For athletes and coaches, competition, along with other aspects, is why they play any type of sport. Through my days as a player, I loved competing regardless of the situation. It could be shagging fly balls in the outfield or hitting baseballs off a tee. There would be times that we would compete with ourselves, but also times we would compete with our peers in a training situation. Rapsodo, with its instant feed back, gives us the ability to bring a competitive edge to any training session.
How does Rapsodo breed competition?
This can be as creative as you would like it to be! In my JUCO days, we would put a cone at the back of the net to see who could control their bat the best and hit the cone the quickest. Did that help our swings? The answer is up for interpretation, but anytime you get 5-7 teammates around competing against each other the benefits outweigh the cost.
A few ideas that come to mind include:
- Exit Velocity – As simple as seeing who can get the overall highest exit velocity, as well as, average exit velocity.
- Distance – Take a round or two and really tell yourself you want to hit this ball as far as possible. Muscle up a little bit and let the swing work. The farthest distance wins.
- Opposite Field – Take a round of BP and see who can drive the ball the other way the best. Use your judgement on what driving the ball really means. The player with the best execution brings home the bragging rights for this drill.
- Pull Side – See how well you can pull the baseball against you peers. When doing so the balls must be driven but not hooked. Ensuring you get correct backspin on the spin axis (10 – 2 O’Clock)
Have players judge each other and make them invest in their results. This will help them learn how each other’s swings work while keeping each other accountable at the same time.
For the individual:
Through the reports and cloud services, users will be able to see where they rank as a player in the organization. Each hitting report downloaded will give a date range of the players averages and where they rank for those sessions. If a player is not ranking as high as they expect it will give them immediate feedback on what they must do to be better. Or if the player is amongst the top of his organization this will show him his training is going well, but if he does not continue to push, those below him will surpass him.
No matter what approach you take to hitting, I think everyone can agree that bringing competition into the cage takes players to the next level. It is what fueled my passion for the game of baseball and hope it does for you too!
