SETPRO has developed a proprietary BALLISTIC OVER LOAD training program as part of the SMART POWER TRAINING SYSTEM. A very good description of this type of training appears in April 1996 issue of Strength and Conditioning , the professional journal of the National Strength & Conditioning Association. The following summarizes the article "Concepts for Baseball Conditioning", by John Weatherly, MS, CSCS, Sports Physiologist, Oakland, Nebraska and Craig Schinck, Athletes in Action, Lebanon, Ohio.

According to this article, ballistic refers to acceleration and high velocity with actual projection into free space". The authors point out that with conventional weight training, a large percentage of the motion of lifting and extending is actually decelerating the weight. If we believe in the specificity principle, deceleration is certainly not specific to the throwing and hitting movements in baseball . Throwing and hitting require acceleration until the ball is released from the throwing hand, the bat hits the ball, or the hitter fails to make contact with the ball and then must decelerate the bat.

Most trainers (knowledgeable ones) understand the value of medicine ball training (a ballistic activity). But one study done on high level pitchers showed weight training to be superior to medicine ball training (more on this later). Other researchers have found that performing various forms of weighted and un-weighted jumping movements, and using slightly over or under weighted balls and bats allow the player to accelerate all the way through the movement, provided that the player gives maximal effort with each repetition. Such exercises will allow the player to train in a manner that is specific to both the movement and force/velocity requirements of baseball. One of the reasons that medicine ball training may not have helped improve pitchers velocity is because it was not specific enough to the muscles used in throwing a baseball.

Bat speed is crucial for a hitter to "drive" the ball consistency. Perhaps not so obvious, bat speed is also important in that it allows the hitter to wait longer before deciding to swing. In this latter instance, it interacts with the length of the batting stroke. The ideal would be a fast stroke that is still compact. This would be conducive to hitting for average and power.

One research team has investigated the effects of weight training and ballistic training on beginners and on more experienced players. They found that weight training improved the throwing velocity of beginners while ballistic training did not. For more experienced players who already had a training base, however, ballistic training did improve throwing velocity and base running speed.

In a related study, untrained subjects who were not baseball players trained with weights in an explosive manner and improved their bat speed.

While a few have investigated the effects of slightly over and under weighted balls and bats on throwing and bat swing velocity, Professor Coop DeRenne and colleagues at the University of Hawaii have conducted comprehensive research in this area. Their work indicates that the use of slightly over- and under- loaded implements and combinations of the two will improve throwing velocities for high school and college pitchers. Similar results occur with bat speed.

From these studies it appears that baseball players should train with under - and over- loaded implements within a range of 20% of the weight of the standard implement. These should be bats and balls.

DeRenne has speculated that this type of training may produce neural changes, which in turn improve the recruitment or firing frequencies of type II fast twitch motor units . Whatever the mechanism, this type of training is certainly specific from the perspectives of the force/velocity curve and intermuscular coordination.

SETPRO’s SMART POWER TRAINING for hitters uses over- load, under- load and standard load swing training. You try to maximize each swing. SEPRO has taken BALLISTIC TRAINING to the next level. Using our SP-3A and SPRT5A have BALLISTIC OVERLOAD TRAINING (BOT) training functions. You program the number of swings and weight of the bat. The SP-3A/SPRT5A will count your swings, keep track of your average power and bat speed for those swings. At the end of the programmed number of swings, the SP-3A/SPRT5A will display your average power or bat speed then display your average power or speed for your previous BEST set. Your goal is to exceed the total power of each previous BEST set (keeping the bat weight constant). Once you are unable to exceed the previous best twice, its time to move to the next swing weight.