There is an often cited study by Rewzon, used in Thomas Kurz’ Science of Sport Training, that talks about the effect variable training can have on our ability to produce maximal output. In the study, they put 2 different groups on 2 different jumping programs, with the goal of seeing which program would help the jumpers maximum jump distance the most.
- Group 1 was told to jump as far as they could with every single jump.
- Group 2 was told to jump to a specific distance on each jump.
What was found was that group 2, during the retest, was able to out jump their group 1 peers in a jump for maximal distance. In other words, even though they didn’t train to jump maximally with each jump, they still outdid their peers who did.
My goal with this article isn’t to determine that there is NEVER a time for maximal effort swings. In fact, I think that type of work is necessary at one point or another during every hitters’ career. However, it is not the ONLY way we can train batspeed.
With the advent of tools like the Blast Motion sensor, we have the ability to get these readings every single day with our hitters. This is a blessing that shouldn’t be taken for granted, but instead used to its’ full potential.
Neurotyping and Bulgarians
I relate the “balls to the wall”, mentality to the well-documented Bulgarian weight lifting system. And while I don’t know the exact ins and outs of that system, the basics are pretty simple: maximal intensity every single day during every single lift. As little variation as possible.
This system clearly worked, as represented by the number of medals the Bulgarians brought home. However, there are a few stipulations: they were on drugs, and they wasted a lot of athletes.
I recently completed Christian Thibaudeaus’ Neurotyping course, which shed some light on why, and how, some of these lifters were able to endure, and even thrive (with a little help from the needle) on these types of programs. Essentially, Thibaudeau has broken it down into 5 different neurotypes: 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, and 3. The further to the left you are on that spectrum, the better you are able to handle stress due to higher serotonin/GABA, and lower cortisol levels.
In this way, those athletes that are further to the left of the spectrum are better able to handle high intensity, low volume work. In fact, they need it, to some degree, to be able to thrive and make progress in their training. With this knowledge, it makes sense why the Bulgarian system was so adept at weeding out the athletes that couldn’t handle their training, while keeping the ones that did. Those who could manage cortisol stayed, while those who couldn’t got dropped.
Bringing this back to baseball: there are a select number of athletes that will thrive on continual high intensity training, just like we saw with the Bulgarian system. But if that is the only method to your madness, you’re leaving behind a large number of your athletes. And even WITHIN those athletes, there is room for improvement.
Plateaus and Variability
No matter what type of athlete you are working with, their system is going to crave a degree of variability. Any ecosystem, that isn’t provided adequate variation, becomes weaker. Less robust. They get stuck in patterns. How many times have we worked with an athlete where, once they hit a plateau, we switched things up, or gave them some extended time off, and they came back blasting through that plateau?
However, it’s easy to fall into a pattern in which you are on the same schedule, doing the same thing, attacking a problem the same way, over and over again. In the case of our discussion: trying to swing harder and harder isn’t going to help you through a batspeed plateau. If it does, my experience is that the gain is minimal, and comes at the expense of wasted energy. Our goal is to get maximum output with minimal effort, and continually refine our process, making it more efficient. Slamming our head into the wall, always trying to swing faster, is doing the exact opposite.
The Protocol
The protocol for this method of training then becomes pretty simple: instead of “swing as hard as you can”, give them a number. One of my favorite ways of integrating this into our hitters’ training is through the use of self toss.
Here’s an example of what that looks like.
You’ll noticed there’s one point in the sequence in which I hit a higher number than shooting for. What I’ve anecdotally found, is that it can be a great way to help a hitter figure out just how “easy” they can swing, while producing nearly maximal bat speeds.
Additional Uses
Blast Motion gives us an array of metrics, which means we can take this concept and apply it to nearly any metric the hitter is struggling with. On plane, attack angle, hand speed, etc. The options here are endless.
If you give a hitter who is struggling to raise his attack angle the freedom and permission to explore various AA’s, he’s going to come away with a better understanding of what he can do to produce the desired attack angle. And more important than the number, he is going to come away with a better understanding of how his body moves, how his swing works, and how he can manipulate his swing to get into the ranges that we want.
The caveat of course is that some of these metrics, like attack angle, can be dependent upon pitch location. This is, again, why I like to use self toss, or even soft toss with a bounce, over any type of pitched ball, when implementing this type of strategy. Because even if they are pitch dependent, he will now understand what his body does to produce the various attack angles that he sees. He now has a feel or a movement that he can associate with the numbers that he sees popping up. It provides him with context.
Finally, we always want to take what we’ve learned or gained from this type of work back into live situations. This will help to ensure what we’re doing is effective for our ultimate task, which is hitting a pitched ball in a competitive environment.
If you have further questions regarding how we’re implementing this training strategy, or how you can get your own personal Blast sensor through training with us, send me an email at brady@dacbaseball.com. Thanks for reading, and as always,
Stay Hungry.
Brady