I’ll be honest here: I don’t know. Here is one of my typically long and convoluted posts, lol
Over the years of working with two dd’s that are four years apart in age, I have accumulated several overload training bats- SwingMechanic, wood bats, a Camwood and I have accumulated three different sizes of weights that attach directly to the knob of the bat that I really like. (Pro-Cut. They show up on Ebay every once in awhile.). I think there are many benefits related to path and enlisting lower half. The big one in my uneducated opinion is hand speed. On the eyeball scale people always notice ”quick hands” of the players who have used this stuff a lot. Kids that hit with me a lot are typically at the top end of scale of hand speed of blast motion. The drawback of knob weights and heavy bats is you have to use them very sparingly especially during season or you will notice the player committing to all pitches too early and slow their bat to square up the ball. (Same as when you overdo high speed machine work.). Pretty much opposite of what you want to accomplish and a great example of an unintended consequence.
We have never had an underload solution I was truly happy with except some pvc bats I made that really aren’t underload.
The half bats looked like a good solution. Normal weight at hands, light in the barrel. So I ordered one. As always, dd is my tester. I added it in for a few swings per session, mostly sitting on a bucket and flipping whiffle/foam balls to her. Keep in mind she likes heavy bats and has swung a 33/25 since she was a sophomore (senior now). So it didn’t happen over night, and I have added a couple new things to the constant rotation so it’s hard to say about bat speed.
Out of curiosity, I put the Blast Motion on the half bat. The numbers and 3D swing were pretty much indistinguishable from the swings with her 33/25. But here’s what you see with the naked eye: the hitter waits longer to “go”, sees the pitch longer and the swings look to be more violent and sudden. This seems to be translating over to her regular bat swings. I am also seeing improvement in the quality of the contact which always helps create consistent line drive trajectory and distance.
I think there are proven benefits to over/under training for bat speed and many say underload training is more important. This bat can satisfy that and have other benefits too.
