Heavy Bat Training

[K1'S Dad]

Do any of your DD's train with heavier bats during batting practice? Or just use the same weighted bat? I was thinking of having my DD who is playing 16U, 5', 105 lbs, do batting practice workouts. Currently uses a 33/23 and has no issues hitting the ball. The workout would consist of tee work with heavier bat working with mechanics, then soft toss, then finishing with her current bat or even a lighter bat working on bat speed. Any input- pros/cons of maybe doing this workout.
Her current home workout is tee work/mechanics with about 4-5 buckets, 25 balls per bucket.
Thanks In Advance.
K1's Dad

[AlwaysImprove]

We had good results with the hitting jacket, or similar. Weights on the bat designed to be there when you hit the ball. Works as good as anything else.

We have also used pipe filled with sand in the past. About $5 from home depot. Home Depot carries a lot of different size pipe, and screw on end caps. When they are swinging it correctly, the sand should shift close to contact with ball. For me, It kind of gives some feedback about early or late fire of the bat. Especially early, they get the weight of the pipe out away from their hands too early in the swing they will have a hard time hitting the ball.

You have to be careful. Make sure they are using sound mechanics to handle the additional weight. I saw a number of teams working with weighted bats doing it wrong. Girls tend to want to lunge to generate moment and then use the body lunge to pull the weight of the bat forward. That would be doing exactly what you are not wanting to do.

[GIMNEPIWO]

IMHO ... It depends where the bat is weighted at ... I would keep the additional weight near the knob ... Weighting the bat to far out on the barrel could cause casting, sweeping, rolling, halitosis, dermatititus, anal seepage and carpal tunnel syndrome.

[extiger]

I think a wood bat works better than a heavier bat. You will feel the difference if proper mechanics are not practiced with a wood bat. The path of the bat to the ball is also important. Hands inside the ball. you also don't want your hands to get ahead of your hip rotation or you lose power. Bat lag is very important.

[hit4power]

I'm no expert on this, but my DD never trained with a weighted bat and never had a hitting coach who pushed that. If the goal is to increase strength (and thereby increase bat speed), why not get a good strength training program going under a trainer who knows what s/he is doing?

[NumeroUno]

The hitting jack-it is a great tool, click on the link off to the right.

I did some test with the hitting jack-it and a pocket radar and had great results

[jonriv]

Nice job pushing two sponsors!!!!!

[handsinsidetheball]

The Hitting Jacket helps with hitter collapse on contact. Exit speed of the softball versus just generation of bat speed I think is the hitting jackets best quality. My team loves them and we use them all the time for tee and front toss. The 5 oz jacket is I think the best size for our 14u. Will go up to 9 oz too with a few hitters.

[PDad]

Nice job pushing two sponsors!!!!!

It's a double play!

As Domingo says, "He kill two stones with one bird!"