Blast Motion and Filling in the Gaps.
Bat sensors are a great tool for a variety of reasons, not only for building the swing and movement patterns you want, but to be able to test the repeatability of that so-called swing in “performance zones” as opposed to “training zones.”
Training Zones: Tee work, flips, standard batting practice
Performance Zones: Competition against live pitching or simulated live pitching with a machine.
In terms of building swings or looking at “swing mechanics” or what we call Movement Patterns, we of course see much better results in training zones where the focus is on the swing. However, in performance zones we see the focus change immediately to the ball or to the outcome which in turn can change “swing mechanics” or the patterns in which a player moves to accomplish their goal.
Using the Blast Motion sensor we can identify how a players intent, or approach in a performance zone may have changed from the training zone, as other variables change.
Performance Zone
One of the first things we look at is bat speed. Believe it or not, everybody we have tested with Blast Motion against any kind of velocity in a performance zone, will actually decrease their bat speed by 8-10+ miles an hour from what they are capable of from tee, flips, or batting practice scenario.
This gives us the insight that a player is using their bat to control more difficult timing situations rather than their loading mechanism or controlling their forward movement. In a perfect world we want our athletes timing up their very best swing, highest bat speed, best point of contact, and accuracy of impact not only on the baseball but with the sweet spot. Asking a lot right?
I agree, that this is a very unrealistic scenario in terms of mass consistency, and if we are creating that kind of consistency we are probably more in a training zone than a performance zone. But, we can identify what some of the flaws are that are preventing this scenario happening, at the very least, more often in general. And, if a player can get instant feedback from the sensor, he knows the adjustments he needs to make immediately, especially when he sees things like his bat speed drop significantly, or attack angle change drastically.
For example, when we couple Blast Motion w/ HitTrax we are able to identify, what the swing was like not only on video, but with the metrics, that produced a specific result. A slower bat speed, but higher velocity can be related to several different factors; how well the athlete stayed connected, whether or not the player utilized the part of the bat with the most pop, where in the zone they made contact with the ball, among others.
You typically won’t find these types of issues in a training zone once a player has decided to have a specific approach and understands basic timing mechanisms or has worked within training zones at a high enough volume of reps. However, looking at things from an actual performance stand points to start to fill in the gaps is what helps translate their potential 95mph exit velocity and average 15- 25 degree launch angles effectively in a game so they don’t become a “five o’clock” or “cage all-star” type of hitter.
Training Zone
Too many coaches, simply talk swing mechanics, things like “you lunged, don’t lunge, swing this way” which is not typically a helpful coaching cue. A player won’t always “lunge” because their swing pattern is off but typically because their timing is off. On the flip side, mechanics can help control timing, and timing with mechanics, and when you throw approach into the mix they all work together. When using Blast motion in a training zone we are able to take what happens to the baseball completely out of the equation and strictly work movement patterns within the swing and watch the result of the baseball change accordingly.
What I love about that is that it puts a number on the external coaching cue concept.
External Cue: Hit the ball as hard as you can and as hard as you can. (Faster processing)
Internal Cue: Load your scap as you stride forward. (Slower Processing)
When we look to create swing patterns we want those patterns to coincide with specific results otherwise what’s the point? So by using external cues the body will self-organize itself in a way that will have quality movement patterns to accomplish the external goal. When you can measure the success of the external cue not only with exit velocity and launch angle, but now also internally with simple concepts with things like bat speed, attack angle, and body rotation it gives the athlete a true guide of how much more they need to give, or how much further they should try to adjust numerically, as well as eliminate overbearing coaching cues, or irrelevant changes in “swing mechanics.”
Let the Numbers Coach
Lastly, with HitTrax we can certainly diagnose mishits by looking at the video and the other data within the system, but by combining Blast with HitTrax we can be so much more efficient. If a player has great numbers on the Blast sensor that that particular swing, and the point of impact was good on HitTrax, but it was a weak ground ball, we know that the player just missed that particular pitch, rather than frantically trying to diagnose what went wrong in the video, and telling the athlete 100 different things the coach thinks he saw, we have quantifiable data to show and teach what is actually happening in an objective way. And, it definitely provides a level of confidence to the players, when they know they had a great swing and sometimes they are just going to miss, hitting a round object with another round object is tough.
Players should learn to self-organize as athletes and should be motivated and encouraged to be a fearless competitor, our job as coaches, is to challenge them with this data not let it drown them in confusion. Youth players need to be told they can in fact be a power hitter, and have massive success in this game and in life if they believe in themselves. They should be told to actually try to make the numbers improve with a specific goal or outcome in mind, rather than just swinging to make contact so nobody yells at them or picks on them. Coaches should use these numbers to gauge development and not focus so much on how they view the swing, hitting isn’t a beauty contest the swing can look anyway it needs to in order to get the job done, and Blast measures that.
At the Varsity, College, and Pro level, coaching without data can be dangerous. You can legitimately ruin careers if you are using subjective coaching styles rather than objective information. If you aren’t going to measure it, make sure the athletes know you’re making suggestions, play with it, try it, if it’s not right, don’t lose MPH’s and success over bad advice and by being too “coachable”.
