Published by Kyle Hodge, Lead Product & Testing Engineer
Vibration on impact of a miss-hit ball can be detrimental to a player’s performance. Players of all ages can be severely impacted by vibration-heavy bats, causing them to lose confidence at the plate, resulting in sub-par performance or intent, or poor swing habits.
Enter Axe Bat’s patent pending Shock Suspension Connection, one of the few technologies in the game that completely separates the barrel from the handle of two-piece bats, via shock absorbing dampening material. The Shock Suspension Connection can be found on nearly every 2023 Axe Avenge Pro and Avenge Pro Hybrid Baseball or Fastpitch Avenge Pro models.
The “sweet-spot” of a baseball or softball bat can be a bit of an ambiguous term, but in common practice, it is likely to be associated with the location on the barrel with both the highest barrel performance, and lowest unwanted vibration. Every model in Axe Bat’s current product line is highly engineered to deliver the largest possible sweet-spot, both related to barrel performance, and vibration dampening. Sweet-spot location for any given bat is highly dependent on the weight, length, and moment of inertia of the bat construction, but through Axe Bat’s extensive studies, have also identified specific “zones” of the barrel that bridge the highest possible lab-measured barrel performance location (such as “BBCOR” or “BPF” values) with the center of percussion of the bat. Dr. Dan Russell has also found sweet-spot locations to relate specifically to the nodes of the first two bending mode shapes, as can be read here, and has also uncovered that peak vibrations sensitive to the human hand originate from non-sweet-spot impacts that resonate at approximately the second flexural bending mode of the bat, typically around 600Hz.
While every Axe Bat barrel is tuned for maximum performance for a given league, the Shock Suspension Connection is designed specifically to dampen all vibration sensitive to the hands, allowing a player to step confidently to the plate each and every time. The connection design uses five parts in total, all working together to completely block vibration from reaching the handle of the bat, while maintaining the lightest weight possible. The Shock Suspension Connection piece, shown below, is just the visual representation of a highly tuned system lying underneath the barrel, protecting a hitter’s hands.
Through extensive testing, Shock Suspension technology has been found to reduce unwanted bat vibrations by 30% on a player preference scale, and as noted above, isolates the barrel of the bat from the handle better than any similar bat technology on the market today. If you or your favorite hitter suffers from lack of confidence due to bat vibration – finding yourself an Axe Bat featuring the Shock Suspension Connection may be the best decision you can make to improve performance at the plate.