Posted by: mb () on Fri May 31 06:15:32 2002

Looking for feedback from anyone who has used the Practice bag and Swing Mate? Did you notice that increased bat speed and distance you are hitting balls?
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I am very fortunate to have two sons ages 9 and 10 (LL 11). I have been working with them with the bag and swing mate since last year. My 10 yr old is the smallest kid (under 70 lbs) on his LL team. He is hitting over .500 batting leadoff. He hit his first ball over the fence (200')in BP last week. He is a dead pull hitter due to his RM. His swing speed is roughly 60 mph. and has reached in the high 60's. My 9 yr old is player in a lower level 1st yr league and doing equally as well. Again on the small side but swings in the mid to high 50's and has reached over 60 mph.
I video tape bag swings and live swings. I compare them side by side to ML hitters and show them to the boys. We swing heavy bats and light bats (over under/training). I believe we could be further along but with school, homework, games, practices, down time(they are still little kids) we do not get to train as much as we want. I only wish I had started teaching them RM at 6 or 7 yrs old.
BTW I almost ruined my 10 yr old by following other major league eperts hitting advice doing the fence drill etc. He had lost all pop in his bat until I found this site. Others teach contact hitting but IMHO to be a real hitter you need to hit the ball hard! Power is everything!