Hand strength?

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Apr 20, 2018
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I know they test hand strength (grip) at camps. The best I can tell is they use it as a general indication of overall strength. I read that somewhere. On a scale from 1 to 10, how important is hand strength? How do you test it at home (DYI)? Should I have my DD who is smaller in stature (5'0' and 91 lbs.) work on her hand strength? She has a good fundamental swing. Bats in the 2 hole and leads her team in OBP (.490). She has great eye hand coordination. Very few extra base hits. Is hand strength the missing link?
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
I know they test hand strength (grip) at camps. The best I can tell is they use it as a general indication of overall strength. I read that somewhere. On a scale from 1 to 10, how important is hand strength? How do you test it at home (DYI)? Should I have my DD who is smaller in stature (5'0' and 91 lbs.) work on her hand strength? She has a good fundamental swing. Bats in the 2 hole and leads her team in OBP (.490). She has great eye hand coordination. Very few extra base hits. Is hand strength the missing link?
I use to squeeze those hand gripper things when I was a kid and now I am a desk jockey. Hope that helps 😉
 
Jun 8, 2016
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113
In all seriousness at our kid’s age I wouldn’t worry about it. Once they start hitting the weight room for real it will improve just from gripping the bar.
 
Apr 2, 2015
1,198
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Woodstock, man
"Hand strength?"
The hands simply hold onto the bat. They don't do anything else. They have 'muscles' the size of pencils.

" Very few extra base hits "
A gold mine awaits. Work on that.
 
Feb 12, 2014
648
43
I believe it was Xan Barksdale (an internet catching guru) who had a YouTube video on exercises using a bucket filled with rice to work on grip strength. Might be worth looking up.

I agree that grip strength will dramatically improve once your DD starts to seriously lift weights. It's just a natural by-product.

DD has used various squeeze things to build grip strength, but mainly it's just something that she does to occupy herself when she's reading or watching TV.
 
Apr 2, 2015
1,198
113
Woodstock, man
Why do they (colleges) test grip strength?
You are saying camps do this. They have to fill time doing something.

Does PG report those numbers? I've never heard a baseball scout mention this.

I'm not sure about fastpitch, but most college baseball coaches (at least the ones I've seen) know almost nothing about hitting. DFP posters know much more.
 
Apr 20, 2018
4,581
113
SoCal
" I'm not sure about fastpitch, but most college baseball coaches (at least the ones I've seen) know almost nothing about hitting. DFP posters know much more. "

^^^^^^^This is kinda scary.
 
Apr 20, 2018
4,581
113
SoCal
I found this:


. Handgrip Strength in Stick, Club, Bat, Racket, and Ball Sports

“Trivial to nearly perfect correlations” were found between handgrip strength and throwing velocity; throwing energy; cricket bowling accuracy; 10-pin bowling accuracy; bat, club, and stick/puck speed; bat energy; fielding percentage; and golf, field hockey, ice hockey, and lacrosse shot. The authors suggest that handgrip strength has less of a relationship with actions that have a “high amount of technical precision and accuracy.”

This information suggests that the timing and sequencing of the force applied to an implement or object by the hand (palm, digits, and thumb) in sport is of greater importance than the magnitude of applied force alone. In addition, perhaps a handgrip strength threshold is reached where gaining more strength is of no advantage “where the coordination and timing (e.g., bat, club, stick, and racket sports) of skilled actions is more important.”

“Strength (e.g., bench press strength and wrist, elbow, shoulder, and knee torque), ballistic (e.g., medicine ball throw distance, and bench throw velocity and power), flexibility (e.g., shoulder and wrist), and anthropometric (e.g., body mass, lean mass, height, and arm span) measures were also moderately to very largely correlated with serving, spiking, and throwing velocity in tennis, volleyball, and handball athletes, respectively.” Ergo, when two or more key variables are analyzed, they better predict performance-based measures than any one variable (grip strength).
 

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