A regular comment I hear during lessons from players (and parents) is that they want to learn how to hit the ball harder, and I love that goal for all kids who have shown the ability to take a semi-consistent swing that makes regular contact.

All players will hit the ball harder as they continue to grow and get physically stronger over the course of their Little League careers so while there's no way to rush that process (besides eating healthy, drinking lots of milk, and getting great sleep), there are some things that can be done in the short term to increase bat speed.

I believe that the #1 killer of bat speed is not physical, but mental.

Every Little Leaguer is capable of swinging the bat faster if they simply choose to the swing the bat faster.

That might sound a little simplistic, but the vast majority of kids intentionally (whether consciously or subconsciously) do not maximize their bat speed because they are afraid of "failing."

Kids do not like the feeling of swing and missing and/or striking out (nobody does), so they intentionally decide to swing the bat slower as a way of increasing their chances of making contact...and that strategy works! The more cautious the bat speed, the greater the likelihood of hitting the ball.

But as soon as they ease up on the bat speed, while they will make contact more often, they will lose entirely their ability to maximize how hard they can hit it.

So, Step 1 for parents and coaches is to be encouraging after aggressive swings and misses. If we, as adults, can help them to understand that swinging and missing is part of baseball and that it's nothing to be embarrassed about, nor does it signify "failure," then our ballplayer will instantly be more likely to embrace the idea of swinging harder. We need to destigmatize striking out aggressively as a bad outcome and our players will be more likely to attack the ball with maximin bat speed rather than defensively simply just try to make contact.

We need to help them understand the risk/reward proposition at the plate. The risk of swinging harder is more misses, but the reward of swinging harder is more bombs. All great hitters eagerly accept the risk of missing because they're going after the reward of crushing the ball into the Outfield.

Step 2 is to teach them how to swing the bat faster and this part is really easy.

All you have to do is have them take their helmet off (so that they can hear better) and tell them to take a dry swing (meaning without swinging at a ball) with the only goal being to see how LOUD they can make the bat "WHOOSH."

The louder the WHOOSH, the faster the bat is going.

What you'll notice immediately is that when the goal is bat speed (WHOOSH) rather than contact they will discover power that was hiding in them the whole time, but they were simply afraid of accessing.

While they take these whoosh swings, make sure they are not losing their balance or moving their head so that they maintain the quality of their swing.

Then, after a few whoosh swings, start throwing them soft toss or BP and tell them that the goal on the next 10 pitches is to make the bat whoosh 10 times in a row, rather than the goal being to make contact 10 times in a row.

What will most likely happen next is they will swing and miss a few times, they might lose their balance a few times, but they will also connect on a few that are hit harder than anything they had previously ever hit and the light bulb will go off in their heads. They will now realize that they have the ability to choose to swing harder, without sacrificing swing quality, and that the only thing previously holding them back was the fear of swinging and missing.

If we empower our players to take aggressive swings where they are unconcerned with the result of each individual swing and teach them to unlock the bat speed they already have in them, we'll see more hard hit balls overall.

The bat speed is there, we just have to give them permission to use it!

Swing Hard, Have Fun!