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This week we test the fact that a lighter bat gives more bat speed than a heavy bat, and what does that mean.
Episode 62 – Bat Speed? – The Fastpitch Softball TV Show
This video comes from softball site fastpitch.tv and deals with how changes in bat weight effect bat speed, batted ball velocity, and batted ball distance. Fairly simple test – use radar to measure bat speed of different weighted bats (imagine that!). They could have just hit balls off a tee and measured the ball exit speed (like this), but I suppose getting actual calculations assuming a more constant environment are more controlled. Here are some conclusions:
Keepin it rollin’ with more updating, transferring this old link from ’06
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Here is what she wrote:
“Hey Jeff, hope you’re doing well. Just wanted to let you know that I made first team all county this year and lead my team in doubles and almost tied the school record for homeruns, all thanks to you.”
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.
First, a long overdue congratulations to the Louisiana Tech Softball team, who won their first ever WAC conference championship back in May. What a great group of hard-workers who pulled off multiple wins against ranked opponents to bring home the title.
Along with another assistant, I got involved in directing the team’s strength and conditioning program for the 2007-2008 season. What we were very fortunate to be able to do was measure/test all kinds of physical and performance variables at the beginning and end our training.
I made a previous post about presenting a conference poster about our intial findings regarding the relationship of the players’ physiological characteristics to the performance characteristics. So after all this time, here is the actual poster that I presented:
Big surprise, the girls who were bigger and stronger hit the ball harder! It was nice to find some relationship between the variables, but the correlations are not great, with the highest r-squared value being .25
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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