Hours are spent together inside batting cages hidden underneath the stands, sitting around video screens analyzing the intricacies of a swing and standing around batting cages, where a simple reminder to keep the bat head in the zone longer could be the key to breaking out of a slump.

I will be at the NSCA Sport-Specific Training Conference in Orlando this weekend.  I have a short 20-minute “From the Field” presentation on Friday at 12:20, where I’ll talk about overload-underload training and drills for bat speed development.  Send me a message if you’ll be there…….

Weighted Bratt Bat

The drill itself is to simply use a Bratt Bat to hit tennis balls from side toss or front flips.  Keep in mind that the bat is not designed to hit baseballs, so it is better to use tennis or wiffle balls.  And another note for you do-it-yourselfers: I like this bat much more than a homemade version from filling an old metal bat with sand because of the difference in the balance of the bat.  The Bratt Bat’s weight is evenly distributed, whereas the old sand filled metal bat is much more end-heavy.

— Swingtraining.net Drills Page —

I’ve found over the years that higher loads tend to expose inefficiency, and this drill is no exception.  The tough parts about hitting with a bat this heavy is that it is hard to execute a normal load with your upper body (hands/arms/shoulders) and it is extremely difficult to control the bat after contact.  Both of these are a result of the weight.  You can see in the finish below how the bat head just wants to take off after contact because of the momentum that has been built up and transferred to the barrel.

Manny using the Bratt Bat

This challenge of controlling the weight and the barrel is what makes the drill effective.  For example, I don’t start off with much more instruction other than to “hit the ball up the middle”.  What typically happens after that is the player misses or severely rolls over the ball on the first swing.  Why? Because he can’t control the bat-head release, or in simpler terms, he doesn’t really know how to ’stay inside’ the ball.  This feedback is helpful – swing it right and you can hit the ball where you want and it will feel more effortless.  Screw it up and feel the weight of the bat, miss, or roll that double-play ball.

So here is the main point of the drill – to use the body and its rotation to deliver the hands and bat through the right path to the right spot at the right time.  Here is a AA minor league player – read more about his swing transformation here and here – taking a full rip with an 100 oz. (yes, 100 ounces) bat:

100 oz. Bratt Bat soft-toss

So for the actual drill I like to take out or minimize the load with the upper body (the player will always make some kind of little move to get going).  One less thing to worry about.  Plus by setting the bat on the shoulder, the bat gets closer to the swing plane that it needs to be on.  And from here the player can just focus in the unloading, or concentric action of the swing.

The Bratt Bat drill forces the turn of the body to do most of the real work.  Not only to be the major force provider in the swing, but also to allow the hands to get to the right place.  Both of the minor league players below started with a tendency to spin on their back foot, which would make them come around the ball in this drill.  With the feedback from the heavy bat, they learned to get their back-side through the ball…and let “the bug” live (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Unloading the Swing

I mentioned using the rotation of the body to deliver the bat where it needs to be – trying to use this heavy bat to hit the ball middle/oppo forces this.  How?  If the player gets long with his hands/arms early in the swing (ie. casts the bat), the bat wants to drop like an anchor because of its weight.  Same thing if the player tries to push the bat too much.  When the bat starts to get too far from the body, gravity takes over.  As the player learns to use his hands and arms together with his rotation, the bat actually does not feel to heavy.  This is efficiency in hitting mechanics.

What to do:

• Use a weight appropriate for the strength-age-level of your player (65-75 oz. for high school, up to 100 oz. for stronger college players and pros)
• Avoid a high volume of swings.  5-10 is enough to get the right feel, then switch back to a regular weight bat
• Avoid trying to swing too hard.  Save that for your overload-underload swings.  Just get the feeling of the drill.
• Focus on hitting line drives up the middle and towards the oppo gap
• Remember this is just a drill and stick to the main principles of swing training for larger numbers of swings

You can find a Bratt Bat available through the Products page, or click here.

The 2009 Perfect Game World Wood Bat Championship is coming up this month  – October 22-26 – at the Roger Dean Stadium complex in Jupiter, Florida.  I went last year and saw a lot of the best amateur talent in the country, so I’m looking forward to more of the same this year.  Here is the tournament description from their site:

This will be the 11th annual WWBA World Championship. It is held each year in Jupiter, FL. Considered by many as the top amateur baseball tournament in the world, it consists of 80 of the top elite travel teams from across the US, Canada, and Latin America. Past champions include Perfect Game USA (1999), Baseball America (2000, 2002), Miami Sluggers (2001), East Cobb Astros (2003, Co-2005), Houston Heat (2004), Chet Lemon’s Juice (Co-2005), Reds Scout Team (2006), Braves Scout Team (2007)

Be sure to leave a comment or contact me if you plan to be there.

Here’s a link to the RIT Sportszone site, where you can find the entire episode (Season 8, Episode 2).

I put my segment in the sidebar, and also included a  it below in a bit larger size, along with more details about what I was talking about…

[See post to watch Flash video]

If you’re paying close attention to the video you can see a few things that I’m explaining:

• swing path
• upper body position/angle over the plate
• top/bottom hand drills
• using the radar & bat speed drills

Coach Grow (RIT baseball coach) also mentioned setting up a routine, so we talked about cage drills (tee work, flips, bpp), situational hitting, and how each player’s preparation should be geared toward executing an approach that best fits his ability and the team’s plan for success.   It’s tough to cover so much in a short period, but it was a lot of fun.

]]> http://swingtraining.net/videos/rit-sportszone-espn2-interview/feed/ 0 http://swingtraining.net/general/swingtrainingnet-perfect-competition/ http://swingtraining.net/general/swingtrainingnet-perfect-competition/#comments Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:04:26 +0000 Jeff http://swingtraining.net/?p=1631

Swingtraining.net has joined with Perfect Competition sports performance facility in order to provide comprehensive strength, speed, and hitting specific workout programs in the Southeast Florida area.  Perfect Competition already has a well established reputation for their MLB Performance Enhancement program, and now…

Swingtraining.net has joined with Perfect Competition sports performance facility in order to provide comprehensive strength, speed, and hitting specific workout programs in the Southeast Florida area.  Perfect Competition already has a well established reputation for their MLB Performance Enhancement program, and now Swingtraining.net will add the most specific hitting training available.

Complete training programs will be available for players at various levels:

• Professional Baseball
• College Baseball or Softball
• High School Baseball or Softball

Perfect Competition has served as the off-season training home to Major League Baseball stars such as Manny Ramirez, Miguel Cabrera, Mike Lowell, Magglio Ordonez, Miguel Tejada, Javier Lopez, Raul Ibanez, and Jose Guillen (see list of MLB Alumni).

Raul Ibanez & Manny Ramirez

The Perfect Competition Performance Center offers the following:

•   20,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art facility
•   5000 sq. ft. multi level weight room
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•   Professional development center
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•   Outdoor grass fields and turf field

Performance Center

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Facility Location

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The basics are that 3 groups of 20 college players were trained 4 times per week for 12 weeks under the following conditions: batting practice group, dry swing group, control group.  The BP and dry swing group followed this swing training protocol using varied heavy and light weighted bats while the control group just dry swung with a regular weighted bat.

The results say that each group significantly imrpoved bat speed, but that’s a little misleading if you don’t read the whole study.  The batting practice group improved 10%, the dry swing group imroved 6%, and the control group improved 1%. 

I believe the 10% improvement from the BP group is the highest bat speed documented in published research.  Bat speed improvements above 10% are shown on the results page…although that’s not published research.

Something I like about this study is that it is practical and easy to implement.  If you work with a team, you can do this same program in your existing practices.  For example, have a group of 4 players take their batting practice – use the regular bat to hit live BP, have two other players swing the heavy and light bat, respectively, while the 4th player takes a rest before the live round in the cage.  Not only does this squeeze in some bat speed training, but it kills some wasted dead time around the cage.

An even easier way to implement this is in the batting cage using front flips.  This is why I formed an exclusive partnership with Max Bats to provide overload-underload training bats that players can actually hit with.  This research study suggests there is a significant difference in being able to hit the ball while training versus dry swinging, and maple bats won’t fray like ash bats or dent like the light aluminum bats used in this study.

Another think I like about the study is the implication of the use of dry swings in the weight room.  More on that at a future time…

Effects of Weighted Bat Implement Training on Bat Swing Velocity

DeRenne, Coop; Buxton, Barton P.; Hetzler, Ronald K.; Ho, Kwok W.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of weighted bat training on bat swing velocity. Sixty male university baseball players volunteered to participate and were randomly assigned to one of three equal-sized training groups: batting practice (BP), dry swing (DS), and control. The BP hit live pitched baseballs with alternated overweighted, underweighted, and standard 30-oz bats for 12 weeks. The DS dry-swung with alternated overweighted, underweighted, and standard bats. The control group dry-swung with a standard bat during the 12 weeks. All three groups showed significant increase in bat swing velocity during the study (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the differences between pre- and posttest scores (delta scores) were significant between BP and control, between DS and control, and between BP and DS (p < 0.05). It is suggested that training with variable weighted implements will significantly increase bat swing velocity, and that the use of loads specific to the target activity but with sufficient variation about the standard load will induce further training adaptations.

(C) 1995 National Strength and Conditioning Association

Pasted below is the abstract from a bat speed training article published by Chester Sergo and Douglas Boatwright in 1993.  The italics and red text are emphasis added by me.  Read the abstract, but I’ll summarize and make a few points:

 - 24 subjects averaged 19-20 years old and were college students practicing in the off-season

- All the training was done with just dry swings, during practice.  100 swings in sets of 20 performed 3x/week for 6 weeks

- Group 1 (regular bat only), Group 2 (62 oz. bat), Group 3 (alternated sets with 62 oz. & fungo bat)

- Each group improved bat speed 8-9%, with no statistically significant difference.  Group 1 (8.8%, highest), Group 2 (8.0% lowest), Group 3 (8.2 %)

- FYI the average bat speeds reported for these players began in the low 90’s and ended around 100 mph, measured by some light timing device made by the school’s engineering department

Overload-Underload Maple Training Bats

 

 

 

I’ll add these points:

1.) This type of training is relatively easy to implement for any player or team.  Even with just a regular bat and dry swings, players will improve if they set their focus on high intensity, quality swings.

2.) Heavy bats are not bad.  I tried to suggest this in the weighted warm-ups post.  Remember there is a difference between acute and chronic training effects.  I would not recommend the volume of swings with as heavy of a bat as used in this study, but both overload and underload training components are valuable within a suggested range (see swing training page).

3.) The study makes reference to an unpublished thesis from 1970 which concluded that swinging a heavy bat in conjunction with weight training significantly improves bat velocity, whereas weight training alone did not.

4.) It doesn’t take tons of hitting drills or fancy weight room exercises to improve bat speed.  Mechanics and strength training are important, but remember —> intent, specificity, feedback.

 

Training Methods Using Various Weighted Bats and the Effects on Bat Velocity

-Sergo, Chester; Boatwright, Douglas

The purpose of this study was to determine if baseball bat velocity could be improved as a result of training with both weighted and light bats as opposed to training with either bat alone. Subjects (N=24) from a collegiate baseball team were pretested for bat velocity and randomly assigned to one of three training groups (n=8). Each group dry-swung a bat 20 sets of five swings each with 20 seconds rest between sets, 3 days a week for 6 weeks. The control group used a legal bat of their choice. Group 2 used a 62-oz weighted bat. Group 3 alternated a 62-oz weighted bat and a light bat between each set.Subjects took their normal swing through a light timing device, using a 31-oz bat, as if hitting in a game situation. The average of the last five swings was used for data analysis. A 3 x 2 (Group x Time) ANOVA with repeated measures on the last factor was used for statistical analysis. The reliability for the testing procedure was determined by pooling the test-retest data from the pretest and posttest. Data analysis revealed no significant group effect, a significant time effect, and no Group x Time effect. The evidence suggests that swinging a bat of any weight under the training program’s guidelines would significantly improve bat velocity.

(C) 1993 National Strength and Conditioning Association

I’ll be on the road again next week, this time heading to Indianapolis, Indiana to visit my alma mater, Butler University.  It’s another alumni weekend, so I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and teammates.  It will be nice to see the upgrades to the ballpark, which I missed out on when I visited last February.

Bulldog Park

I was able to sit down and just chat with the coaching staff last spring and see the beginnings of spring practice on the new turf football field, but this will be a better opportunity to see the guys in action, even if it is against a group of alumni.  I also want to check out the new indoor hitting facility, which will be a huge asset to the program.

Butler's Indoor Batting Cages

Look for an update after the trip……