How many cuts?

i would have to imagine that varies ALOT for every player, it must do with strength..at what point do you get tired?

I would say it depends on the player and how good of shape they are in, but what works well for me is keep the rounds short (10-15 cuts) with more rounds rather than having 1 or 2 rounds of 30 or 40+. Then you'll know when your startin to get tired.

quote:

I know a father of a ballplayer that thinks after 10 to 15 swings that they become tired and they develop bad habits. I am curious as to what everybody thinks.

I agree with this to an extent. If your making your best hack it is difficult to maintain that past 6-12ish swings in a row. Can you make more then 10 swings in a row? Sure, but they are usually not as fresh as the first 10. We generally will hit 4-5 rounds of 5-6 swings pregame with 3-5 players per group, and that seemed to be adaquate for the group we were working with.

If up to me it would be three rounds of three, but then again I threw all of the BP.

I think that no question too many swings during one session can hurt, the player tires and adopts bad habits. Have you ever seen a pro team, or most college teams, take BP? They generally are split into groups of 4. The first player takes 7 swings, rotates out for the next guy. Round 2 is 6 swings, then 5, etc down to 1 swing each or 28 total swings for each player. This keeps everybody fresh. This is easily adapted for youngsters, a few swings then a short break. I think no more than 10 swings at one time and that's probably the upper limit for still developing bodies.

I am not necessarily talking about pre-game. If your baseball team gets together and practices twice a week, how many cuts total should each player take? Then how many rounds and swings per round to be effective? Then how many cuts a day should a young baseball player take other than at practice? I know I throw a lot of wiffle balls to my son. I will throw around 25 and then it will take a few minutes to pick them all up and repeat 4 or 5 times. I try to do this 3 or 4 times a week on top of BP at practice. But I know a lot of the kids on his team probably don’t even pick up a bat other than at practice and games.

Quality not Quantity that's for sure, but every time I have batting practice my time of hitting varies. Sometimes I'll hit for 5 minutes, sometimes I'll hit for 25 minutes. It all matters on if I feel that I am at the top of my game, when I leave the cage.

Barry Bonds hit 113 balls during his pregame batting practice the day he hit number 756.

I had always heard 100 per day. Son also take 33 dry swings each day to check mechanics.

In my mind, as many as you can take. That being said, there are a couple of things to remember.

If your mechanics are bad to begin with, no amount of swings will fix them.

You can't expect a kid to go from zero to hundreds in a day. Endurance has to be built.

If you're going to take a lot of swings, I'd recommend a tee and move it around the plate and at different heights. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with dry swings, I'm just saying using a tee is better.

Swing hard - if you're not at game speed or above you're not doing yourself any good.

If you're learning new skills/mechanics and using a tee or taking BP, focus on the swing, not how well you hit the ball. You can't expect your hand-eye coordination to automatically adjust if you are re-training your body.

I've heard it said that a single body movement must be performed one thousand times before it becomes a habit. Think of how many times it will take to automate a baseball swing involving more than a single movement?

My daughter hits buckets of 25. After each bucket, I pick up the balls and she rest/stretches/jumps rope/bumps a volleyball. We like 25 balls because you can track exactl how many you hit by counting buckets. She likes to hit 150 balls but it might take an hour+. Also, she likes to have a friend come over and hit. Typically, they hit a "Half bucket" and then we pick up and she hits a whole.

In "hitting a bucket" this can be machine, front toss, off of a tee, or me pitching. Our favorite is front toss while working on elements of the swing and her body. We also include hitting/drill work on a drill called the "chair drill." We both like the emphasis that puts on maintaining tilt while also having to learn how to adjust tilt.

When we go to the field on the weekends, my son hits until ol' mom can't pitch any more. Probably about 200 swings (combined) with a wood bat and his -3. On practice days, if he doesn't feel like he got enough swings at practice, he'll hit off the tee in the dark until he's satisfied (or hungry). Otherwise, during the week in the back yard, maybe one bucket soft toss or off the tee into the screen with the -3, and then maybe 100 golf ball sized whiffle balls and the SwiftStick.

He likes to hit.

I use a bucket of 50 when tossing to my son. We start with him doing self toss or hitting a few off the T for warm up. Then I move to set-up a L screen about 15-20 feet in front while he stretches some. I toss about 10 pitches inside, about 10 pitches outside to practice going opposite field. Finally I toss bourderline pitches he either handles or fouls off. I think this helps him learn the strike zone better and understand what he can and cannot handle. Probably 10 or so of the 50 balls end up in the net behind him as pitches he let go... (bad tosses ). We both pick them up, talk a little about his swing of baseball in general and then 75% of the time he will hit another bucket, or at least most of it.

I'm impressed! Only 10 of 50 hit the net! And you can pitch inside and outside! With my pitching, some days he has to imagine a two-strike count in a hit and run situation! But it's a heck of a workout - 200 swings for him, 400 pitches for me!

If it is not game day we start with drill sets with soft toss or t work. Usually in sets of 10-12. We don't usually go past 12 in a set as it seems like the mechanics can break down. When live starts it always starts with at least 4 bunts per side. When the hitting starts it is usuall sets of 10-12 again and we work middle away, then middle, then middle in, again 10-12 in each of these zones. The next set is usually offspeed away, followed by fastball in and off speed away combined. Then a couple of mixed sets or counts witha round of 0-2 counts everytime. Most days we also put in situation, hit n Run , run n hit, suicide squeeze, runner on 3b less than 2 outs, runner on 2b less than 2 outs ect... ON game day it is usually cut in half depending on how he feels. So non game around 150 or so but spaced out so he stays fresh, game day 75 or so. Another part I find important is how the hitter feels, they know if they need more away or in or whatever. Same with the drill sets, when we were doing teams we would get hung up with everyone doing the same, not all 12 or 15 hitters are the same so you need to know what they need and equally importan by about 8th grade start making them decide what drills they might need. When they get to high school this will help them if their high school coach only has time to have everyone do the same. He can then buddy up with a teammate and do his own game prep.

quote:

Originally posted by stkylepr67:
When taking batting practice, how many swings should a person take before it becomes detrimental to their mechanics? I know a father of a ballplayer that thinks after 10 to 15 swings that they become tired and they develop bad habits. I am curious as to what everybody thinks.

A hitter with a good swing can hit all day if he wants. I'd suggest a player who gets tired on fifteen swings needs to work on his body.

If a hitter has incorrect mechanics he should stop at one swing and learn how to swing properly. He's only reinforcing bad mechanics.

TG, I don't think the issue, at least in our case, is getting "tired." I think it is more having your muscles in a similar situation to the game where they have to be able to fire appropriately. Even though a hitter may seem and feel fresh, if the repetitions are to many, they won't be getting as effective batting practice as they would if they give them a few minutes to refresh. I'm sure that most of the people posting here have players that can hit all day. My girl hit 220 on Sunday and I had to make her stop. I'm sure that she is no different than most who love to hit.

Ted Williams said that he hit "until the blisters bled," and that can work, but I simply can't do it. I am a firm believer in quality, not quantity, because lets face it, hitting is not like running. You don't hit for endurance, you hit to get the mechanics right and hit the ball hard.

When I work out, I like taking 5 to 10 swings at a time with a breather in between. This could be 30 seconds or 5 minutes, but doing that I could swing all day and do it with quality. It is the one swing after another for a prolanged time that i believe to be detrimental because when fatigue sets in, bad habits start.

it defintely depends for a lot of people....

i know a community college who had his players 7-8 cuts in a session, and they just rotate for multiple terms, but i know in the pros, a guy like ken griffey jr, one of the best to play can take bp for 45minutes straight in a session of hitting and not loose anything! people who have witnessed said its really interesting to watch him for that period of time!

i personally just got for an hour with fliptoss rotationg with just another person and my mechanics tend to stay!

A few years ago I believed that the best way was for one to do a little each day rather than a lot one day and then a lot less or nothing. That changed one day at the batting cages. I used to let my kids do 2-3 tokens (30-45 pitches) and then let's go home. This time I let my youngest hit 2-3 tokens, rest for a few minutes and then hit 2 more and rest and hit 2 more. About the 6-7th token his hits started becoming line drives a lot more consistently. When he reached HS ball, his hitting always improved when team practices were dropped on Saturdays and we hit the batting cages for 6-8 tokens (90-120 pitches) instead.
The original question was how many cuts. This is a very vague question and has no clear cut answer. It depends on the kid, his age, current condition, interest, etc. As someone said here - don't just start at 100 pitches - you have to work up to that. It also depends on your situation (like do you have money for the batting cages, are they even there in your area, if not can you throw 100 BP pitches?, etc.).
So, one has to try different things, use what works and be willing to change.

Tim Robertson

It depends. Just hit until you feel like you are tired and are starting to lag the bat behind you. So quit when it feels like you should.