Take a look at fastpitch softball discussion groups on Facebook or other corners of the Internet for any length of time and you’ll find parents and coaches looking for the magical drill that will yield faster speeds with greater accuracy for pitchers, longer distances and higher batting averages for hitters, more sure-handedness for fielders, or some other tremendous improvement. You’ll also find plenty of responses.

Here’s the thing to know, however: there is no magical, one-size-fits-all drill that will accomplish those goals for everyone. They may work for a percentage of the player population, large or small, but there are no universal panaceas out there. Here’s why.

Each human being is unique, with his or her own ways of standing and moving. Two players may look similar, but they aren’t identical.

In fact, from my own set of experiences working with players generally and testing them more specifically for Motor Preferences^®, even identical twins will have differences in the way their bodies work.

The reason, as David Genest at Motor Preferences Experts (MPE) will say, is that people aren’t machines. Or sci-fi replicants.

With machines, you can build every single one of them to perform the same way every time as long as you’re using the same parts and following the same blueprint. That means when you put them to work they will perform identically and interchangeably.

Not so much with human beings. While we all have arms, legs, torsos, bones, muscles, fascia, neuroreceptors, etc. – in other words all the same parts – the way those parts work individually and in concert with each other varies from human to human.

What that means is that the drill that is a breakthrough for one player could be a detriment, or even an injury risk, to another.

Take some of the drills for improving the leg drive of pitchers. A drill that emphasizes driving the hips could be great for someone classified as a terrestrial or “bottom mover.” They initiate movement from their hips, so enhancing that movement will likely yield some pretty good results.

Apply that same drill to an aerial or “top mover” – someone who initiates movement from her shoulders – and you could actually make her worse because you’re focusing your efforts on the wrong body segment at the expense of the preferred segment.

The same goes for hitters, fielders, and everyone else. If you use drills that place too much emphasis on one movement over another because you’ve seen them work for some famous player, without any consideration for how the individual in front of you moves, you can actually do more harm than good.

Both performance-wise and health-wise.

Does that mean you shouldn’t use any drills? Of course not. Drills are an important way of breaking down skills to help players improve.

But it does mean you should be careful about what you apply to whom.

Let’s look at team hitting practices. Unless all your players move the same way/have the same motor preference profiles, having one set of generic drills for everyone to perform is likely to be beneficial to some and detrimental or even harmful to others.

A better approach would be to create a set of drills for each group and have them work within their preferred profiles. That doesn’t mean you can’t have some crossover, for example hip drive drills for players who are more shoulder-oriented.

For best results, however, you’ll want them to spend 70-80% of their time doing drills that fit their preferred way of moving.

The same goes for conditioning and strength training. Terrestrial/bottom movers will benefit more by working on exercises that keep them closer to the ground, such as bear crawls, than by spending a lot of time on plyometric drills that require bounciness.

Aerials/top movers, on the other hand, will respond best to plyometric conditioning drills. That doesn’t mean either group should be exclusively one way or the other, especially since most people are not on the extreme end of either.

But for best results the bulk of their time should be spent working on the things that will help them take best advantage of their natural tendencies.

So how do you know which drills to assign to whom if you haven’t hand any specific training in this area? Glad you asked.

For that we can turn to science. When you assign drills initially, see who responds to what. Then keep what works and discard or modify what doesn’t.

You can even do that within profiles. When I’m working with a pitcher or hitter I will often ask them to try something different. After all, if you do what you always did you get what you always got.

After a few attempts, though, I will look at what the effect has been. Does the player seem to be moving/performing better or worse?

If it’s better we’ll keep working on it. If it’s worse (adjusted for the fact it’s new), we’ll move on to something else.

And sometimes I will suggest something I’m pretty sure will create an improvement but doesn’t work immediately for that player. In that instance I will tell her to stay within the general idea but find a way that works better than I originally described.

You’d be amazed at how well that can work, because she’s not only doing the right thing but doing it the right way for her.

Also, don’t forget to ask the athlete for her feelings about a drill or exercise or movement instruction too. Athletes can sometimes be a little too coachable and thus won’t tell you when something feels awkward or out of place to them. Instead, they’ll just keep pushing through.

But if you ask them for their feedback, and encourage them to be honest, you’ll often get a better idea of whether a new idea is worth pursuing further or something you should save for someone else.

The bottom line is the idea of a “one size fits all” drill that can be universally applied to every player is a myth. It’s magical thinking that simply doesn’t work in the real world.

You need to know your players, try different things with them, and only keep what works. If you look for similarities in what works with your players you can build a profile for each of them that will save you time in the future because you’ll have a better idea of what they will respond positively to.

The net result will be happier, healthier, and better-performing players. And that’s a fact.

My good friend Jay Bolden and I have started a new podcast called “From the Coach’s Mouth” where we interview coaches from all areas and levels of fastpitch softball as well as others who may not be fastpitch people but have lots of interesting ideas to contribute.

You can find it here on Spotify, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re searching, be sure to put the name in quotes, i.e., “From the Coach’s Mouth” so it goes directly to it.

Give it a listen and let us know what you think. And be sure to hit the Like button and subscribe to Life in the Fastpitch Lane for more content like this.

Elephant and mouse photo by Vindhya Chandrasekharan on Pexels.com