A few years ago, as a younger and less experienced coach, like most new coaches in softball, I wanted to win, win often, and win it all. That was at the recreational level and also in travel ball at the younger levels (12U, 14U, 16U). So my thinking was the following – practice super hard … Read more
Not long ago, I was observing a coach teach hitting. It was obvious he knew something or two about softball hitting. But he was really bad at teaching it. His players had a hard time applying what he was teaching. Here’s what he was doing. He kept telling his players about what they shouldn’t do … Read more
It happens all the time – errors and mistakes. Softball is full of it. In fact, it’s a sport of errors. The team that makes the least usually wins. At the younger levels, teams don’t get beat, they beat themselves. Coaches and parents are in most cases very well-intented. They want to help their kid … Read more
There is a disease that often goes undiagnosed. Pitching (and other skills too) is very technical. It takes a lot of hours to learn, master, and refine the various technical elements of pitching if you include all of the pitches. It’s very easy to confuse pitchers. All you have to do is to give them … Read more
Most softball players are now in the off-season. What should you with that time? 1) You recover and regenerate for a few weeks; heal all injuries and recharge the batteries (mentally and physically). Don’t jump right away into heavy training if at all possible. Give yourself some time off. 2) Work on the fundamentals – … Read more
This weekend, I spent part of it at the ballpark watching games since it was the playoffs of the local elite girls fastpitch league. There’s a coach that I’ve known quite a few years who reads my emails that came up to me to tell me that all the hype around all that “dynamic stuff” … Read more
This morning, I was giving a lecture to a group of young college students on how to work out. I started by talking about warm-ups. I asked them: “Why do you need to warm-up?” I got answers like… “Not to get injured” “To make your body warm” and many of the variations of both answers … Read more
You see it everywhere. It’s been done for years thinking it was good for them. It’s still being thought by many to be what the thing to do despite all of evidence pointing to the contrary. Softball is an “old-school” sport. It’s a very conservative sport. Things change slowwwwwwwwwwwly unlike other sports like track and … Read more
Identifying talent and predicting the future success of an athlete is as reliable as the weather forecast for next week. In other words, not reliable at all. Despite years of research, there are only a handful of true predictors of athletic success that have been identified. When selecting their team, coaches will use a variety … Read more
Unlike sports like swimming, figure skating, tennis, or gymnastics, softball is a volunteer-driven sport. This means that most people involve in youth softball are volunteers and aren’t there for financial gains. In most cases, it’s actually costing them money. People get into coaching youth softball for various reasons. Some are former baseball or softball players … Read more