a negative response seven out of ten times. Just like any other baseball batting training, you need to be dedicated to your positive proactive approach! The key is to recognize when you begin to focus on the results that way you can take a step back and reprioritize moving forward. Performing in the ?now? and creating positive proactive action steps on every swing will break you of your batting slump woes and keep you consistent at the plate for the rest of your playing career!
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