THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Didn’t Babe Ruth swing with 3 bats in the on-deck circle?

Interesting, and to me, it’s counterintuitive. I understand the concept of swinging faster (and yes, of course, most power is generated from bat speed, not brute strength) means you’ll swing faster when it counts. But it also seems that if your muscles are used to heavier objects, they’ll be able to swing the lighter objects faster. So here’s what I wonder: Would you get some increased benefit from doing both. First swing a heavy bat, then take a few practice swings with the lighter or game bat, then get in there and take your normal swings.

So my “heavy hitter” weighted practice driver was probably not a good investment?

The bat will feel lighter, but to swing a heavier bat the player has to change the way he swings. Since the biomechanics of the swing change with heavier weights, a return to the original bat will result in worse technique and timing.

If you are into this type of research, check this link out: http://www.sbcoachescollege.com/articles/OverloadUnderloadBaseball.html

Check out one of the references:

“ (1) Nathan, Alan.  Nuclear Physics Professor.  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign”

Is it just me, or are people here more impressed if Alan changed his title to “Baseball Physics Professor”?

Alan Nathan also did this interesting look at the effects on ball travel from PED usage.

PDF Link

The theory is that you train your nervous system to swing slower if you practice with a heavy bat. The problem is that the motor pathways swinging a heavy bat are too similar to swinging a normal bat and your nervous system gets them confused.

So how long/how many swings of a lighter bat after swinging the heavy bat before your nervous system goes back to normal? And does this time elapsed (or the repetitions) negate that feeling of being stronger that you get from swinging the heavy bat?

I’m not disputing the study at all, just wondering if there’s a best of both worlds situation to be had.

This is not new knowledge. I can recall reading a very similar study some fifteen or twenty years ago. Too bad I can’t remember where. The author of that study concluded that it makes sense to use a donut or heavier bats to stretch or loosen up, but that the batter shouldn’t swing with it because it would affect his reaction time at the plate.

This particular study is only aimed at swinging while on-deck.  I’d guess the effect is simply due to muscles getting a bit fatigued.

I would expect that practicing (during practices, not during or immediately before games) with a slightly-heavier bat, on the other hand, would build up muscle strength and quickness.  A batter is obviously not going to become any stronger or quicker during the minute or so he is on deck, but a training program over time would help. 

So MGL’s practice driver may still be a good investment....

Of course they advertise that the driver can be used on the practice range just before you play in order to make the regular driver feel lighter, and thus you will swing it faster - the conventional wisdom about using weighted or double bats in the on-deck circle.  But it does seem like these weighted bats and golf clubs can be used to increase strength and maybe flexibility, but that is just a supposition on our part.  Sometimes intuition and common sense don’t feed the Admiral’s cat, as we know from all of the baseball myths (that often seem intuitively correct) that analysts have refuted.

Just for the record: The theory is that you should *never* swing a heavy bat or throw a heavy ball, etc.

Strength acquired at fast speeds translates to slower speeds, but not the other way around. If you develop strength with a heavy bat, your nervous system will not be able to apply it to the lighter bat swung at greater speed.

If you want to get stronger, lift weights. Once you’re stronger, then practice swinging the normal bat even faster.

Matt: do you think the Tom House approach of making his pitchers throw footballs and other heavier-than-baseball objects was a theory that should have been tested at the lower levels before being tried on the pros?

Tom: Based on my understanding, he should not have used those techniques on pro’s without extensive lower level testing to prove efficacy.

In general, my impression of baseball training is that it is not state of the art. This isn’t that surprising since the baseball community has always been very conservative.

And sorry for all my excessive qualification of my statements, but I don’t want to be perceived as an expert. This information is fairly new to me as well. About a year ago I started Crossfit (http://www.crossfit.com) which includes Olympic lifting. Olympic lifting is the source of the fast strength and slow strength theory.