AnnexBaseballBlog.com has brought up an age-old training method that will easily improve your young hitters mechanics. It’s simple; swing a wooden bat. As discussed in the article—The Importance Of Youth Hitting With A Wooden Bat—there are several mechanical advantages that this can provide your young hitter. A wood bat, as opposed to an aluminum bat that has its weight artificially and evenly distributed throughout the bat, has most of it’s weight concentrated towards the end of the at bat. The mechanical effect: your child will learn to get the front end of his bat through the strike zone faster than they normally would, once he/she switches back to an aluminum bat, through their ability to develop stronger wrists and forearms. Swinging a wooden bat also places a premium on contact. Where as an aluminum bat has a sweet spot that encompasses the entire length of the barrel, the sweet spot on a wooden bat is limited to a much smaller area (See below). Through repetitions with a wooden bat your child will be able to make more consistent and solid contact with an aluminum bat.
If you want to reap the benefits of having your child use an aluminum bat, AnnexBaseballBlog.com provides a couple of guidelines that will help pick out the right bat for your child. The blog suggests that if you child holds a wooden bat straight out in front of her/him by the handle, and the barrel drops, the bat is too heavy for them. The website also has a bat guide that accounts for a child’s height and weight, and it can make a general suggestion as to what would be the best bat for them; remember, these charts do not take into consideration body fat and can be misleading.
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