Sweet spot (sports)

For other uses, see Sweet spot (disambiguation).

The sweet spot is a place where a combination of factors results in a maximum response for a given amount of effort. In tennis, squash, racquetball, baseball, cricket or golf a given swing will result in a more powerful hit if the ball strikes the racket, bat or club on the latter's sweet spot.

The sweet spot is the location at which the object being struck, usually a ball, absorbs the maximum amount of the available forward momentum and rebounds away from the racket, bat, club, etc. with a greater velocity than if struck at any other point on the racket, bat or club.

In endurance sports such as cycling, sweet spot training aims to maximise training benefit — generally for performance at or near functional threshold power (FTP) — by optimally balancing training effect, physiological strain and maximum duration.^[1]

Baseball

A batted ball with a launch angle between 8 and 32 degrees is quantified as having been hit off the sweet spot of the bat.^[2] Balls hit in the sweet spot are not necessarily hit hard with a high exit velocity.^[3]

Cricket

The sweet spot of a cricket bat is roughly 150-160mm above the toe.^[4] Scientific research conducted at the University of Cambridge discovered that bamboo bats are stronger with a better sweet spot compared to those made of willow.^[5]

Tennis

See also

• Center of percussion

References

1. Housler, Brendan (May 25, 2022). "Doing more cycling in the 'sweetspot' training zone could revolutionise your fitness - here's why". Cycling Weekly. Future plc. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
2. McCaffrey, Gene (August 6, 2019). "Can examining the Sweet Spot Percentage leaderboard turn up hidden fantasy gems?". The Athletic. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
3. Clemens, Ben (February 25, 2020). "A Sweet Spot by Any Other Definition". FanGraphs. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
4. Shetty, Varun (December 15, 2021). "Have sweet spots on bats really got bigger?". The Cricket Monthly. ESPN. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
5. Sankaran, Vishwam (May 10, 2021). "Cricket bats made of bamboo instead of willow are stronger and have better 'sweet spot', study finds". The Independent. Retrieved March 14, 2024.