Training with Wooden Bat

[Goobie]

DD's hitting coach now has her training with a wooden baseball bat as part of her routine. He also has her training with baseballs (which I kind of like since if she can hit the small ball, the softball should seem huge to her).

He doesn't always have her hit with the wooden bat, but uses it as part of the lesson. She will take several swings with her normal bat, then do a series with the wooden bat, then back to her normal bat.

Sounds like the typical overloading process.

My DD is a strong Freshman and can swing the wooden bat without issue.

My questions are:

1) Any negatives from using the wooden bat?
2) Any negatives from practicing with baseballs?

Thanks

 

[quincy]

We use baseballs all the time, I think they are great.

Girls seem to enjoy hitting them witch is always a plus.

 

[obbay]

with the wooden bat, make sure the label is up (or down) at contact so she's hitting with the dense grain.

I like to have girls practice hitting with wooden bats. The only negative that I see is that the bats may not hold up as well with softballs, but if she's only hitting baseballs, that problem goes away.

 

[batspeed]

Many baseball teams will practice with wooden bats. I have used them with select softball players simply because of the the wieght and the sie of the barrel. Many hitters have a problem with dropping off the backside of their swing and with extra wieght in the barrel will make this problem worse, due to the wieght. One thing I like to do is cut the barrel of the bat in half, this is for two reasons. One to take wieght off the bat and two you can have them hit on the flat side and they can see angle of bat.