10 Tee Drills For More Power

We will show how we use the tee drills to develop Baseball Rebellion hitters.  Enjoy the drills ahead, and hopefully, they can take your tee game to the next level!

 

Drill 1: Middle-Middle

Set the tee up in the middle of home plate.  Adjust the height to about mid-thigh height, swing away.  Practice hitting the ball at the height that makes sense for your exit velocity or skill set.  Generally, the harder you hit the ball, the higher you want to hit it.  If you’re a line-drive hitter, practice hitting the ball lower, but still not bouncing in the infield.  If you’re a power hitter, practice slightly pulling the middle-middle pitch in the gaps.  Pulling the middle-middle pitch slightly avoids the centerfielder.

Drill 2: Outside Pitches all Heights

Set the tee on the back outside third of home plate and slightly angle it away from the batter.  The visual of the upward slope of the Launch Angle Tee shaft will help the hitter get on a better plane.  Start at middle height.  This pitch should be over top of the corner but more towards the white of home plate.  Drive the ball backside with force for five swings.  Then, lower the tee, this will put the tee deeper in the hitting zone but still outside.  Drive this ball over the backside infielder’s head five times.  Then raise the tee up above the original starting position.  This will elevate the ball and move it out in front of the plate slightly.  Hammer this ball in the gap five times.

Drill 3: Inside Power Pull Pitches

Obviously, the Power Pull Pitch Drill is one that many kids really enjoy.  If in a cage with a Hittrax or on a field, players love to compete to hit the longest ball.  Driving the ball in the air with less hook is really important.  This is also a great drill for driving up intent and showing the value of turn direction.  Set the tee on the inside corner, slightly angled to the pull side gap.  Swing up the slope and let it fly.  Go for distance and height if you’re a power player and sharp line drives if you’re not.

Drill 4: Step Behind Happy Gilmores

Another player favorite is Step Behind Happy Gilmore tee drills.  Players do a great job if they control their tempo and footwork. Because of this control, players can really get some power out of this drill.  Another great drill for on-field work, outfielders can get great reads on balls as well.  Driving the ball with power is something that coaches ask me about all the time.  They want players who can do this already, and they want players who they know are learning to do damage.  The Step Behind Happy Gilmore drill is a great way to build power, intent, and footwork coordination.

 

Drill 5: Step Backs

The Double Inside Load, one of my first ever articles, is extremely important to keep and maintain. Because of this, The Step Back Drill is a key drill in building a ‘glute loaded hitter’.  Loading the glutes instead of calves and quads creates a rotation instead of a push through contact.  This quick pulling action the hips create on the back leg is paramount in power generation.  Build your load first, and the turn will happen naturally and explosively.

Drill 6: Out-In-Front Front Leg Focus

Let’s face it, no one is on time all the time.  That’s why we started doing the Out-In-Front Front Leg Focus Drill.  Learning to sit down into your front leg without your head drifting forward is huge.  Adjustability is key in hitting, so this front leg move must be practiced and drilled.  Because of this, we do this drill often with our best hitters.  They face the best pitchers, so while they’re very disciplined, having a great ‘I’m fooled’ swing is paramount for their production.

Drill 7: Three-Stride Drill

The Three Stride Drill is a favorite drill we do for slowing down hitters who rush.  Hitters love to hit.  Because of this, many hitters rush through their stride and load just to hit the ball.  The Three Stride Drill re-emphasizes how important the load and stride.  Interestingly, when we can get hitters to slow down and stride right, the ball really jumps off the bat.  Often, the hitter will have those ‘ah ha’ moments and realize how much their stride and load affects their power output.

Drill 8: Slowest Stride Drill

The Slowest Stride Drill is more advanced than the Three Stride Drill.  Because of this, only our strongest and oldest hitters do this drill.  Slowing down the stride requires lots of core strength and body awareness.  Young kids struggle with slowing the stride when hitting, so we do this with a Rebel’s Rack with them.  Older hitters can feel a ‘float’ or a ‘hover’ move in this drill which can be positive for their soft slow landing. Once a hitter has a fast turn, they have more time to wait.  Learning to wait is something that the Slowest Stride Drill emphasizes.  The SSD does this by helping slow tempo and increases softness in the front foot landing.

Drill 9: Bucket Drill

One of the hitting coaches we follow is @CSalt19.  Carlton demonstrated the Bucket Drill very well so we included it in our progression.  The Bucket Drill helps hitters load the glute of their back leg to avoid jumpiness and arm push.  Both of those mistakes are power suckers and really effect swing plane and bat acceleration negatively.  The Bucket Drill was new to me, but an obvious addition to our tee progression.  The Bucket Drill works on the load through the back heel, slowness in the stride, and great head position/posture.  This awesome drill was a must add for us here at BR, and we think you should add it too!

Drill 10: Emergency Swing Deep Tee Drill

Easily the hardest drill in our tee progression is the Emergency Swing Deep Tee Drill.  This drill, for our highest level hitters, is important as it can grant them another pitch in an at-bat.  When fooled, especially by speed or spin, it’s very important to be able to ‘hang on’ for one more pitch.  A foul ball in certain situations is a great outcome!  Because of this, the Emergency Swing Drill is practiced often by our top hitters.

Start Hitting More Line Drives and Home Runs Today!

Try these tee drills and make up an order for you!  If there are others you like, shoot us a comment with a link and we can check those out as well.  Make a video, post it on YouTube, Twitter, or Instagram and tag us.  At Baseball Rebellion we love to share information and learn more, so show us your stuff!  Who knows, maybe your drill will be in our updated tee progression in the coming months.