Batting with wrist weights

[mikeahern123]

I've got an off the wall question.... my son is 13 and I happened to have a couple small wrist weights around. (2lbs each) I had an idea for conditioning by having him wear them during BP. I threw him about 35-40 soft pitches for him to warm up with. One thing I noticed is that with the weights on, he kept his hands in closer to his body (I am assuming that is a natural act by the body to lessen the weight on the arms). His swing mechanics seemed to improve because he was forced to keep the 'power box' of his arms intact as he went through the zone. I had him remove the weights and threw him a bucket and noticed a difference. He maintained his 'box' and was ripping balls up the middle like I couldn't believe! Has anyone else used this as a training method? Any thought on it? Could it injure him or hurt his swing mechanics? He was already a pretty decent batter to start with and I don't want to mess him up. Any comments would be appreciated.

[jbolt_2000]

Sorry I dont have an answer for you, but I would like to see some responses on this too.

I would think that having the weighted wrists would be like having a heavier bat, albeit a much heavier bat, but with the weight distributed differently.

I like the idea of it forcing the batter to keep his hands in. It could see that being beneficial for repetition. I just dont know if there would be a side affect to adding that much weight to the hands.

I imagine fatigue would come into play rather quickly.

[Nater44]

The concern I would have with the wrist weights are that while he may be keeping his hands closer to his body (a good thing!) you may experience the inability to trigger with the hands fully.

Most hitters begin their movement into the zone with their hands around or just above their back shoulder. When it's time for those hands to move, you will want them to move quickly. Hands weights may force your son to begin some of the movement (to create a bit of momentum) prior to the explosion you want. When the wrist weights come off, there is a good chance that muscle memory will allow the hands to begin from a lower position than they should in order to achieve maximum bat speed.

Let me know if this doesn't make sense and I'll try to translate back into English!

[Go Cardinals]

Think how much you would drop your hands when you swing. Too much weight and you'd look like one of these guys:

http://www.raisonsbrassband.com/images/cricket%20events.jpg

[Nater44]

You got it!

[chesspirate]

There are batting gloves specifically designed for this purpose with removable/adjustable weights.

I first experienced these back in highschool with one of the guys getting scouted used them for soft toss. His father was his "trainer" of sorts.

Their opinion was that it wasn't bad for general training purposes and the potential strength increases, so they used them for soft toss, but they both were a little concerned about how it would affect ones' swing if used during live bp.

I would have to agree with their assesments.

[mikeahern123]

As I said, I was basically throwing soft toss.... but it really seemed to help. Any other input would be appreciated.

[Ursa Major]

Hey, whatever helps cure early disconnection . . . sounds okay with me. Heck, if just having him wear bright red batting gloves as a reminder to keep his hands in works, that's a good piece of equipment. Same with your weighted wrist weights, if not overused. Nice bit of innovative thinking!