Here is a tidy little article summarizing info related to over/under training for baseball – click here
Roger M. Enoka best sums it up in his textbook “Neuromechanical Basis of Kinesiology”
“Training adaptations are specific to the cells and their structural and functional elements that are overload.
Here is another study that I was a part of at La Tech – this one was done to see if adding weight to the forearms while training (taking swings) would help improve bat speed and batted ball velocity.
I’ve been meaning to do this (start some quick reviews) for a while and I thought this would be a good way to start….
A few years ago, I was directed to an article entitled: The Holy Grail in Speed Training by author Barry Ross.
I found the article very interesting, contacted Mr. Ross and got going on the workout. I was “retired” at the time and figured I’d give it a shot…..what I found (my personal experience) was quite interesting. Within a couple of months, my deadlift improved from the mid-200′s to near 420 pounds while my body weight stayed the same. For sprint work, I did 10 yard starts from a base-stealing position using an electronic timer. Over that winter, I decreased my 10 yard time by .2 seconds. And on the first 40 that I had timed, which was the first sprint I had run over 10 yards, my time was over .2 seconds faster than I had ever run. Pretty cool.
It didn’t take long for Barry Ross, who is a seasoned track & field and strength coach, to open his own site and release his book: Underground Secrets to Faster Running
The book outlines the concept of mass specific force, and sites some nice research studies to back up the claims. The workout is incredibly easy from an equipment, execution and planning standpoint, but not so easy in terms of the load/intensity used! Basically you have to lift heavy! With all the talk of fast and slow twitch muscle fibers, this method gets right to the point of muscle fiber recruitment and training for strength. It is a fast, simple read that goes through mass specific force, physiology, exercise selection and workout design in a logical fashion. Theory and application.
In addition to the lifting and running, I was hitting and throwing with a pair of minor league players and I noticed that my bat speed and throwing velocity were improving above what I had achieved in college. Also pretty cool. Although not excatly common-place, strength training for the posterior chain and specific swing/throw training appeared to be a great combination.
Check out Barry’s web site for more information — Bearpowered.com
OK here goes:
1.) This first graph shows the amount of VERTICAL GRF created by both expert and novice grouns under two conditions – stride and no stride. The only significant difference was in the stride condition where the novice group, 3 college students in our department, had a much higher vertical GRF.
What threw me off a little was that the expert group, three college hitters, actually had a lower GRF in the no-stride condition. My only explanation for that, from an observational standpoint, is that their no-stride condition swings seemed closer to what their natural swings would be. For example, in the stride condition, I literally had to remind them that they needed to lift their front foot off the ground.
2.) The second one simply shows the correlation of bat velocity to GRF. In both conditions, the novice group showed a high correlation to GRF produced and bat velocity. Simply put, the more GRF they had, the more bat speed they had.
This was not the case in the expert group. They showed minimal correlation in both conditions. What this suggests is that they are relying much less on weight shift in the direction of the pitcher for bat speed production. I believe the golf study I have (left it at home today, unfortunately) attributed just 10% of club head speed in experts to weight shift, and this would agree with the results here. In other words, the experts are relying on other means, namely summation of forces from the sequential rotation of body parts – aka kinetic link – to develop bat velocity.
Steve Englishbey got me going a few weeks ago on the topic of Ground Reaction Forces in batting. While there isn’t a ton of stuff directly pertaining to baseball, I have managed to dig up a couple of studies specifically directed at baseball/softball batting, and there are others as well that deal with other sports (like golf).
Just the other day I saw someone in the weight room doing wrist rolls and it made me think of this article. I’ve been meaning to post it for a while now, so here it is.
Dr. Szymanski is an assistant professor here at La Tech and is one of the main reasons I decided to attend. As I’ve mentioned, we’ve already started a study about the effects of weight lifting on bat speed and batted ball speed.
Basically, this study finds that although group 2 (which does additional grip/forearm strngthening exercises) achievs significatly greater grip/forearm strength, but their bat speed does not improve significantly as compared to group 1.
I do have a copy of this entire article, but I will post the abstract (as found here) below:
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Szymanski DJ; McIntyre JS; Szymanski JM; Molloy JM; Madsen NH; Pascoe DD
Department of Health and Human Performance, Auburn University, Alabama 36849, USA. dszyman@latech.edu
This study examined the effects of 12 weeks of wrist and forearm training on linear bat-end velocity (BV), center of percussion velocity (CV), hand velocity (HV), and time to ball contact of high school baseball players. Forty-three baseball players were randomly assigned by a stratified sampling technique to 1 of 2 training groups. Group 1 (n = 23) and group 2 (n = 20) performed the same full-body resistance exercises while training 3 days a week for 12 weeks according to a stepwise periodized model. Group 2 also performed wrist and forearm exercises 3 days a week for 12 weeks. Wrist and forearm strength were measured pre- and posttraining. Linear BV, CV, HV, and time to ball contact were recorded pre- and posttraining by a motion-capture system. A 3 repetition maximum (RM) parallel squat and bench press were measured at baseline and after 4, 8, and 12 weeks of training. Both groups showed statistically significant increases (p < or = 0.01) in linear BV, CV, and HV (m.s(-1) +/- SD) after 12 weeks of training; however, there were no differences between the 2 groups. Both groups statistically increased wrist and forearm strength (p < or = 0.05). Group 2 had statistically greater increases (p < or = 0.05) in 10 of 12 wrist and forearm strength measures than did group 1. Both groups made statistically significant increases in predicted 1RM parallel squat and bench press after 4, 8, and 12 weeks of training; however, there were no differences between groups. These data indicate that a 12-week stepwise periodized training program can significantly increase wrist and forearm strength, linear BV, CV, and HV among high school baseball players. However, increased wrist and forearm strength did not contribute to further increases in linear BV, CV, or HV.
These accompanying charts and figures may also be of interest:
*of special note is that the study was done with HIGH SCHOOL players
My basic comment is that forearm and grip strength does not have to be totally neglected, but it also does not have to be insanely over-hyped. There are plenty of exercises and training scenarios that allow a player to focus on moving and using the major muscle groups while allowing grip and forearm strength to improve (ie deadlift)
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