TEGS™: Base Ball Grip Set

Description

RESEARCH CONFIRMS THE PERFORMANCE BENEFITS OF 3M™ GRIPPING MATERIAL

A breakthrough study shows a significant performance improvement by athletes using3M™ Gripping Material in baseball batting gloves and bat grips.

In 2002, University of Minnesota Adjunct Professor Paul E. Cassidy, Ph D., led a study that looked at the performance of 19 NCAA Division II varsity baseball players at Concordia University in St. Paul, MN. He investigated the impact of various combinations of gloves and grips on bat speed, grip exertion, and perceptions of grip force and grip friction.

The study’s authors found that players using batting gloves made with gripping material and a gripping material grip had a 4.4 percent increase in bat speed (compared to leather gloves and leather bat wraps). Using gripping material on a glove and gripping material on a bat grip created the greatest difference in bat speed—3.32 mph, from 75.4 to 78.7 mph—which “translates into a fly ball traveling 16.6 feet farther simply through the use of gripping material on batting gloves.”

  

OTHER STUDIES CONFIRM PERFORMANCE BENEFITS, EVEN UNDER SLIPPERY CONDITIONS

This study concluded: “Application of the 3M™ Gripping Material would be a useful ergonomic intervention for reducing grip force in tasks involving frequent, sustained or forceful exertions, particularly when these tasks are performed under slippery conditions.”

3M’s internal studies show similar benefits under wet and dry conditions. Compared to a leather batting glove/leather grip, a leather glove/gripping material system shows a 43 percent improvement in friction.  In fact, the leather glove/gripping material system has better friction under wet conditions than the leather glove/leather grip combination has under dry conditions. Even more impressive is the performance of the gripping material glove/gripping material system, which shows a 270 percent improvement in friction over the traditional leather glove and leather grip.