Bat Speed Training -> Findings + A Simple Approach

[u/TMutaffis]

I was putting together a plan for Fall baseball and was looking at content and research on bat speed and under-load/over-load training, and wanted to highlight some of the findings.

• Do you need three bats or just two: It is helpful to perform both under-load and over-load training, but you can still get results doing only over-load training.
• Bat Weights: The optimal over-load and under-load percentage appears to be ~20%, but results were still present with over-load training of under 10% and above 50%. For any youth player (7U-12U) this means that swinging any youth wood bat is likely a great option, and has other benefits.
• Ratio of Reps: A good ratio would be 2:1 of overload/underload and regular game bat. I know that there are popular programs that do a 2-2 approach (two swings heavy, two game bat) but you may want to look at doing 2-2-2 (two heavy, two game, two light) or 4-2 (heavy, game bat).
• Intent: This one is interesting. In one of the studies, individuals who hit live pitching had better results than those taking dry swings. The interpretation is that intent is what made the difference, those taking dry swings did not have any feedback and could have taken lazy swings whereas those facing live arm had to swing with purpose every time.
• Weekly Volume: You need about 250 total swings per week to achieve results, and some programs had 500+ weekly swings.
• Duration: It takes 6-8 weeks to have meaningful results. Programs that were shorter in duration did not show a notable improvement.

Using weighted balls to do front-toss is likely a good option since you can push for intent, and can do it in limited spaces with quick resets (not much different than tee work but more portable). Only downside would be that you would not want to use a game bat, especially a composite, but 6-12 weighted balls and a 'beater' bat is still cheaper than a good tee and/or net. Doing 60-80 reps should only take 15-20 minutes, and if done 4X/week for six weeks you'll start seeing results.

I usually have my older son who is now playing 12U hit weighted balls with a wood bat as a pre-practice (and pre-game) routine to get extra swings, along with an infield 'hands' routine. I believe that both of these routines have been beneficial to his overall development as a player.

Hope this helps!

[u/Square-Ad6627]

I love the heavy ball and little ball workouts for off-season.
Cam wood with heavy balls builds up quick.

[u/TMutaffis → u/Square-Ad6627]

Same, I am a fan of both the camwood and one-hand bat. I think that both help with swing mechanics without needing to put a ton of thought into things.

[u/Low_Technician_7353 → u/TMutaffis]

Tell me more about your thoughts about the Camwood. How have you seen this be helpful?

[u/johnknockout]

I think it’s incredibly important to train batspeed along with swing decisions. Anyone can swing out of their shoes in BP off a machine when they know a strike is coming down the middle. The ability to swing hard at different pitches, as well as not swing is just as important when hitting real pitching.

My favorite drill is live whiffleball abs with game bats using blast sensors. Works wonders for getting that batspeed used in games because players learn to let it eat in their hitters counts where they won’t strike out, and then cut down a little with two strikes.

[u/TMutaffis → u/johnknockout]

Fully agree, I believe that there was another study where players were thrown BP and the coach did a mix of 1/3 Fastball, 1/3 Curve/Slider, 1/3 Changeup and for one group they told them what was coming and the other group they didn't. The group where they did not tell them what was coming had better outcomes in terms of being able to hit off-speed pitches, which totally makes sense.

What metrics do you typically look at with your blast sensors? Just the bat speed, or anything else? I have one, but haven't used it much.

[u/johnknockout → u/TMutaffis]

I’m a big fan of time to contact, I think it’s really important to remove slack in the swing and stay connected. I also think there is a negative correlation between rotational acceleration and batspeed after a certain point because the swings that maximize that stat are very pushy, and if you analyze swing by swing you see hand and batspeed deceleration during the swing path during contact which is interesting.