I was practicing my forehand on the ball machine yesterday in the 90 degree heat here in Virginia Beach.  I was trying to get more power on the ball without losing control.

I discovered some interesting things you might want to try out.

1. I was stepping directly into the shot with somewhat of a closed stance thinking this would get more weight into the ball and

2. I was swinging harder and faster.

Here’s what I learned. By closing the stance too much in an effort to get more weight into the ball I was ruining my swing path and spraying the ball everywhere. As soon as I opened up the stance to more of a neutral stance my swing path came back and it was the same for the full open stance. Lesson learned for this fat guy is that without having the supple waist and lots of room for my arm to maneuver around my gut, closing the stance too much will not work.

The second thing I learned was that by slowing down the swing but swinging earlier along with turning my body gave me much cleaner hits (because I wasn’t swinging too fast for my skill level) and got the result of much more controllable power on the ball.

So, practice opening your stance, and swinging slower with a body turn and watch your controllable power increase.