SMART POWER HITTING REPORT PAGE 3: SWING TRAINING TOOLS, BAT SPEED, TRAINING AND REACTION COMPUTERS

SMART POWER TRAINING brings sports science to baseball.

SMART POWER build your maximum swing power capability using sports science. You develop your own custom program using training steps based on the KINETIC TRAINING CHAIN.

STRENGTH TRAINING is the foundation to achieving maximum power. Strength is the foundation for power. You must do resistance (weight) training to reach your full power potential. Your strength training needs to be designed for maximum swing power. Doing the wrong exercises will not improve your swing power.

The SMART POWER TRAINING MANUAL (sold only with selected training systems) covers all aspects of baseball power training, from weight training to REACTION TRAINING. Shows you how to design your own custom baseball strength training program. This program can be short term (6-8 weeks) or year round. Gives you a complete analysis of the hitting process and the training methods for achieving tremendous improvements in your bat speed and power. Covers batting mechanics, specificity in sports training, weight training and plyometrics. Explains COMPLEX TRAINING (the latest in power training). Shows you how to test your present bat swing and determine your specific SMART POWER training program. Explains and illustrates SMART POWER practice drills.

Power CONVERSION converts strength to power. The strength you gain from resistance training needs to be converted to power. Remember strength is not power. Strength and speed together is power. Your power conversion training needs to be specific to swinging a bat. Conversion from strength to power starts in the strength room with ballistic strength training. The SMART POWER TRAINING MANUAL shows you the special training exercises used to convert strength to power. Outside of the weight room you use power training conversion training aides. Medicine ball, sling, POWER BAT, and  plyometrics.

MEDICINE BALLS; use for strength to power conversion. Medicine balls are back! 60 years ago, medicine ball training was very popular. With the discovery of weight training. medicine ball training was forgotten. Then the Russians and East Europeans started using plyometrics. Medicine ball training was an important tool for plyometric training. Now all serious baseball players use medicine ball training. But you must know how to use the medicine ball for best results. A recent study on improving throwing speed, compared two groups of experienced baseball players ages 19-24. One group did two heavy (80 percent of their maximum capability) weight training exercises. The other group did two of the more popular medicine ball training exercises. After 8 weeks of training, the medicine ball trained group showed no throwing speed improvement. The weight trained group showed 2-3 MPH increase. Two important points of the study: (1) heavy weight training is important to pitchers. (2) when medicine ball training exercises are not properly chosen, medicine ball training may be of little benefit. We supply a complete medicine ball training guide for hitters and pitchers.

POWER BAT; sport specific swing resistance training. We have great success with resistance tube training. It provides overload and range of motion training at the same time. Younger players not on a formal weight training program show remarkable improvement using resistance tubing. Tubing allows you to adjust the overload by lengthening or shortening the stretch. POWER BAT has a molded bat handle attached to a rubber tube. You take your swing pulling against the rubber tube. You can do over 35 different training exercises. A great training tool.

SWING LOAD TRAINING Training for POWER is the combination of STRENGTH and Speed. The SMART POWER TRAINING MANUAL shows you how. You must over load the muscles for strength and under load them for speed. Training must be very sport specific. It needs to duplicate the motions used in swinging a bat. SMART POWER brings all of this together. You benefit from  the latest training research with equipment designed specifically for swing  training. Swing load training equipment includes POWER FINS, PROCUT, SPEEDBAT, SWING WEIGHTS.

POWER FINS; WEIGHT + AIR RESISTANCE = SWING STRENGTH. To develop fast muscle fibers, you must overload them. To develop the fast muscles that are used for swinging a bat, you need to overload them using a swing motion. POWER FINS are used with your regular bat to overload the muscles used to swing a bat. Comes with complete training information.

PROCUT; ADD “POP” TO YOUR SWING. One of the newest and most exciting developments. We tested PROCUT for a year before adding it to our system. PROCUT attaches to the KNOB (bottom) of the bat. This changes the balance point of the bat. When you swing, PROCUT provides resistance at the beginning of the swing . PROCUT then helps keep the head of the bat from rotating out (sweeping) until your body is fully rotated. Then PROCUT POPS the wrists. This trains the muscle memory to release at the exact instant of maximum power. Our tests show that you can put a 12 ounce PROCUT on the knob of your bat and ADD 5 MPH to your swing speed! When use with POWER FINS, is a great 1-2 training combination.

SWING WEIGHTS; for over load training. Designed to fit any bat to add from 10-25% to your regular bat. Swing weights only come with computers or swing kits (see price list).

SPEED BAT; custom overspeed swing training. Overspeed training is as important as overload training. The muscles learn how to be strong at the speed that they train at. If you always swing at or below your regular bat speed, your muscles won’t know how to go faster. This is the lesson the Russian Olympic athletes and coaches taught us. By using a lighter bat (about 30% lighter) you get them to still have a load but they learn how to go faster. Using a wiffle ball bat does not work. Its too light. Yes you swing fast, but because the load (weightof bat) is so light, there is no strength at this speed. As soon as you load the muscles up (use your regular bat), that speed goes away. SPEED BAT is designed to your exact needs. Tell us the length and weight of your regular bat, and we will customize SPEED BAT to your individual needs. Remember all swing training requires overload AND overspeed training.

FEEDBACK TRAINING; Seeing the results of every swing is the only way to achieve maximum swing power.

SMART POWER uses FEEDBACK. Feedback is necessary for maximum performance. When you lift weights, your feedback is how much weight you are lifting. Your goal for each training session is to lift this weight a certain number of times (to muscle failure). Swing training is 3-5 times more effective if you can measure your swing. You can set goals, see the effects of changes in mechanics.

Using SETPRO’s swing computer/trainers, you see the immediate results of your swing training. You can evaluate changes to your swing mechanics (stance, stride, grip, etc.) with every swing. You will establish swing by swing training goals and progress.

Several models of the SMART POWER COMPUTER are available. Depending on model you choose:

•    You have instant feedback of your training progress.

•    You instantly see the two most important measurements of your training progress, swing SPEED and REACTION TIME.

•    You make faster progress using the exclusive “BOT”, “BOF” and “MLT” programs

The best measurement of you overall swing capability is bat speed. All units accurately measure bat speed from 1-255 MPH.

For maximum training efficiency we recommend the SP-3A. With “BALLISTIC OVERLOAD TRAINING (BOT)” and “MAXIMUM LEARNING TRANSFER” (MLT) programs, It's like having your own personal trainer. Your swing training is  instructed by the SP-3A computer. A patented method of collecting and displaying swing information means more power sooner.

All computers are very simple to use. Mount it to a tripod, Turn it on. Swing. A self sticking reflector is placed on the end of the bat. The computer “sees” your bat and automatically measures and displays your swing information. Unit can be used indoors, outdoors, day or night. The ACCU-SWING PLUS system forces you to maintain proper bat control (no wild swings). All computers/trainers Include SMART POWER TRAINING MANUAL (contains all information to test your swing and develop your own SMART POWER training program) All units require 9V battery. Totally self contained. Small and portable. Train anywhere at any time!

SP-1A “ROOKIE” bat speed computer. Bat speed is the basic starting point to developing home run power. Softball players take note. Ray Demarini preachesbat speed and bat speed measurement. If you have his videos you have seen him use bat speed measurement. The SP-1A and SMART POWER TRAINING will do three times more for your distance than non warranty or double wall bat. Measures swing speeds from 1 to 255 MPH.

SP-3A “ALL STAR” SMART POWER TRAINING SYSTEM A major advance in high speed power training. The SP-3A adds the ability to measure bat power delivered to the ball. Hitting the long ball depends on how much POWER you can transfer tothe ball. Bat power is the combination of bat weight and speed. Bat power is the best measure of home run capability. The SP-3A computer measures your bat power and displays it as home run distance (the number of feet the ball will travel). Now you can determine your optimum bat size (length and weight that gives best swing power). The SPEED/POWER COMPUTER measures swing speeds from 1 to 255 MPH and bat power  (home run distance) 1 to 999 feet. Use anywhere. Features swing set BALLISTIC OVERLOAD TRAINING (BOT) and Maximum Learning Transfer (MLT). BOT swing set training is just like weight training. It is the most effective method of training for power (hitting, throwing, etc.). You set the number of swings (SWING SET), the SP-3A measures your total swing power for the SWING SET and shows you the average. Your goal is to beat the previous SET's best total power. MLT allows you to select between immediate or delayed feedback. Immediate feedback shows each swing result. With delayed feedback you take all your SWING SET swings before seeing results. The delayed feedback method has proven to give faster training results.

Maximum hitting success with REACTION/STRESS TRAINING.

The closer you can simulate game type conditions, the more effective your training. For most players, the closest the come to game conditions is batting practice. Until now the only real way of developing game bat speed was batting practice. Drills hitting a stationary ball (batting tee) or soft toss developed parts of your swing. But you have needed batting practice to develop the entire vision-brain-nerve-muscle system. The problem is it takes thousands and thousands (a typical major league batter has taken 100,000 to 200,000 quality swings) of batting practice swings to get there. And we are talking about quality practice (pitching that simulates real game velocities and conditions). How available is this to you? The average high school player is lucky to get 10-20 swings two or three times a week. Also, how do you know how well you are swinging the bat? Some days the ball “jumps” off the bat. Others, you are lucky to get it out of the infield.