I previously posted the “Home Run Drill” that Yankees hitting coach, Kevin Long, came up with and used with Robinson Cano, and now here is a look at Cano’s hitting mechanics that were recently on display in the 2011 Home Run Derby. At the :56 mark, there is a good side view in super slo- mo:
A few things that I really like:
1. The way he moves against his back leg
2. The position of his upper body
3. How his bat gets on and stays in a really great swing path
It’s not easy to have a short swing and create bat speed at the same time, but this is a pretty good example of what it looks like.
Stack TV has a series of hitting, workout & training video clips featuring Evan Longoria from the Tampa Bay Rays. These cover aspects of his baseball specific workouts in the weight room that target power development through the lower body and core muscles, as well as training the upper body for stability. Just as important to the training, especially considering the daily repetition and long duration of the baseball season, is his mindset of taking quality reps in each area in order to maximize the training effect of his effort.
If you go to the Marucci Sports Multimedia page, there is a quick little video that shows Albert Pujols working on his swing mechanics using the batting tee and also some soft toss. Click the ‘video’ tab on the right and it is the 3rd video. It gives a nice, close up look into the training workouts and practice swings of one of today’s best hitters.
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.
Below is another bat speedtraining research abstract. This really was one of the best, if not the best, controlled research study that has been published regarding overload & underload training and its effects on bat swing velocity – and it was done all the way back in 1995!
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%.
