I remember asking for ballast in my student days in the R22 but my flight instructor quite rightly refused it, making me more reliant on my own judgement for things like hovering and landing.
I once flew an R44 and couldn't help noticing the rubber grip on the cyclic had been torn to shreds by nervous students, many of them whom had transitioned from the R22 and were not used to flying a larger machine. The vertical movement in the T-cyclic doesn't help as it affects the sensitivity in lateral control and (depending on your knee height) the cyclic grip is presented to students at different angles (not ergonomically efficient).