Baseball Hitting

How To Get Faster Bat Speed For Your Baseball Hitting

It is entirely possible to get faster bat speed.  Many batters get frustrated by not being able to keep up with the faster pitchers in their district.   By applying a few basic techniques, you can improve your bat speed.  Bottom line: Faster bat speed means that you are able to better activate the fast pitch muscles in your body.  Here are some ways to get faster speed in your swing.  

1.   Swing anything that you can swing faster than your regular bat.   A plastic broom without the sweeper end would work.  Also, you can purchase baseball training aids specifically for this purpose. 

2.   Practice batting practice at higher speeds. By getting used to swinging at pitches at faster speeds, you will end up learning to speed up your swing to compensate.  Therefore, choose the fastest batting cages you can find or even consider bringing the pitching machine closer to you than normal to improve your reaction time.

 3.  Cross-train with martial arts training.  A number of martial arts like tae kwon  

do and karate focus on a lot of hand movements and fast strikes.   This  

training can help develop speed in your arms that can translate into a faster  

swing.  

 4.  Practice your boxing punches with the speed bag.   The speed bag is a great cross-training exercise to develop speed in your arms.   Even though punching is slightly different than a baseball swing, it will still develop fast twitch muscles and the cross-training will have a synergistic effect on the rest of your baseball training. 

5.  Incorporate swinging heavier bats into your routine.   By swinging a combination of lighter and heavier bats, you will develop more arm strength without sacrificing bat speed.   Also, as you get stronger, you will notice that your bat speed and stamina improve. 

The biggest takeaway from these tips is to be sure you are applying them consistently.  To get the true benefits these training techniques must be used at least 3 to 4 times a week.  Do not expect to see gains right away as a number of these exercises will have a cumulative effect.  However, you will begin to notice that gains are possible and then you will plateau.  Once you plateau, step up your training to increase the gains.  In this way, you can keep developing those fast twitch muscles to get faster bat speed. 

*To get tips on how to develop a stronger bat, check out stronger hitting power.