Front Shoulder Flying Out Too Early in Your Swing

When your should flies out too early, a hitter needs to adjust quickly to fix the problem. A coach can tell when a hitters shoulder is flying out too early when the following occurs:

• The hitter's head and eyes move with the front shoulder and pull away from the ball
• A hitter's hands trail their shoulders, causing the barrel to be too late
• Swing gets too long
• Swing path will move towards and the ball and then away from the ball instead to and through the ball
• Because your front shoulder pulls up and out, your front shoulder on your approach to ball will tilt upward instead of downward

If you are not great at analyzing a swing the following will occur:

• The hitter will swing through a lot of pitches
• Weak fly balls and pop ups, most often to the opposite field as the hitter is spinning off the ball
• The sweet spot will rarely find the ball
• The hitter will have trouble hitting the outside pitch

A good tip to correct this is to have the hitter drive the rear shoulder forward and downward to the ball. This will keep the front shoulder from tilting upward. Sometimes you have to over emphasize a technique to get a desired result. This can be done by hitting off a tee emphasizing keeping your chest over the ball. If your hitter is still struggling, set up an L-screen approximately 25 feet in front of the hitter. As a coach, toss the ball on the outer half of the plate while having them practice hitting the outside pitch to the opposite field.