Posts

Youth Baseball Softball Batting Weight Donut (NOT Doughnut!) Benefit To Little League Swing

Discover whether the baseball or softball batting weight donut (not to be confused with a doughnut!) is or IS NOT a benefit to the Little League swing?  Weighted donut Amazon reviews: Easton, Power Wrap, and Varo.

Using Batting Weight On-Deck May Dangerous To Bat & Ball Exit Speed?

 

 

This post may blow the minds of those that didn’t get the memo…

Chris Dozer, who’s father to one of my 10yo online lesson students, sent the following Wall Street Journal article titled: “Watching Your Weight Before Hitting Plate”.

You can read the article in full by clicking the previous link, but I wanted to include important bullet points from the article and Sports Science video above:

  • “Studies conducted over several decades have concluded that the ritual popular among professionals and emulated by amateurs doesn’t increase bat speed.  It may actually slow it down…’the best is your own bat'”
  •  According to the Zepp app, average professional bat speeds range from 75 to 90-mph, average High School and College bat speeds range from 65 to 80-mph, and average youth bat speeds range from 40 to 70-mph.
  • PLEASE NOTE: there are other batting weight studies with small sample sizes (ranging from 7 to 60 players) comparing High School, College, and recreational hitters in laboratory settings (not LIVE batting practice).  Adrenaline or others batter’s routines could have influenced performance in these. Basically the variable wasn’t properly isolated…that being said, a study with 20 college baseball players found “their performance was statistically unchanged.”
  • Dr. DeRenne, found using a 28-ounce batting weight changed the balance point of the bat and slowed down bat speed.
  • In Sports Science video above, a college hitter in 2008 hit 10 machine pitched balls WITHOUT using a batting weight before, and had an average bat speed of 69-mph, and routinely connected with the sweet spot.  After using the batting weight, then taking another 10 swings off the same pitching machine, his average bat speed dropped to 68.3-mph, and on each swing he missed the bat’s sweet spot by several inches.
  • The above video talked about how because the hitter swings the bat at a slower pace using a batting weight, more red slow twitch endurance muscle fibers get recruited, thereby decreasing the amount of white fast twitch muscle fibers which fire two to three times faster.  Warming up with batting weight in on-deck circle is actually priming the wrong muscles before stepping in the box. 
  • The experience of a single batter can’t be generalized to others, but the results resembled other studies.
  • “People are always looking for an edge,” Dr. Szymanski said, “but just because a professional athlete does something doesn’t mean it’s good or helpful or right.”

 

The Bottom Line?

Now, a 0.7-mph drop in average bat speed doesn’t seem like a lot, but as you saw, it makes a BIG difference in barreling the ball.  As retired Physicist Dr. Alan Nathan says:

  • If ball hits bat 1-inch off sweet spot = then 1 to 2-mph DECREASE in Ball Exit Speed (that’s 4 to 8-feet less distance!)
  • If ball hits bat 2-inch off sweet spot = then 2 to 3-mph DECREASE in Ball Exit Speed (that’s 8 to 12-feet less distance!)
  • If ball hits bat 3-inch off sweet spot = then 3 to 4-mph DECREASE in Ball Exit Speed (that’s 12 to 16-feet less distance!)

So, not only are hitters losing bat speed using a batting weight on the on-deck circle, but by barreling up the ball LESS OFTEN, they’re losing batted ball distance as well.  Aside from swinging the hitter’s own bat, I’d say swinging a lighter bat – faster – would help the body recruit more of those white fast twitch muscle fibers before stepping in the box.

Your thoughts?

SwingAway Trainer: Pro Baseball Traveler

SwingAway Baseball Swing Trainer: How-To Build A Swing You Can Be Proud Of…

 

This article presents a general framework to conduct 8th grade science fair project hitting experiment ideas for baseball and softball players. Sweet spot swing experiment topics should include Physics articles, books, facts, and questions.  Using the scientific method is key…

I’ve wanted to do a “how-to experiment” post for a long time.  But in the past, technology hadn’t quite caught up,

SwingAway Trainer: Pro Baseball Traveler

SwingAway Trainer: Pro Baseball Traveler

…and NOW it has!

Mark Twain once said:

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

I want:

  • …To lay out the landscape, in this Baseball Swing Trainer post, about using the SwingAway for conducting hitting experiments,
  • …This article to empower you to take up arms with me, and turn conventional hitting wisdom on its stubborn little head, and
  • …To inspire you to use modern technology to build a swing we ALL can be proud of.

I’m embarrassed to share the following story…

I did my first hitting experiment in the sixth grade with a buddy, for a school project.

My friend and I ran an experiment to see if a wood or aluminum bat could hit the ball farther.

One day after school, we pitched to each other at the Little League diamond we played our games at.  We used two aluminum Easton baseball bats and a Ken Griffey Jr. signature Louisville Slugger woody.  One aluminum bat was 32-inches and 24-ounces, and the other was 31-inches and 23-ounces.  And I can’t remember what the woody measurements were, but it was comparable.

I think we might have hit about 50 balls with each bat (150 balls total) and get this…measured the distance with our feet! 😀 lol

Based on our results, guess which bat hit the ball the farthest?  Wood or aluminum?  The wood bat!!!  Waaa??

Well, it was only because we weren’t being very scientific with our scientific experiment.  One of the big reasons we didn’t get a good grade on the project was because we DID NOT isolate the variables

  • We threw LIVE batting practice to each other.  We should have used a baseball hitting trainer like a batting tee or SwingAway (wasn’t around at the time).
  • We both took turns hitting, and didn’t separate our individual batted ball distances.
  • We used different sized bats.
  • We measured using our own feet…I was a men’s 8/9 at the time, and my buddy was an 11. We should’ve used a rolling tape measure.
  • We only took a small data sample size. We should’ve hit 100 balls with the wood bat, and then 100 with aluminum.  AND we should have only used one of the aluminum bats (preferably the one closest in size and weight to the woody).  So 400 swings total (200 swings for me, 200 for my friend).  Then compared apples to apples.

Remember, failure is only a detour, not a dead end 😉

The good news is,

You don’t have to be a scientist to run a hitting experiment.

What follows is the exact formula I use now, to run my hitting experiments using the SwingAway baseball swing trainer.  My hopes is that you pick up arms, and join me in the fight…

 

The Definitive Guide to Conducting a Baseball Swing Trainer Experiment

Up until now, here are SIX hitting experiments I’ve run:

 

Equipment & Setup

You can read the full list at the above swing experiment links.  But here are a couple pieces of equipment that will have a drastic effect on bean counting and saving time doing the experiment itself…

BlastMotion Baseball App
Baseball Swing Trainer: Zepp Baseball App

Zepp Baseball App

Great tool for collecting data.  It’s not perfect, but all we need is an apples to apples comparison.  Unfortunately, the Zepp app DOES NOT allow you to separate experiment swings from recreational ones.  You have to delete ALL swings before doing an experiment, unless you want to do the bean counting yourself.

You’ll also need to create two email accounts with Zepp to separate the two experiment tests.  Zepp allows you to “Add a Hitter” in one account, but it doesn’t allow you to separate that data from other hitters or swings and average the data out.

SwingAway Baseball Swing Trainer

I just started using a SwingAway for my swing experiments.  I used to hit the ball off an ATEC Tuffy Batting Tee, but it was taking me 2 1/2 to 3 hours to run my experiments.  Fatigue could set in and skew the results.  Some experiments where you’re looking at ball flight (like Bent Back Knee experiment above) will most definitely need to be done off a batting tee.

Using the SwingAway baseball swing trainer took me only 1 1/2 hours!  NO need for:

  • Ball cleanup,
  • Ball setup, or
  • Waiting more than a few seconds for the ball to return to its stationary position.

This saved me a ton of time.  All you need is a 10 X 10 space to conduct your SwingAway baseball swing trainer experiment.

Baseball Swing Trainer Experiment Optimization Tips…

  • Limit Variables – The main objective of a baseball swing trainer hitting Experiment, is to isolate what you’re trying to test.  Like my sixth grade experiment from earlier, there were too many variables that we didn’t control.
  • Priming the Pump – I always start an experiment by warming up my body with a pre-practice routine, similar to this Dr. Stanley Beekman’s post.  You don’t have to do all included exercises, so pick about eight of them.  I’ll also take about 10-15 swings focusing on the specific mechanic I’m going to be testing that day.  For example, if I was testing showing the pitcher my numbers versus not, then I’d do 10-15 swings both ways, so 20-30 swings total before officially starting the experiment.  We prime the pump so nobody can see, “Well, your numbers sucked in the beginning because you weren’t warmed up.”
  • Counter-Balancing – The two tests in the experiment should be counterbalanced.  Which consisted of eight blocks of 25-swings done in the following order ABBA BAAB.  Say “showing the numbers” was letter ‘A’, and “not showing the numbers” was letter ‘B’.  200 total swings are to be completed in the experiment, 100 per test.  Counter-balancing helps remove the “getting tired” and “not being warmed” up factors.
  • More Data Points – I take at least 100 swings for both tests in the experiment, so 200 swings total (not counting warm-up swings).  So, taking the “showing numbers” as an example, I’d take 100 swings showing my numbers, and then take another 100 swings not showing my numbers.  The Zepp App is a useful technology, but isn’t super accurate.  But the more data you collect, the closer to the “real” numbers you’ll get.
  • Break the Swing Apart – If you aren’t confident that you can repeat a specific mechanic consistently for 100 swings, then break the swing apart, like I talk about in this YouTube video.  I did this in the showing the numbers experiment above.
  • Collect Ball Flight Data (optional) – for some mechanics, like testing the back leg angle during the turn experiment, it’s critical to collect ball flight data on the Zepp app.  Zepp allows you to manually input where you hit the ball after each swing.  Testing the grip on the bat would be another example.  Also, adding Ball Exit Speed readings could enhance the baseball swing trainer experiment, Bushnell Velocity Radar Gun (about $80), or Stalker Radar Gun ($500+).  ESPN’s HitTrackerOnline.com uses the latter in all MLB ballparks.  Just remember, accuracy isn’t as important as an apples to apples comparison.
  • Recovery – I usually will give my body about 30-minutes rest between the first 100 swing test and the second.  I now use supplement timing like Zach Calhoon maps out in these posts.  I sip on Zach’s “concoction” throughout the full experiment to keep my muscles fueled.  I then take Vitamin C and E capsules afterward to help with soreness.
  • Brainstorming Experiments – Don’t have any ideas on what to test?  I did the heavy lifting for you.  And by no means is this an exhaustive list of possible experiments. CLICK HERE for my brainstormed list.
  • Take Notes – make note of my “notes” in the above experiments.  Basically, the notes section are things that you noticed while doing the tests that may not be apparent to the person reading about the experiment.

 

In Conclusion…

In this baseball swing trainer post about using the SwingAway for hitting experiments, I wanted to lay out the landscape and empower you to help me take up arms.  I want to turn conventional hitting wisdom on its head, and use modern baseball swing trainer technology to build a swing we ALL can be proud of.

Let’s revisit the Mark Twain quote from earlier:

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

I need your help and can’t fight this fight alone.  I want you to take action…

My challenge to you is let’s band together and conduct 30 Experiments in the next 30 days.  If all of us do at least one swing experiment, then we should be able to knock this goal out by July 15th.

Just post your baseball/softball hitting experiment results below in the comments section.  Reply with:

  • What experiment you ran (from the brainstorm list above)?
  • How many swings per test (i.e. 100/100), and what order did you do the test?
  • What bat did you use (length, weight, and wood/aluminum)
  • Hit off tee or Swingaway baseball swing trainer?
  • What metric changes were significant (bat speed/hand speed/bat vertical angle at impact/attack angle/ball flight/ball exit speed)?

Thanks in advance for your baseball swing trainer experiment comments!

Hitting Training For Baseball & Softball Swing Trainers | Hitting Performance Lab

17 Little Known Ways to Optimize Learning at Home

What follows is a recommended post for my parents who jump into my online lesson program The Feedback Lab.

I’ve done a tremendous amount of research and study into the science of successful learning over the last two years, and wanted to share 17 quick down-and-dirty tips with you.

As many of you parents know, the work involved to progress a swing DOES NOT stop after the local or online lesson is over.  Many times, it’s the parent and hitter that bares more of a burden, than I do as the teacher.

So that being said, I hope this list helps.  There are also recommended book resources peppered throughout, so…

Enjoy!

 

Guiding the Rider, Motivating the Elephant, and Shaping the Path

Optimize Learning at Home: Rider, Elephant, & Path metaphor

Photo courtesy: blog.iprofs.nl

There are three important ingredients to have success in The Feedback Lab:

  1. Goals,
  2. Steps, and
  3. Reps.

“Goals” are relatively simple to uncover with young athletes using the “So What” Method.

Ask your hitter what they want to accomplish at the plate, and respond to them with “So What”. Keep responding that way until you’ve reached the root of their motivation.

“The Steps” are very important and require a certain sequence.  Like dialing a phone number in the old days…if you dialed a friend’s digits, but were one number off, you wouldn’t reach them.  Much like email addresses nowadays.

We base “The Steps” in our pattern on human movement rules that are validated by science.  Neuro Linguistic Programming calls this modeling.  The NLP, according to Wikipedia:

“Its creators, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, claim a connection between the neurological processes (“neuro”), language (“linguistic”) and behavioral patterns learned through experience (“programming”) and that these can be changed to achieve specific goals in life.”

For a quite a few of my hitting students (and parents), “The Reps” are the hard part.  Which leads me to the following analogy…

The Directing the Rider, Motivating the Elephant, and Shaping the Path analogy I borrowed from: Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard, by Dan & Chip Heath.  The metaphor helps with “The Reps”.

Here’s the context:

  • Guiding the Rider (Neo-Cortex): the part of our brain that is responsible for analytics and logic.  Information has to make sense, and be presented in a way that’s comprehensible to learners.  I often refer to this as ‘sticky’ coaching.  This can also be “The Goal”.
  • Motivating the Elephant (Limbic System): emotional part of our brain.  I often describe this by asking the question, “How would you eat an elephant?”  One piece at a time.  As John Wooden says, “Seek small improvement, one day at a time…don’t seek the big improvements.” If we overwhelm the Elephant with too much ‘stuff’, then de-motivation ensues, and as a result, limited action will be taken.
  • Shaping the Path: the actual roadmap of where to go.  We could have the Rider and Elephant onboard, but if neither knows how to get to their destination, then they’re both stuck. This is “The Steps” part of the equation above.

You see, without one of these puzzle pieces, the remaining two don’t have a chance.

 

Optimize Learning at Home: 17-Point Checklist 

The Science Of Sticky Coaching book goes into more depth on the following points.  I’ve scraped the most relative 16 tips for our purposes in The Feedback Lab:

  1. Focus on Developing Better Movements.  Don’t focus on outcomes/results at first.  For instance, focus on “showing the numbers to the pitcher”, versus how much of a fiery hole the hitter can punch through the batting cage net.  Later, we’ll use ball flight outcomes to reverse engineer where the hitter is being ineffective with their mechanics.
  2. DOWNLOAD the Weekly Accountability Worksheet.  This is for tracking the training and results.  Also keeps the hitter accountable because it requires the parent or coach to sign off on training.  CLICK to Download the Excel Spreadsheet Version – for those looking to fill in online, save to their computer, and send back to the instructor via email.  CLICK to Download the PDF Version – for those looking to print out, write on, and either scan or take a camera-phone snapshot and email to the instructor.
  3. RAMP Warmup Before Training.  R.A.M.P. stands for Range of Motion, Activation, and Movement Preparation.  I have my hitters take 7-10 mins at the beginning of our session to do this exact same warm up.
  4. Stress Discipline (to build Self-Discipline).  Again, I refer back to the Rider, Elephant, and Path metaphor from above.  According to The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born.  It’s Grown.  Here’s How. by author Daniel Coyle, self-discipline is twice as accurate at predicting high GPA scores than IQ is.  The more self-discipline, the better the student, and better the athlete can be. Self-discipline starts with discipline.  Making their bed as soon as the feet hit the ground in the morning, cleaning up after themselves, doing chores around the house, reading a book before bed, etc.  One of my parents creates and laminates a checklist, their kids have to get signed off (by the parent) for doing things mentioned above.
  5. “How Did that Feel?”  Get your hitters to be aware of their body positioning with each movement they perform.  They need to know how it felt to do it wrong.  And they need to know what it felt like to do it right.  Check in every five swings or so.  Or else they won’t learn to do this on there own.  Keep feedback to a minimum.  CLICK HERE for a post I did on “Giving Feedback to Hitters”.
  6. The ‘Right Way’ Sandwich.  According to John Wooden, for his players, he’d modeled the right way to do it, then the wrong way, then the right way again.  The advantage of the Reptilian (primitive-automatic) part of our brain is it does really well with pictures.  In other words, copying another person’s movements.
  7. Being Constructive with Criticism. In Tony LaRussa’s book One Last Strike, he talks about the “Pat & Pop”.  You offer the ‘pat on the back’ of what the hitter is doing great, then offer up the ‘pop in the face’ of what they will be working on.  Works great with my local and online lessons!
  8. No Hyper-Parenting ALLOWED.  Also known as “Helicopter Parenting”.  It stunts learning, according to John Medina in his book, Brain Rules For Baby: How-To Raise a Smarter and Happy Child from Zero to Five.  It can hurt a kid in three ways: 1) Extreme expectations stunt higher-level thinking, 2) Pressure can extinguish curiosity, and 3) Continual anger or disappointment becomes toxic stress.
  9. Perfecting the Fine Art of Empathy.  Just like Steven Covey says from his book The 7 Habits Of Highly Successful People, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”.  John Medina in his book Brain Rules for Baby, said you can use this while interacting with your hitter in these two steps: 1) Describe what emotional changes you think you see, and 2) Make a guess as to where those emotional changes came from.
  10. Praise for Effort.  NOT praise for intellect.  Good praise: “You must have worked really hard!”  Bad praise: “You must be really smart” or  saying “Good job”.  I could give you studies and go on and on about why you should be praising for effort, but I’d urge you to read this article titled, “5 Reasons to Stop Saying “Good Job!”  It’s shocking actually, how two words can turn off the motivation to be self-disciplined and self-reliant.
  11. Model a Favorite Player.  Every hitter needs to experiment and tinker with their swing after a favorite player’s.  Ideal ones include: Hank Aaron, David Wright, Jose Bautista, Robinson Cano, Andrew McCutchen, Chris Davis, and Miguel Cabrera.  Have them get FatHeads of these guys, and put them all over their bedroom walls.  The deepest darkest corner of our brain responds to and remembers pictures very well!
  12. Speed & Tempo.  According to Daniel Coyle in his book The Talent Code, “It’s not how fast you can do it, but how slow you can do it correctly.”  Make the hitter slow the movement down if they can’t execute it at game speeds.  Speed and tempo play an important role in the learning process.
  13. Struggling isn’t an Option.  It’s a Biological Requirement.  Daniel Coyle said this in The Talent Code.  If a young hitter isn’t wrestling enough with a specific movement, then they never engage in the deeper learning process necessary for skill mastery.  It’s okay to be frustrated.  When you sense your hitter getting frustrated, take a break, and come back to it when they’ve cooled off.  Coyle adds these three things: 1) Fire the circuit, 2) Attend to mistakes, then 3) Fire it again.  The brain and body only learn by DOING!!
  14. Data Collection.  To transfer practice to game repetitions, the hitter has to see a lot of LIVE pitching.  Meaning, it must see a flesh and blood human throwing to them.  NO wheel machines!  Timing is everything.  Have the hitter passively (and safely) sit in on pitchers’ bullpens.  No swinging, just Floating and Falling to the Fight Position.
  15. How Many Reps Per Day?  I stopped using how many reps with my students because it tends to overwhelm the Elephant.  So I use time now.  I tell my Little Leaguers to start off with five minutes a day, with perfect reps.  Then as they get consistent with their work, we up the ante.  Set an alarm, and when it sounds, the player is done!  They should be doing their drills everyday.
  16. Focus.  Consistency.  Fun.  Remember, one movement focus at a time until you begin to see them be more proficient at repeating the movement, then add another mechanical layer.  Keep it simple (elephant)…and most importantly, stay consistent with the work, everyday (Rider).  To make it fun…one of my parents shared a  point system they use at home for productive and unproductive tasks (elephant) with their kids.  Productive tasks includes: doing homework, reading a book, or doing their prescribed hitting drill.  Unproductive tasks includes: video games, watching television, or eating McDonalds.  The key is to reward productivity with a fraction of unproductive behavior.
  17. Swing Progressions.  Dry run swings, utilizing slower tempos until the body can catch up to the brain.  I drill this usually in front of a mirror.  Then graduate to hitting off the tee, slow down or break apart the swing if necessary until hitter gets more fluent with the new movement.  Once we get about 60-70% consistent with the new movement, then progress to a moving ball, both soft toss, LIVE front toss, and/or batting practice.  Then regress if their mechanics “meltdown”.

If you have any points to add that piggy-back on how to optimize learning at home, please share them below