Before you buy anyone's product, ask yourself these questions:
· Do you fully understand the physics involved in hitting a baseball or softball?
· Is this device or system a good substitute for live hitting
· Will it allow me to increase my practice time?
· Will it allow me to practice at my convenience or will I have to travel to a ball field or batting cages to use it?
· Is it balanced and weigh the same as the bat I will use in the game?
· Can I practice inside, even in the off-season when the weather is bad?
· Will I have to go to an indoor training center and pay when it's bad outside?
· Will it give me everything I need for batting practice?
Have you ever thought about why:
· College and Pro players never use a heavy bat or a light bat to take batting practice.
· College and Pro players use their playing bat for batting practice (even in the cages).
· College and Pro players use live pitchers to take batting practice before the game.
· College and Pro players use live pitchers even when taking batting practice in the cages.
Facts:
· Have you ever heard of a tennis player using a heavy or light racket or a golfer using a heavy or light club to practice. This type of practice interferes with timing and creates drag. Use a heavy bat for warming up your muscles and stretching, not batting practice. Why spend $40 to $300 for a heavy warm-up bat when you can buy a $5 donut for your bat for that purpose. Creating swing strength is accomplished by lifting weights or using a curling weight.
· If you think bat weight and balance isn't important, then the next time you're in a game just grab a heavier bat and see what a difference it makes or ask someone who plays golf if they will play with a different set of clubs the next time they play. Look at your Pro players. They pay a lot of money for their bats to be just so in weight and balance and they will reject some when they get in a shipment. They are so picky you're not even supposed to touch their bat without permission. If weight and balance doesn't matter why don't they just pick up any old bat and step up to the plate and hit.
· Ask a coach, a High School or College coach if possible, if they think it's OK to practice with a bat heavier or lighter than their game bat. I know what their answer will be. Remember there are many training devices to chose from, and some are down right harmful. Others overstate their purposes. Any device that uses a ball that is static or does not change in velocity, release point, plate position, and have ball movement is designed for practicing swing mechanics and not for batting practice. To meet those four criteria the ball must be thrown, by a human. It takes two people to have live batting practice, one pitching and one hitting.
· Before you purchase anything to improve you hitting skills, think about the questions I have asked. The skill of hitting is a very difficult skill to master and it doesn't take much to disrupt it. Mechanics is one part of the physics of hitting and there are devices out there that I would recommend to you for that purpose but you must already know the proper mechanics to use them correctly. I own and use several of them myself for teaching.
· The "HEC" practice and Training system was not designed to teach mechanics and those other devices weren't designed for live batting practice either. There is only one device and system that combines convenience, safety, accelerated Hand Eye Coordination, live pitching, timing, bat control, ball position, ball release point, and hand speed skills with a bat that feels just like you're in the game and that is the "HEC". There is no substitute to live batting practice. If there were the Pro's would be doing it. And there is no substitute for practice. Practice as often and as much as you can and it will pay off.
· Remember. Think before you buy a training device. It is better not to train at all than to train incorrectly. The closer to game conditions a training device will get you, the better off you are. Don't believe everything you read, use some common sense. If you train with any training bat that doesn't weight the same or is not balanced the same as your game bat, you are making a big mistake. Hitting a baseball or softball is hard enough, don't make it even harder.
· Coach Mabry
Whether You play Baseball or Softball, the most difficult task is hitting the ball. It is the only position in any sport where being successful 1/3 of the time is considered exceptional. Because it is so difficult, a good hitter is highly prized. There are four parts to hitting a baseball or softball; mechanics, strength, timing and Hand Eye Coordination or (HEC). Of these four, the most important is HEC. If you have great strength and perfect mechanics but poor HEC, you will seldom make contact with the ball. The major leagues are full of players with poor mechanics and some aren't very muscular. But the one thing they all have in common is exceptional HEC. Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants and major league record holder for home runs in a season, recently said it best, No matter how big a person is, he doesn't hit home runs without great hand-eye coordination (API report may 22 2002).
There are many devices out there that attempt to teach good mechanics and they are helpful, but ask any college coach what is the one thing that would be the most helpful to you becoming a good hitter and he or she will tell you it is practice. All the video tapes, hitting camps, and special instruction will not replace practice nor will they alone make you a better hitter. Practice is essential to improving your HEC. There are no substitutes. Never train with a device that makes your hands feel faster because the device is light or a device that makes your hands feel slower because it is heavy. Train with a device that feels like your game bat. Training with a different weighted and balanced (bat head heavy or light) bat interferes with your timing. Proper timing (hitting the ball at peak bat velocity) and solid contact is needed to drive the ball.
The HEC System was designed to allow you to Practice anytime and anywhere. It was designed to be difficult by making the barrel and ball smaller. It was also designed to be balanced near the center just like your playing bat. This makes you focus more, concentrate more, and it finely tunes your Hand Eye Coordination resulting in fewer strikeouts, more contact, and more center hits. Just making contact creates opportunities for driving in runs or getting on base through hits, errors, or sacrifices. Strikeouts produce no opportunities. Center hits statistically produce hits 75% of the time and because center hits are hard hit balls, they also produce errors.
Making practice difficult should make playing the game easier. Practicing the easy way does not improve your skills no more so than lifting light weights makes you a good weight lifter. One of the major problems with practice bats is that they feel foreign, usually lighter, unbalanced, or different than your game bat and fools you into thinking you are getting your hands to the ball quicker than you will with your game bat. The HEC Bat eliminates this problem by having adjustable Center weights, replaceable barrel for changing bat length, and bat head weights for proper balance. The result is a bat that is set to feel just like your playing bat, and will maintain your proper timing. Also because it is adjustable, you can adjust it as you get bigger and stronger. PS - The HEC bat will pay for itself with fewer trips to the batting cages.