It’s the off-season. It’s time to: 1) Rest and recover from last season. 2) Heal injuries. 3) Do conditioning to get faster, stronger, more powerful, andprevent injuries. 4) Work on fundamentals. In other words, it’s time to get better for next season! Often, people wonder – what should I do more of? In an ideal … Read more
Yesterday, with my new team we played three games. I am certainly happy with our 3 wins. However, what I’m most happy about is the fact that I see my players learning and progressing. That’s my number one goal especially in the off-season. One of the concepts that I have really been emphasizing over the … Read more
Most coaches and athletes recognize that getting in shape plays a key role in achieving top performances at the elite level. For most, conditioning is conditioning. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you sweat a bit and get some muscle burn, you’re getting in shape and that’s all good! While it’s better … Read more
Yesterday, i was doing a hitting session with my team. I was teaching the “inside-out” concept. It’s a bit technical without being that complicated. After the “theory” and “dry swing” part of practice, we got into a circuit with stations. One of the stations was a tee station. And as I do usually, I walk … Read more
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
I started working with my team officially this weekend with our first practice yesterday. We have a good hitting team. And yesterday, I was introducing a few simple softball hitting concepts mostly about stance, rythm and loading/trigger/negative movements. I have one player who said “I can’t do it”. What? “I can’t do it. My body … 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
Today, I was in NY State with my good friend Sean Cotter. Sean is the Head Softball Coach at Plattsburgh State University, one of the best NCAA Division III softball program in the country. Sean is very well-known for driving his opponents crazy with a very aggressive style of play. And I mean really aggressive. … 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