In my Rochester posts, I mentioned that I did a two-part interview with a local TV show. They came to Jupiter to speak with myself and another RIT grad who also happened to work at Roger Dean Stadium. When I went back to Rochester to work with the team, we did a follow up and they took some footage of me working with the players.
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…
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%.
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
As previously mentioned, I travelled to Rochester, NY mostly to work with the Rochester Institute of Technology baseball team. We went over cage drills, hitting approach and swing mechanics. I was able to demonstrate the features of a radar device that measures bat speed, batted ball exit velocity, swing quickness and timing error (will have more on this is the not too distant future…) and discuss off-season training. Coincidentally, RIT was having their alumni game that weekend at Frontier Field (AAA home of the Rochester Red Wings), so I was able to catch up with a lot of familiar faces…..really enjoyed the trip.
We finished up our 2009 season, 138 games, with a win against the St. Lucie Mets. Now that it is officially the “off-season”, I’ll be continuing work on the site and planning various trips and events, which can now be tracked with the Events Calendar on the sidebar.
Contact me if you’re in the area or you have a suggestion for a Swingtraining.net event opportunity. Lots good things on deck this fall and winter…
To get things going, I will be heading to my hometown Rochester, NY this week (Wed.-Sun.) mainly to talk hitting and off-season training with Rochester Institute of Technology baseball, softball and strength & conditioning coaches. Very similar to what I did during my graduate school days at Louisiana Tech.
Also should be doing a follow up to a TV interview that I did with RIT Sportszone, which had previously come to Florida to catch up with myself and another former Tiger, so look for that episode in the near future.
Lots of friends and family in the area, so it should be a busy trip.
This video clip is of a college player who was looking for a way to improve after a redshirt freshman year at a Division I baseball school. I’d say he figured it out! This is one of the most drastic improvements I’ve seen in such a very short period of time. Bat speed work with overload-underload bats, reaction and timing training, several different drills for rotation and swing path…we did it all:
A couple of years ago, I made a post about resistance training for bat speed that outlined a weight lifting program that has been demonstrated through research to improve strength for high school baseball players. It’s basic multi-joint movements and progressive overload principle provide exellent results.
Something I think that was overlooked there was that the original NSCA article by Dr. David Szymanski also includes a simple protocol for increasing bat speed using overload/underload weighted implement training:
Back in the summer of 2006 there was a college player I worked with a handfull of times after he played his freshman season at a very competitive Division 1 program (they won their conference this year and competed in the NCAA baseball tournament).
We mainly did some video review and worked on mechanics as I tried to give him the information I thought he needed to put things together and make the most of his talent. I received this text message at the end of this May:
This is P***** P***** from **U. Just played my last game and wanted to thank you for working with me. You turned my career around. This year I hit .365 with 11 HR and 51 RBI. Thanks.
Bob Alejo is the strength and conditioning coach of the Oakland Athletics. This video from the strength power hour is from the 2007 NSCA sport-specific conference and he gives some baseball training tips, drills and exercises that address these areas of hitting:
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:
the light bat gets swung the fastest
faster bat speed helps hit the ball farther
1 mph bat speed translates to about 4 extra feet of distance
I am trying to use my larger muscles more when I swing and I thought perhaps you had some type of specific drill with a medicine ball or some weight that would help develop my rotational strength.
Check out this post I made on Resistance Training for Batspeed. The article in there covers a lot of basics about general, special and specific training for bat speed. Each of the protocols referenced there were used successfully with high school and college athletes.
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