Posted by: Ernie Roy (prd530@mn.com) on Thu Apr 8 12:08:12 2010

> > > > I was reading an interview with 4 time Olympic gold medalist, discus thrower Al Oerter. He mentioned his only "coach" in 30+ year career was a towel. What he would do is have a buddy place a towel on the ground where the discus landed after each throw, and he would try to beat that distance. Amazingly basic and simple, yet he was one of the all time greatest in his sport.
> > > > I was wondering if anyone tried a variation of this for bat speed, namely, hitting off a tee for distance, trying to simply beat the best distance of the previous swings. Faster the swing, farther the ball goes. What do you folks think?
> > >
> > > Big benefit to hitting off the tee and seeing how far you can hit. Great for testing bats too.
> >
> > I did
>
> This exercise will allow you to measure distance improvements for sure. Your statement, 'Faster the swing, farther the ball goes.', is not accurate. Distance is not solely determined by bat speed. Bat angle, point of bat contact, etc... change the distance to bat speed function. As far as I know, the only way is to actually measure the actual bat speed if that is what you are interested in.

I should have clarified my comment about bat speed and ball flight distance to include the statement, "all other things being equal." It must be understood that tee work of any kind is mainly for working on the swing itself, not timing issues. It seems that some folks think working on mechanics and speed are mutually exclusive. They should never be!! What is the point in swinging faster,if to do so you sacrifice proper bat path? Seems silly but maybe this is not as obvious as I thought.

ernie