Wood bat Training?

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Dec 2, 2013
3,410
113
Texas
Great example of a good use of a wood bat!

And I know for a fact that someone like Cannonball knows how to use a wood bat to get more out of hitters and his dd was an absolute bomb dropper.

What scares me is the 12u dads that want to have their kid take 312 cuts a night with a wood 33” Louisville Slugger.
I learned somewhere to work on underloading with a lighter bat and then overloading with a heavier bat. Doing the same thing over and over will get you the same results. Changing up your training patterns does a reset on your brain and muscles.

DD is superstitious. While driving up to see her team play vs ETBU last week she asked me to get her some eye black. She did not wear it in any of the 3 games. I was kind of peeved that I went out of my way to get it for her and she didn't wear it. I asked her why she didn't wear it. She said, I hit a HR in the first game without the eye black, so I didn't want to wear it in the other games. Don't want to mess up the feng shui. Uh okay.

One time, DD was swinging a 34-8 LXT and hit back to back pitches (2 AB's) over the fence in a game. After that game, she was no longer successful so she went back to her 34-10 bat. Was it a fluke?
 
Dec 11, 2010
4,713
113
If I had it all to do over again, we would still use the heavy stuff I think. I wish I had known about the half bat sooner though.

Never really changed up game bats. One swung -9 Xenos (before Wilson became The Evil Empire) and one swung -8 Ghosts. They both used their lower half well, some of that is probably from heavy bats.

FFS advocated wood bats too, sometimes in combination with high speed machine. Dude is an expert though. I’m not!
 
Apr 8, 2021
18
3
Fresno, CA
^^^^^Read this above please before you embark on heavy bat training!^^^^

I think that one thing to watch for with any heavy bat training is training the hitter to commit to every pitch too early.

Also, I hear over and over that heavy bats build bat speed. I don’t believe that is the case when it isn’t done right. And most aren’t doing it right.

If you are going to do wood or heavy bat training, combine it with light bat training, which imho will yield better results anyway. Trey Hannem’s excellent Half Bat is one example.

One more thing- better be damn careful using high speed machine. You better know what you are doing and you better watch your hitters closely. This screws up more hitters than it improves. If improving hitters was as easy as setting a machine to a speed that only high level D1 hitters see, there would be no such thing as hitting coaches or hitting forums. DD had the opportunity to hit with one of the best hitting coaches in the country. He used his machine to lob perfectly shaped 25-30 mph pitches about 30 feet. I had never seen an instructor use a machine that way, and it was excellent.
I agree with you, I believe that 95% of people who do heavy bat training are probably doing it wrong. And despite what many believe I think heavy bat training doesn't increase bat speed much even when done right. My brother's bat speed has increased a lot over the last two years, but I contribute that more to his last two years of weight training packing on 20 pounds then him swinging his wood bat. His wood bat has definitely made him a more patient discipline hitter but I'd say it didn't do much for his bat speed. In my opinion proper mechanics and overall strength is what generates bat speed.
 
Dec 5, 2017
514
63
Great example of a good use of a wood bat!

And I know for a fact that someone like Cannonball knows how to use a wood bat to get more out of hitters and his dd was an absolute bomb dropper.

What scares me is the 12u dads that want to have their kid take 312 cuts a night with a wood 33” Louisville Slugger.

Keep in mind that both my kids are good hitters, both swung wood LS bats as well as a 33” Camwood and hit a heavy bag and off a tee with a 40oz Swing Mechanic. We also used various knob weights. I’m just saying that weighted bats alone are not the only solution and I saw more short term progress with bat speed with the Half Bat than anything else.

I have also seen a lot of great hitters that have never used any training bat of any kind.
I bought a camwood for dd and we use it in a similar way that some people lift weights. We use the camwood, her normal weight practice bat, and a -13 in the same length. So we basically do heavy day, medium day, and light day not necessarily in that order. We definitely do a lot less reps with the camwood than the other two. Even though dd mostly slaps I think the camwood is a good tool if for no other reason than working on controlling the bat. We hit a heavy bag as well and she seems to enjoy that, probably pretends the bag is me!
 
Dec 5, 2017
514
63
I agree with you, I believe that 95% of people who do heavy bat training are probably doing it wrong. And despite what many believe I think heavy bat training doesn't increase bat speed much even when done right. My brother's bat speed has increased a lot over the last two years, but I contribute that more to his last two years of weight training packing on 20 pounds then him swinging his wood bat. His wood bat has definitely made him a more patient discipline hitter but I'd say it didn't do much for his bat speed. In my opinion proper mechanics and overall strength is what generates bat speed.
I believe you get better bat speed by using an underload vs overload bat. There's a reason successful powerlifters have underload days. I know powerlifting is a far cry from swinging a bat but the same principle should apply. Move a lighter weight fast to focus on being fast. I like the heavier bat more strength & control.
 
Apr 8, 2021
18
3
Fresno, CA
I believe you get better bat speed by using an underload vs overload bat. There's a reason successful powerlifters have underload days. I know powerlifting is a far cry from swinging a bat but the same principle should apply. Move a lighter weight fast to focus on being fast. I like the heavier bat more strength & control.
I’ve never heard anyone compare the underload vs overload bat concept to powerlifting before, seems like a sound idea. Do you happen to know of any research, articles or videos about the concept that I could check out?
 
Dec 5, 2017
514
63
I’ve never heard anyone compare the underload vs overload bat concept to powerlifting before, seems like a sound idea. Do you happen to know of any research, articles or videos about the concept that I could check out?
No I don't. I just know that the concept of underloading/light days is used to build speed in power lifting, especially Westside Barbell Club, and it just seems like there would be a similar training response. It might be a stretch to compare my 11 yo swinging a bat to powerlifters but I think there has to be some benefit. I think it works with the swing because if I tell my dd to "swing hard" she tenses up and tries to use her muscles. When we use her light bat and use the cue "swing fast" she does. Of course this is all anecdotal and the eyeball test of what's fast is subjective, but to my eyes it works. I do seem to recall in the past, someone on dfp stating that using bat weights on deck had been proven to have the opposite intended effect per some studies.
 
Apr 30, 2018
349
43
This article has several links in it to studies that have been done that verify the improvements gained from overload/underload training. The draw back to these articles is they were all tested on highschool and college athletes not youth athletes. They all show the overload/underload combination group outperformed the base group that only swung their normal bat. There wasn't any consensus on how much of an overload/underload was needed to make it see the gains. This all required multiple days a week of drills. Once a week probably won't work.


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Apr 8, 2021
18
3
Fresno, CA
This article has several links in it to studies that have been done that verify the improvements gained from overload/underload training. The draw back to these articles is they were all tested on highschool and college athletes not youth athletes. They all show the overload/underload combination group outperformed the base group that only swung their normal bat. There wasn't any consensus on how much of an overload/underload was needed to make it see the gains. This all required multiple days a week of drills. Once a week probably won't work.


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Interesting I’ll defiantly give it a read. Thanks
 
Dec 11, 2010
4,713
113
@MikeP I like that plan. I did use a lot of training bats with my daughters and I did always try to incorporate a light with a heavy.

I can’t remember where I read it but I remember reading that 5 ounces under and 5 ounces over their normal bat weight was where the fastest gains were made.

I have some old discontinued knob weights (Pro-Cut) in 8, 12, and 16 ounce sizes. Until the kids were older I usually only used the 8 ounce.
 

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