Baseball training aid
The present invention relates to training aids for baseball including a truncated and hinged bat-like device comprised of a first handle portion hinged to a barrel portion so that swinging the device grooves and fortifies a motion consistent with a pro batting swing, and variations thereof.
The present invention relates to training aids for baseball including a truncated and hinged bat-like device comprised of a first handle portion hinged to a barrel portion so that swinging the device grooves and fortifies a motion consistent with a pro batting swing.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONThe advent of ultra-light aluminum bats are giving youths learning the art or science of hitting a baseball bad habits because these light bats can be easily swung without proper body and arm motion. Especially in fast-pitch hard ball, neophytes who do not have proper training have a tendency to become accustomed to an abbreviated arm and wrist motion to just make contact with the ball. Especially as the velocity of the pitches increases, the rebound effects of modern aluminum bats allows the ball to travel far even without the proper flat swing.
This is in contrast to the old days of heavier wood bats when participants had to use their bodies and muscles in a coordinated swing fully utilizing their shoulders, hips, thighs, arms and torso. These modern bad habits magnify and create barriers to proper development especially when participants make the jump from grade school (Little League or Pony League) to high school where the rules require the use of a heavier aluminum bat; and even more apparent when participants go from college to professional leagues where players must transition to even heavier wood bats. Accordingly, the participants who have never been properly trained and try to make the transition from light to heavy bats are most likely to be handicapped, washed out or not to succeed.
Accordingly, the present inventions allows participants to train to use the proper body and arm motion and emphasize the rotation of the arms, torso, hips and thighs as well as facilitate the follow through to prepare an individual for a proper high school, college or pro swing.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONIn accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a baseball training aid having a first portion hinged to a second portion. The first portion includes a handle portion which is connected by means of a hinge or resilient member to the second portion having a weighted barrel.
The barrel can be either cylindrical in cross-section or can have a flat portion to encourage or facilitate a flat level swing. This can be further encouraged by having a hinge with pivot points designed to restrict the motion in the horizontal direction.
Accordingly, one object of the present invention is to facilitate proper body, arm and shoulder rotation, weight distribution, and follow through to prepare participants for advanced baseball.
Accordingly, there is described herein, a batting training aid comprising of a first portion having a proximal and distal end, a hinge mechanism, pivotally attached to the distal end of the first portion; a second portion with a second proximal and second distal end, the proximal end being connected by said hinge to said first portion; said first barrel being of sufficient length so that when the batting training aid is swung and the second portion swings and collapses upon the first, the handle is cleared and the batter's hands are not hit.
There is also described a baseball training aid comprising, a bat handle member, a barrel member, a hinge pivotally connecting the bat handle member and barrel member to one another, the barrel member having a flat striking surface to encourage a flat swing. Additionally described is a baseball training aid comprising a bat with a knob at its proximal end and a flat striking surface at its distal end, and an annular grip member positioned over the handle and suitably moveable thereon so that the annular member can be gripped near the hinge area when the practice swing is initiated and towards the knob when the swing progress is finished.
These and further options and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following description when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings which show, for the purpose of illustration only, several embodiments in accordance with the principle of the present invention.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Referring to
In the preferred embodiment and as shown in
As mentioned previously, a typical flawed swing is often caused by kids being spoiled by the ultra-light nature of the aluminum bat and the trampoline effect of these bats which drive the ball great distances without proper arm and body rotation. Especially as the kids get older, and the velocity of the pitches increase, participants using these ultra-light bats have a tendency to just stick the bat out in the way of the ball to just make contact and not properly use their wrists and not their arms, hips, thighs and torsos. In contrast, the same swing with a wooden bat would not produce nearly the same impact or distance. In many instances, the problems with these hand swings are also compounded by hitting the ball too much in front, which is worsened by, in many instances, the participant stepping frontward, causing the body to be pivoted on the front foot and the swing deprived of the benefits of the push from the back foot followed by rotation of the trunk and arms and fully utilizing the hips, thighs, and torso. During the days when heavier bats were used, participants had to use their bodies, their hips and their arms as if they were swinging an ax to cut down a tree. Indeed, it is reported that the legendary player Ted Williams practiced his baseball swing by chopping down trees with an ax. Accordingly, one of the purposes of the invention is to build up good habits as was done with the wooden bat and as illustrated in
In Position 1, at about 4:00 p.m., the weight is evenly distributed from front to back foot and the batter is in “loaded” position which, in a right-hand batter, means that the bat is generally over the right shoulder. Because the subject batting aid is heavy, especially with a younger participant, full extension might be problematic if someone was using a large adult bat. In most instances a kid would not be able to hold a heavy adult bat upright. The subject invention solves this problem by operation of the hinged embodiment which folds the bat and makes the center of gravity lower and much closer to the shoulders and the head, making it easier for a kid to “load” with a heavy batting aid.
Going now to Position 2, at about 3 p.m., in order to make the transition from folded bat position to a straighter position where the second portion of the bat is generally aligned in relation to the front portion, the participant is forced to bring the knob of the bat generally forward and rotate the body around an imaginary axis of rotation through the head. As the rotation of the batter continues, the first and second portion of the batting aid becomes more generally aligned as shown in Position 3. Once again, because of the weight of the bat and the momentum caused, balance and stability must be maintained through almost equal weight distribution to both feet while a turning through the aforementioned axis of rotation using the hips, arms, and torso. When the bat reaches Position 4, at about 12 p.m., the momentum caused by the second portion of the training aid translating and rotating by means of the hinge encourages the bat to be over the front foot—basically the ideal place a ball can be properly hit using the subject invention. If the leading end of the second portion is flat, as shown in
In operation, when the participant practices using this training aid, the participant builds up his/her muscles and grooves a horizontal swing using the correct muscle groups with the knob of the bat pulled through the swing first and the flip of the wrist occurring only after the knob is generally over the front foot, followed by a progressive follow through which automatically occurs because of the momentum of the second portion of the bat and the pendulum action caused by the hinging movement.
Other embodiments encompassed by this invention is shown in
In the embodiment of
Yet another embodiment is shown in
In the embodiment in
While we have shown and described various embodiments in accordance with the present invention, it should be clear to those skilled in the art that further embodiments may be made without the parting of the scope and spirit of this concept.
Claims
1. A batting training aid comprising of a first handle portion having a proximal and distal end,
- a free-swinging hinge mechanism, pivotally attached to the distal end of the first portion;
- a second bat portion with a second proximal and second distal end, the proximal end being connected by said hinge to said first handle portion;
- said first handle portion being of sufficient length so that when the batting training aid is swung and the second bat portion swings and collapses the batter's hands are not hit.
2. The training aid of claim 1 whereby the first handle portion has a first removable weight.
3. The training aid of claim 2 whereas the second bat portion has a second removable weight.
4. The training aid of claim 1 whereby the hinge mechanism is unbiased includes a first pin a second pin and lateral connections connected to said pins and located so as to provide constraint of the movement of the second bat portion in relation to the first handle portion in substantially one plane.
5. The batting aid of claim 1 where the second portion has a flat hitting surface.
6. A batting training aid comprising of a first portion having a proximal and distal end,
- an unbiasable free-swinging hinge mechanism, pivotally attached to the distal end of the first portion whereby the hinge mechanism includes a first pin a second pin and a lateral connections connected to said pins and located so as to constrain the movement of the second barrel in relation to the first barrel in substantially one plane;
- a second portion with a second proximal and second distal end, the proximal end being connected by said hinge to said first portion;
- said first portion being of sufficient length so that when the batting training aid is swung and the second portion swings and collapses upon the first, the handle is cleared and the batter's hands are not hit.
7. A method of training a proper baseball swing using a segmented bat and having a first barrel with a knob at its proximal end, connected to a second barrel at its distal end by a non-biasing hinge, consisting of the following steps:
- (a) positioning the bat in a ready position near the right shoulder with the second barrel collapsed upon the first barrel;
- (b) starting the swing upon the release of a pitched ball;
- (c) leading with the knob of the bat;
- (d) attempting to align the first barrel and second barrel at the moment of impact so that the second barrel connects with the ball;
- (e) following through with a full extension after contact with the ball.
8. A baseball training aid comprising a bat with a knob at its proximal end and a flat striking surface at its distal end, and an annular grip member positioned over the handle and suitably moveable thereon so that the annular member can be gripped near the hinge area when the practice swing is initiated and towards the knob when the swing progress is finished.
9. The invention of claim 8 including an annular ring-like member which can be slid into position to make the batting aid unitary.
10. A baseball training aid comprising a bat with a knob at its proximal end and a flat striking surface at its distal end and a spacer between the two ends to separate the hands.
11. A baseball training aid comprising, a bat handle member, a barrel member, a hinge pivotally connecting the bat handle member and barrel member to one another without any spring force being applied, the barrel member having a flat striking surface to encourage a flat swing, whereby the hinge is comprised of parallel pins connected to lateral members whereby the axis of the pins is substantially in alignment with the flat striking surface.
12. A baseball training aid comprising a bat with a knob at its proximal end and a flat striking surface at its distal end, and an annular grip member positioned over the handle and suitably moveable thereon so that the annular member an be gripped near the hinge area when the practice swing is initiated and towards the knob when the swing progress is finished.
13. A batting training aid comprising of a first portion having a proximal and distal end, which is gripped by the batter.
- a non-biasing hinge, pivotally attached to the distal end of the first portion;
- a second portion with a second proximal end and second distal end, the proximal end being connected by said hinge to said first portion;
- said first portion being of sufficient length so that when the batting training aid is swung and the second portion swings and collapses upon the first, the batter's hands are not hit.
14. The training aid of claim 1 whereby the first portion has a first removable weight located within the first portion.
15. The training aid of claim 2 whereas the second portion has a second removable weight, mounted externally to said second portion.
16. The training aid of claim 1 whereby the hinge mechanism is non-biasing and includes a first pin a second pin and lateral connections connected to said pins and located so as to constrain the movement of the second barrel in relation to the first barrel in substantially one plane.
17. A batting training aid comprising of a first portion having a proximal and distal end, the first portion having a handle for gripping by the batter,
- a hinge mechanism without any bias or spring, pivotally attached to the distal end of the first portion;
- a second portion with a second proximal end and second distal end, and proximal end being connected by said hinge to said first portion.
18. A method of training a proper baseball swing using a segmented bat having a first barrel with a knob at its proximal end, and connected to a second barrel at its distal end by a non-biasing hinge, consisting of the following steps:
- (a) positioning the bat in a ready position near the right shoulder with the second barrel collapsed upon the first barrel;
- (b) starting the swing upon the release of a pitched ball;
- (c) leading with the knob of the bat;
- (d) attempting to align the first barrel and second barrel at the moment of impact so that the second barrel connects with the ball;
- (e) following through with a full extension after contact with the ball.
Type: Application
Filed: Mar 1, 2005
Publication Date: Sep 7, 2006
Inventor: Christopher Benassi (Rancho Santa Fe, CA)
Application Number: 11/070,585
International Classification: A63B 69/00 (20060101);