Abstract
Baseball involves a dynamic confrontation between a pitcher and a batter, in which the batter must use the pitcher’s kinematics to decide whether to swing or not. However, replicating this interaction during regular batting practice (RBP) is difficult due to the limited availability of pitchers. To address this limitation, virtual batting practice (VBP), in which a batter faces a pitcher in a virtual reality environment, has been proposed to be an effective substitute to RBP to train swinging decision. This pre-registered study examined the effectiveness of VBP compared to RBP.
Thirty-eight male baseball batters aged 11 to 15 (M = 13, SD = 1.01), with an average of 5 years of baseball experience (SD =1.44), were recruited from the same club and randomly assigned to VBP or RBP groups. The VBP group completed twelve 20-minute VR training sessions over four weeks using commercial software (Win Reality, Austin, TX, USA) during their regular ten hours per week of practice, while the RBP group engaged only in regular practice. Decision-making was assessed pre- and post-intervention using a video-based pitch recognition test (PRT) and swing decision accuracy during live at-bats.
Results revealed significant improvement in PRT from pre- to post-test (p = 0.03), with no between-group differences (p = 0.50). However, neither group improved swing decision accuracy during live at-bats (p > 0.17). Thus, substituting part of regular practices with virtual reality training led to similar improvement compared to RBP. Future studies should investigate the effects of longer or varied VBP schedules.
