Mike Testani Helps Kids Swing with Confidence as a Video Driven Baseball Hitting Instructor

LONG ISLAND, N.Y., July 23, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- As Mike Testani embarks on his career as a private baseball hitting instructor, teaching kids from ages 10-21 the fundamentals of the correct swing, he looks back on his own extraordinary rollercoaster journey as a player, from his halcyon days as a little league star through an extraordinary career at three different colleges, where he often hit better than 400.

Testani is a coach dedicated to helping his players develop their innate skills, confidence level and ability to overcome setbacks while fostering their overall passion for the game. His ultimate aim: "To put the love of the game back inside of you and make the game of baseball fun again by making you a better hitter." In doing so, he brings a dynamic history and an impressive array of accolades to each moment of instruction and every correction and adjustment.

In 2005, Testani started his college career at Cleveland State Community College, a top D-1 Junior College in Tennessee. In 2006, he was on the Nassau Community College All-Region 1^st team. In 2007, one of his banner college years at Adelphi University, Testani was All-ECC 1^st Team (East Coast Conference), an ECAC All-Star (Eastern College Athletic Conference), a member of the Northeast Regional All-Tournament Team and the ABCA (American Baseball Coaches Association) All-Northeast Region 1^st Team. He was also the ECC (East Coast Conference) Player of the Year, an ACBL (Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League) All-Star Selection and an NCBWA (National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association) All-American.

All those distinctions were made possible by a key moment that changed his entire playing career – and now drives him to excellence as an instructor. That key moment was the use of video analysis.  

Like a lot of former little league standouts, daunted by increasingly talented players and higher levels of competition as they continue playing in their teens, Testani realized in high school that everything that had worked for him as a top little leaguer just wasn't cutting it anymore.

The Queens, New York native, who moved with his family to Long Island, played the first of five years with an elite New York-based summer travel team named the Bayside Yankees when he was 14. Though he was good enough from ages 16-18 to play center field on the squad's A Team with top regional players from around the country, he was mostly lauded for his defensive skills in centerfield and admits he was lacking as a hitter.

The summer before Testani's freshman year of college, a player on his team, who had been drafted by the New York Yankees in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft, recommended a new hitting instructor to Testani. Motivated by his desire to seek opportunities to play at the college level, he decided to give it a shot.

Because of the difference it made in his swing and his subsequent successful career as a college ballplayer, Testani swears by video analysis in working with his students. With video, the hitter has the ability to go over his mechanics and have a point of reference to go back to, whether it is in practice or a game. With the swing analysis software Testani uses, he creates side-by-side comparisons to professional hitters to see where adjustments need to be made.

Testani believes there are countless benefits to taking private lessons from trained and experienced hitting coaches, and that personal attention is the way to ensure maximum value for the child's growth as a hitter. Through customized drills and video analysis, his students improve in several key areas. These include: 1) Stance; 2) Load; 3) Launch or Weight Transfer; 4) Bath Path; 5) Point of Contact; and 6) Follow Through.

Testani is also known for offering a free hitting evaluation, with a personalized drill to help with a flaw in your swing, at his website, GoldCoastHitting.com, because, as he says, "a single technique or drill can stick with a student for the rest of his life and baseball career." This is the kind of hands-on detail he brings to his students now.

Read more at http://www.goldcoasthitting.com/my-story/.

SOURCE Mike Testani