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.

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There’s a new piece of equipment to our Bat Speed Training program – the Swing Away Pro Model Swing Trainer:

Swing Away Bat Speed Training Station

We put this hitting system together over the weekend and been taking swings on it to test it out, and the initial response has been great.

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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…

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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.

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Below is another bat speed training 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%. 

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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

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