A great article recently came out on the effects of using a weighted bat (donut on the end of the bat) as a warm up. Here’s the link to the research article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19593220?dopt=Abstract. (I came across this article from Eric Cressey’s Blog.) Here’s an article written on this same topic: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=baseball-bat-speed-all-star
It’s known in the sports science community that if you practice swinging a heavy bat (using a donut) before going up to the plate you will decrease your bat velocity. Your goal as a hitter is to increase your bat velocity so that you can wait longer on a pitch (see if it has late break or see if it stays in/out of the zone) so that it gets deeper into your zone and you can still drive the ball. This article suggests (as well as many other research articles) that you should not take cuts with a donut on your bat in the batting circle because this will decrease your bat velocity when you get up to the plate.
I spoke on this same topic about two years ago on the radio while working with Angels minor league system. Here’s my advice as a sports performance coach…you can use a donut to loosen up the upper body and core in the on deck circle (arm circles , trunk rotations, and other general warm up movements with the donut on the bat). Just be cautious about swinging with your regular mechanics with a heavy bat in your hand becuase your hitting mechanics will change as the load changes. This simply means that you will alter the mechanics of your swing with a heavy bat which will have a negative impact when you go up to the plate to hit live pitching. It’s like you’re training your body to be slow when you warm up with a donut.
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