The load and stride are how your swing starts: your weight and hands gather back while your front foot takes a short step toward the pitcher. Biomechanics studies describe the swing starting with a weight shift toward the back foot and a small turn of the trunk, then a stride forward. Get this small, balanced and repeatable and the rotation that follows has a stable base. The app reads your load, stride length and front-foot landing from video.
Load — gather back
Start from your normal stance. Weight slightly on your back foot or even, hands near your back shoulder, same as your stance lesson.
set and quiet before anything moves.
As the pitcher delivers, shift your weight toward your back foot and let your hips and shoulders turn slightly away from the pitcher. Stay balanced; this is a gather, not a lean.
weight gathering into the inside of your back leg.
Let your hands move back a little with the turn, toward the catcher, while your back elbow stays relaxed. This is a small move, not a big pull.
hands and front shoulder staying back together.
Stride — short and toward the pitcher
Lift or slide your front foot and take a short stride straight toward the pitcher. Baseball Canada's cue: the stride must be short and towards the pitcher.
a soft step, not a jump forward.
Keep your hands and front shoulder back while the front foot goes forward. The body moves toward the pitcher; the hands do not ride forward with it.
a stretch between your front foot and your hands.
Keep the stride a size you can repeat. In one study of adult male hitters (Welch 1995), stride length averaged about 3.8 times hip width. Youth hitters in a separate study took less time in the stride (about 0.29 s vs 0.40 s for adults) and may stride shorter. Treat these as reference points, not a target to copy.
same stride every swing.
Land balanced
Land softly on the front foot with your weight still mostly back. Land on line toward the pitcher or slightly closed, not stepping away from the plate. Welch's adult hitters landed the stride slightly closed (about 12°).
front foot down, body still loaded.
Keep the front toe turned only slightly toward the pitcher, roughly where it sat in your stance, so the hips can still turn. Don't plant it pointing fully at the pitcher.
front side closed, ready to turn.
From the landing, swing against a firm front leg. The hips turn first and the back leg pivots and pushes; that is the next lesson (Hip-Shoulder Separation).
a solid front side to turn against.
Feel it
Weight gathers back, the front foot steps short and soft toward the pitcher, and your hands and front shoulder stay back while it lands. You should feel balanced and still loaded at landing, not already moving forward into the ball. Common cues: "stride short, toward the pitcher" and "keep the hands back and the front shoulder in."
Fix-its
- You over-stride or lunge A long stride may delay hip rotation. Shorten it until you land balanced and still loaded, then keep that length every rep.
- You don't load (no weight shift back) Before the stride, shift weight toward the back foot and turn slightly away from the pitcher. Practise load-then-stride slowly without a ball.
- Your hands drift forward with the stride Keep the hands back near the back shoulder as the foot goes forward. Do stride-only reps and check that the hands haven't moved toward the pitcher at landing.
- You step away from the plate or open the front shoulder early Stride straight at the pitcher or slightly closed and keep the front shoulder in. A tape line on the ground toward the pitcher helps.
- You get out front on slower pitches In professional hitters, missed swings at changeups had front-foot force peaking earlier than good swings. Land loaded and stay back until you decide to swing.
Drill
- Stride and hold: no bat. Load, stride, land, and hold the landing for a two-count. Check balance, weight still back, and hands near the back shoulder.
- Tape line: lay a line on the ground toward the pitcher. Load and stride along it so the front foot lands on or just closed of the line.
- Stride, pause, swing (off a tee): load and stride, pause at landing, then swing. This separates the stride from the swing so you can feel the landing position.
- Hit stick (Little League): a helper holds a hitting stick thigh-high over the inside, middle and outside of the plate. Use a normal stride and hit the knob, 10 swings per position, adjusting stride and front-foot placement.
- Film it: face-on from the open side to check stride length against your stance and that the hands stay back. To check timing, film at 120 fps or more.
Sources
- Baseball Canada — Hitting Fundamentals
- Monti R — Return to Hitting: An Interval Hitting Progression and Overview of Hitting Mechanics Following Injury, Int J Sports Phys Ther (2015)
- Welch CM et al. — Hitting a Baseball: A Biomechanical Description, JOSPT (1995) (abstract)
- Escamilla RF et al. — A Comparison of Age Level on Baseball Hitting Kinematics, J Appl Biomech (2009) (abstract)
- Fortenbaugh D et al. — The Effect of Pitch Type on Ground Reaction Forces in the Baseball Swing, Sports Biomech (2011) (abstract)
- Little League University — Backyard Tip: Placement Hitting Using a Hit Stick
Last checked 2026-10-26.