Author Archives: Ken Krause
Preparing for the Inevitble Storms
On this week’s episode of the From the Coach’s Mouth podcast, Jay Bolden and I spoke with Shawnee Harle, 2X Olympian with the Canadian Basketball National Team and now a Mental Toughness Coach with her own business called Winning Matters. While Shawnee had a lot of great insights into the mental game, there was one concept in particular that has been on my mind today: preparing for the storm.
Shawnee said that what most athletes and coaches miss is that there is always a storm coming – kind of like Florida during hurricane season. It’s not a question of if, but rather than of when.
Through experience, most people in Florida have learned that when a hurricane is on its way it’s best to put up the plywood over the windows, lock down anything that can be easily lifted (such as patio furniture), and lay in supplies such as food, water, toilet paper, and bandages so they’re ready for when the storm hits.
If it’s not that bad that’s ok – all they lost was a little time and a little storage space for supplies they didn’t need after all (but can use later). If it is bad, however, they have what they need to get through it until the storm passes and things get back to normal.
Unfortunately, many coaches and athletes like to pretend that the storm isn’t going to hit them. “I’ve put in the work,” they say, or “the negatives won’t hit me if I just stay positive.” But that’s a fool’s position.
According to Shawnee, the storm hits everyone sooner or later. Pitchers have a rough outing or two, or suddenly lose their best pitch for no apparent reason. Hitters go into slumps out of nowhere.
Catchers suddenly can’t throw baserunners out or start having pitches they’d normally catch glance off their gloves. Fielders start making fielding errors or sailing balls high instead of throwing to the base.
No one knows why the softball gods suddenly become angry and throw their wrath at a particular player. They just do, and it happens to everyone.
So knowing that, the question is what are you doing to prepare yourself (or your players)? Have you thought about how you’re going to deal with it and get back on track or are you going to allow yourself to get caught by surprise and then try to ride it out?
Now, some coaches will take the “Suck it up buttercup” approach. They see a problem and think if they tell players to “toughen up” or to “get your head in the game” they will solve the problem.
In reality, they will most likely make it worse.
The better approach is to heed the old saying “In times of peace, prepare for war” and start getting your mental game toolkit together before you need it. Just like smart Floridians gather up their supplies ahead of the hurricane rather than during the middle of it.
There are plenty of resources out there that can help you learn how to prepare for the coming storm. A mental toughness coach such as Shawnee is certainly a good one, especially if you’re playing on a bigger stage where the pressure is extreme.
But there are plenty of self-help options out there. The book Heads-Up Baseball: Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time is a great starting point in my opinion. It’s easy to follow, with great exercises that help you learn to control yourself and understand what else you can or cannot control.
There are many other books, videos, and training tools as well, all designed to address the storms that are inevitable in sports as well as in life.
The key, though, is not to wait until you’re facing the storm but to get out ahead of it. You wouldn’t suddenly try to learn how to hit or pitch or perform any other skill in the middle of a season.
You shouldn’t wait until you’re in the middle of a crisis to try to develop the skills you need to get out of one either.
If you polled 1,000 coaches and athletes and asked them how important the mental game is to success, I’d bet the overwhelming majority, like 90%+, would say “very important.” Ask that same 1,000 how much time they spend on it, though, and you’d probably get an answer of 5% of their time or less.
Face the facts: the storm is coming. It might not be today, or even tomorrow, but sooner or later it will hit. Start preparing for it now and you’ll find you’ll get through it faster and stronger.
A $500 Bat Won’t Fix a $5 Swing
Softball bat technology has certainly come a long way from the days when an $80 Louisville Slugger burgundy bottle bat was what every fastpitch hitter dreamed of owning. (Linda Lensch I’m looking at you.)
The materials and construction of today’s bats are designed to maximize distance and power, turning even so-so contact into a potential dinger. At least that’s the promise.
Yet while it’s true that the stiffness of advanced carbon fiber or other materials and “trampoline effect” of the specially engineered barrels do tend to yield better results (all else being equal), there’s one thing they can’t make up for: a poorly engineered swing. That’s something to keep in mind as you start to look at where to spend your money to try to create better results at the plate this season.
I know that $500 bat sure looks tempting in the online ads. These days bat manufacturers are doing a great job of making their bats not only powerful but beautiful.
Heck, a lot of them will let you customize the colors and graphics yourself, which is a wonderful option if you have an eye for that sort of thing and can be a disaster if all your taste is in your mouth, as an old boss of mine used to say. Still, as long as it’s beautiful to you it’s the stuff dreams are made of.
But while they may make your socks roll up and down when you look at the bat, all the pretty colors and cool graphics in the world won’t help when you take it up to the plate and are staring down a pitcher. At that point you’d better know how to swing it.
It comes come down to which you think will work better: a great swing with a cheap bat or a great bat with a terrible swing.
Sure, it’s possible with today’s technology that you can get a few great or at least decent hits with any ol’ swing. All you need to do is get the bat on the ball and the bat will do the rest, right?
That, however, is more of a “hope” or a “law of averages” strategy. Swing it enough times and you’re bound to hit something sometime – or at least you’d assume so.
But the reality is you’ll probably do a lot better making sure your swing itself is in order – that it is sequenced properly, you understand how time a pitcher, you are capable of making the fine adjustments to the swing once you get a better look at the pitch, etc. – before you go spending your limited budget on the shiny new bat.
Think of it like a guitar player. If you go to hear someone play who hasn’t been at it that long, he or she may have a $20,000 Martin acoustic guitar but it’s still going to sound like someone hacking away at an instrument they don’t really know.
But if you go to hear a great guitarist, he or she will draw amazing, mesmerizing sounds out of a $200 special from Sweetwater. Because the tone and technique is in the hands of the player, not the instrument.
It’s the same with that $500 bat you’re coveting. The only way to get the results you want from that big ticket expenditure is to first make sure you know how to use it.
Rather than investing in that fancy new bat, first make sure you’re investing in yourself. Get some lessons from a qualified hitting instructor.
Put in time in the cages to work on what the instructor is telling you. Get comfortable with your swing mechanics and your approach at the plate.
See someone about your mental game if you find you’re great in the cage but struggle in games. In other words, get your house in order.
Then, when you’re sure you’re ready, have at it. Search the Internet or better yet go to a local store or facility where you can try out various bats to see which one feels and sounds best to you – there can be a huge difference even between bats with similar specs.
Then make your purchase knowing you not only have a $500 bat but a $1 million swing to go with it.
By the way, this thought also applies to pitchers and fielders too. Before you go spending money on new gloves or shoes or gimmicks, invest in yourself and what you’ll do with those things first.
You’ll probably like the results a whole lot better.
How Practice Helps Shorten the Trip to Softball Success
At the end of the first lesson with a new student I will often ask her if she knows where New York City and Los Angeles are on a map. I know that’s a gamble given how famously bad we Americans are at geography, but even if she doesn’t know she will usually have an idea of what the U.S. looks like and I can show her Los Angeles is way on the left and New York City is way on the right .
I will then ask her how many different ways there are to get from New York to Los Angeles. Most understand I mean modes of travel, although the ones who are just learning to drive may panic thinking I’m looking for turn-by-turn directions. I’m not that cruel.
Once she understands the question we’ll start listing them out: flying, driving, train, boat, bus, etc. I will also remind her you can walk, run, or bicycle as well.
The final question is, “Which way is the fastest?” Pretty much everyone says “flying,” although there’s an occasional outlier who has to be corrected. That’s when I swoop in with the point.
“If you practice at least two or three times a week between lessons, it’s like flying from New York to Los Angeles,” I tell her. “You’ll get to your destination quickly and refreshed, and be ready to go on and do better things than travel.
“But,” I will continue, “if you only pick up a bat or a ball or a glove when you have a lesson it’s like walking from New York to Los Angeles. You’ll still get to where you’re going, but it will take a lot more time and it will be a lot more painful and frustrating.”
In my mind, that may be the most important thing I teach these young ladies when they come to me. I think players and even parents often have an expectation that if they take lessons, especially from a coach who’s a “name,” it will automatically make them great.
Nothing is further from the truth, however. They may get a little bit better over time but it’s going to be a long time before they notice any substantial improvements.
But if they put in the work on their own that’s where they’re going to see real progress. Because that’s where the real magic happens.
Continuing the transportation theme, I tend to think of coaches as the GPS for the journey. They will give you information, even turn-by-turn directions, so to speak, that will guide players to their desired destination.
Nothing happens, however, until the player puts the “vehicle” (her body) in gear and starts driving toward the destination. Just like with the car, if she just sits there without doing something the directions will be the same day after day, week after week, month after month, etc. instead of moving onward.
A coach shouldn’t be watching his/her players work on last week’s assignment for the first time. The player should have already put in the work on it.
That doesn’t mean the player will necessarily have it mastered after a week or two. But there should be progress toward the goal so the coach is performing a process of continuous refinement – chipping away at the goal layer by layer the way a sculptor chips away at a piece of marble until it turns into a breathtaking work of art.
If the coach has to keep chipping away at the same level of skill, however, progress will be slow and the player is likely to get frustrated and stop long before she turns into the masterpiece she should be.
It can be difficult for players, especially the young ones, to understand the abstract concept of how quality practice leads to excellence. But everyone understand travel, because we all go somewhere every day.
If you have a player (or child) who doesn’t seem to see the need for practice, try the map analogy. It might just help get her moving in the right direction.
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.
US map graphic by User:Wapcaplet, edited by User:Ed g2s, User:Dbenbenn – File:Map_of_USA_with_state_names_2.svg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81990933
Debunking the “One Size Fits All” Myth
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
Energy Creation: The Rolling Snowballs Corollary
This seems like an apt analogy since as I write this much of the USA is still dealing with a fair amount of snow, including many places that rarely get any. Welcome to my world, although we actually haven’t gotten much all winter.
Anyway, the other day I was trying to explain the concept of acceleration to a young pitcher. We were talking about the need for her arm to pick up speed down the back side of the circle instead of staying at one speed if she wants to throw harder.
Then an idea hit me, thanks to a childhood misspent watching Saturday morning cartoons.
“Think about a snowball rolling down a hill,” I said. “At first, the snowball is small. But as it rolls down the hill, the snowball starts picking up more snow, getting bigger and bigger. Then, when the snowball reaches the bottom and stops, the snow explodes all over the place!
“That’s what needs to happen with your pitching arm,” I continued. “As you come down the back side you start moving your arm faster, which gathers more energy like the snowball gathers snow, until the ball explodes out of your hand at the end.”
That made perfect sense to her. The more the snowball moves downhill the faster it goes and the more snow (energy) it picks up.
Ergo (love that word, rarely get to use it in a sentence), getting that arm to move faster down the back side of the circle is critical to maximizing speed. Logical, right?
But that doesn’t mean pitchers can always do it. Some will do it naturally. Others will do it once your bring it up. But some have to unlearn old movement patterns and replace them with new ones before they can execute it.
One of the best ways to help them learn that acceleration is by moving the pitcher in close to a net or tarp, having her stand with her feet and body at 45 degrees to the target, and then throwing with a full circle, emphasizing the speed on the back side of the circle. You can also do that with six or eight ounce plyo balls into a wall.
I also prefer they move their feet as they do it since body timing is also crucial to great execution.
The key here is feeling the arm moving as quickly as it can. But there’s another caveat.
To really make this work and get the acceleration, the arm has to be loose and the humerus (upper arm) has to be leading with the forearm trailing behind, i.e., throwing with whip. Moving the whole arm in one piece, as you do when you point the ball toward second base and push it down the circle, will not yield the same level of results. In fact, it could cause injuries.
Once the pitcher can execute this movement from in-close, start moving her further away and trying it again. Take your time with this process, because if you move her back too fast and she perceives the target is too far away she will start muscling it to make sure it gets there rather than letting it move naturally.
At each step, take a video and look to make sure there is at least somewhat of a bend or hook at the elbow instead of a straight arm. If not, move her back up or slow her down temporarily so she can get the proper mechanics.
Then speed it up and try again.
By the way, the energy snowball concept is not just for pitchers. This type of acceleration into release or contact is also critical for overhand throwing and hitting.
Or pretty much any other athletic skill requiring power.
Now, if you’re an adult with lots of real-world experience, all of this may seem obvious to you. You may even be wondering why I’m spending so much time on it.
But a young player, or even a young adult player, may not have the real-world understanding of basic physics or biomechanics to tie acceleration into energy production. For them, it’s helpful to put it in a context that they can easily comprehend based on what they have already seen.
Even if it comes from a Saturday morning cartoon.
If you have a player who’s struggling to understand the concept of acceleration into action, try talking about the rolling snowball. It just might break the ice with them.
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. Commercial over.
Snow roller photo by Perduejn, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Be the River, Not the Rock
Here’s a simple question for you today: which is strong, the river or the rock that sits in the middle of it? The answer is it depends on your point of view.
Taken at a glance, a snapshot in time if you will, it appears the rock is stronger. After all, the rock stands steadfast, unmovable, while the river must divert around it.
But if you take a longer-term view, the answer is the river, because over time it will erode the rock until the rock is no longer an obstacle to its path.
I know, very Kung Fu of me (which is probably where I got the idea). You can hear the pan flutes even as you read this.
That doesn’t make it any less true, however. Which is a good lesson for playerstrying to learn or improve a challenging skill such as pitching or hitting, as well as for coaches trying to get the best out of their teams.
Players
Let’s start with players. They can take the rock approach to learning new skills or improving/revamping current ones for a variety of reasons, including:
- What they’re currently doing has worked for them before. For example, a 12 year old pitcher who is used to pushing or lobbing the ball toward the plate instead of using her whole body to throw. She threw more strikes than the other pitchers she knows and if that’s her only measurement of success why change? .
- They’re not comfortable doing something new. With minor exceptions, who is? It’s a lot easier to do what you’ve always done than to change it.
- When they try something new their performance goes down (in their mind). Such as a hitter who used to make weak contact but is now swinging and missing while trying to learn a new way to swing the bat.
- They just don’t want to change. Typically seen with players who are forced to take lessons by their parents or players who believe they are better than they actually are (big fish in a small pond).
The problem here, as they say, is if you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got. But if others around you are improving their games, what you always got may not be good enough anymore and you’ll find yourself sinking down the batting order or the pitching rotation – or maybe even out of the starting lineup.
The important thing to remember when players make a change is that it doesn’t have to be permanent. Try something for a little while and see if it works. If it doesn’t, you can always try something else.
I do that a lot with my students. I have an idea, based on science and experience, of what will work, but I’m not omniscient. (That means all-knowing for those who don’t feel like looking it up.)
Try it and see how it feels. Sometimes you’ll hit farther or throw faster.
Sometimes it will throw you off your game completely. But you don’t know until you try it.
Remember, as the rock wears down the river changes its course. Be the river.
Coaches
Coaches, too, can benefit by taking the river approach instead of being the rock.
We see the rock approach a lot. Something new will come along and you’ll have a percentage of the coaching popular who will say “I’ve been doing it my way for 10/20/30 years and have had success. Why should I change?”
The answer, of course, is because new discoveries are being made all the time – data-based discoveries that can help players get better, shortcut the learning process, overcome deep-seated challenges that are built into the DNA, or otherwise improve.
It’s the same with game strategies. You may have followed the same playbook for X number of years, but what if there is information out there that could turn a few more of those losses into wins because you knew how to use it?
The best coaches I know are constantly scouring every source they can find to obtain new information in the hopes that it might help them. They are moving their knowledge forward like the river instead of standing in one place like the rock.
Imagine if you could discover just one little tip or trick or way of looking at things that would give you a significant advantage over your rivals. That’s the premise of the book and the movie Moneyball.
The Oakland Athletics used data to find players others didn’t value very highly to help them field a team that could win 100 games while fitting their very limited budget. It was a game-changer for them, and for the rest of Major League Baseball who followed that example.
Besides, learning new things is fun. Again, you may try something only to find it doesn’t work for you.
That’s ok. Now you know more than you did before.
But if you do discover some new strategy or approach that pays dividends you’ll be glad you gave it a try. Even if you had to change your world view a little.
It’s easy to be the rock, staying in one place while the world rushes past you. But eventually it will wear you down too. Be the river.
Check Out Our New Podcast
Speaking of learning new things, 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.
Our first two episodes are in the books. In the first we spoke with pitching guru Rick Pauly of PaulyGirl Fastpitch, and in the second we heard from Coach Sheets (Jeremy Sheetinger), head coach of the Georgia Gwinnett College baseball program.
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. Commercial over.
River photo by Matthew Montrone on Pexels.com
Compete Against Yourself First
The desire/urge to compete is pretty much baked into our DNA. Where originally it was a survival mechanism – those who were best at finding resources (or taking them from others) were the most likely to live – that drive lives on today in many forms, including the desire/urge to score more runs than an opponent.
It can be good thing, spurring us on to achieve more than we would have otherwise had we not had an example to compete against or a level of performance to aspire to. But it can also turn ugly when it moves from helping us establish goals to judging our self-worth by how we compare to others – either specific individuals or others in general.
The problem with these types of comparisons is they often don’t take into account the fact that the competition is often not occurring on a level playing field.
Take a couple of beginning pitchers for example. They both start learning at the same time, so it’s easy to think that they will progress at the same pace.
But maybe one is a little more naturally athletic or simply more coordinated than the other because physically they’re developing at different paces – each at her own pace, incidentally. The more athletic one is likely to jump out to an early lead, throwing harder, throwing more strikes, being ready for a second pitch, etc. before the other.
The one who falls a little behind may look at it and feel bad about herself. She can say, “I work just as hard and practice more, but I am not getting the same results. Therefore I must not be very good.”
That’s the wrong way to look at it, in my opinion. Rather than comparing herself to the other pitcher, the second girl should instead look inward to see if she is better than she was a week ago, a month ago, six months ago, etc. She might like what she sees a whole lot better.
Perhaps when the girl who’s feeling bad started out she was arcing the ball in, or having trouble making it to the plate. For an older girl, maybe she was throwing hard but it was anyone’s guess where it might go.
Now she is getting to the point where you could put her in a game when it matters. She may not be quite as spectacular as the other one (at this moment), but she is leaps and bounds better than she used to be.
And here’s the funny thing. Just because she’s behind right now doesn’t mean she will be forever.
Some kids are just naturally more coordinated than others at younger ages. Some kids have earlier exposure than others to quality coaching, which shortcuts the learning process. Some kids just take a little longer to grow or gain strength than others.
But when player two catches up, look out! She may just end up being the best of the bunch.
I recently heard a story about the legendary pitcher and Olympian Cat Osterman talking to a group of youth players at USA Softball’s High Performance Program (HPP) national player selection event. After watching the quality of the talent that was there, she told them that when she was their age there was no way she would have been invited to such an event, much less have been able to win a spot on the roster.
She didn’t become the Cat Osterman we know until a little later. She was tall and gangly and hadn’t quite figured out how to get those long arms and legs all moving together in a way that would dominate hitters.
Had she primarily been comparing herself to the other pitchers around her she might have become discouraged and given up. And the sport would have missed out on one of its all-time greats.
But instead, she just kept going, focusing on making herself better so she could get more opportunities to pitch. I’m sure at times she looked at who was ahead of her and thought, “If I can get better than her (or them) I’ll be pitching all the time.” She is a competitor, after all.
Yet she apparently never let the fact that she wasn’t as good right now discourage her from trying to become better. She kept plucking away at it, and eventually passed them all – to the point where she was good enough to compete and medal in the Olympics in 2004, 2008, and 2020. A pretty remarkable feat by any standards.
The bottom line is each of us has a path to walk, and we walk it at our own pace. You can’t control how good someone else is at any given point in time, but you can control your own progress toward your goals.
It’s ok to look ahead and say you want to beat this person or that person as a way of measuring progress toward those goals. But in the end remember the main person you’re competing against is yourself.
Keep trying to better yourself, little by little, day by day, step by step, without overly worrying that this person or that person is ahead of you right now. Keep walking the path and one day you’ll look back and be amazed at how far you’ve come.
Vlog: Absolutes v Core Principles in Fastpitch Pitching
Today we’re starting the new year with something a little different.
Recently Rick Pauly of Pauly Girl Fastpitch and the High Performance Pitching certification program and I got together for a video discussion about several topics related to fastpitch pitching. The driving topic behind it was the difference between absolutes and core principles in athletic movement generally, and how we view each relative to fastpitch pitching.
The discussion then branched out to a few other related topics, including the importance of posture, the effect of motor preferences when determining what’s optimal for performance, and the often-overlooked significance of deceleration as part of the overall kinetic chain.
So what are absolutes v core principles? We go into it more in detail in the video but briefly it’s the idea of whether there’s one “correct” way to do things – basically a hard line – or if there is a more of a range into which good pitching mechanics can fall.
In other words, do you want your pitchers doing certain things exactly the same way or does fastpitch pitching allow more room for deviation based on a number of factors? And even within that are there exceptions, i.e., pitchers who don’t necessarily do things the way they “should” but are successful anyway?
Which ultimately leads to when do you make corrections/changes and when do you just let them do what they do?
I think you’ll find it to be a pretty interesting discussion that covers a lot of ground. To check it out, follow this link to the Pauly Girl Fastpitch blog.
Happy new year to all! Or happy whatever holiday is close if you’re reading this sometime in the future.
6 Suggestions for Your Softball New Year’s Resolutions
Yes, it’s a little cliche; ok a lot cliche. But still, the end of one year and the beginning of the next is a good time to re-think your behaviors and resolve to become a better version of you over the next 12 months.
Or at least the next 12 days, which is the length of time most New Year’s resolutions last.
Now, I’m not here to preach to you about your personal habits. If you want to do horribly unhealthy things that will make you feel bad physically and psychologically and potentially reduce the already short amount of time you spend on this planet instead of making a few simple changes that will benefit you short- and long-term, that’s your business.
But I do have a few softball-related suggestions that will make things better for everyone. So without further preamble, here are my top suggestions for softball New Year’s resolutions.
I resolve…
…to stop telling pitchers to “just throw strikes.” Yeah, we know it’s frustrating when pitchers keep walking hitters. You know it, I know it, and even they know it.
But here’s the thing: they’re not TRYING to walk those hitters. They would love to strike them all out.
But fastpitch pitching is much harder than it looks from your camp seat with the umbrella and fold-out leg rests – or even from the dugout. Saying “just throw strikes” doesn’t really help. It’s just a waste of breath.
Pretty much anything else you might say is more helpful and useful than this particular phrase, including, “Bears ownership should sell the team.”
So quit telling pitchers to just throw strikes and just encourage them to do their best and have fun while they’re playing. Then remind them they might want to practice more during the week.
…to quit giving hitters batting instruction in the middle of an at-bat. Sure, everything you’re telling your hitter(s) is probably true. But the middle of an at-bat is not the time to focus on specific mechanics.
All you’re going to do is make your hitter(s) uptight and cause them to focus on a whole lot of things that aren’t going to help right now, in this moment, instead of the one thing they should be focused on: the freaking ball!
If you must yell something, try “See it big and hit it hard” or “See ball, hit ball” or “Relax and have fun.”
The time for instruction is during practice, not during the game. Offering mechanics tips in the middle of an at-bat will likely only make things worse.
…to not pull a fielder in the middle of an inning because she made one error. Yes I know, errors are killers. But telling (or showing) your players you will immediately remove them from a game if they make an error isn’t the way to improve their play.
In fact, if can have quite the opposite effect. Players who are worried about being embarrassed by being taken off the field for committing an error probably won’t play better.
They will play worse, because they’ll be all fearful, and that fear will lead to more errors than would be committed by a confident, relaxed player.
Sure, sometimes a fielder is having a bad day and needs to come out before they hurt themselves or someone else. But not after a single error.
Give that player a chance for redemption, and show her you’re confident in her, and she just may surprise you in the long term.
…to quit making yelling at and belittling players my default mode of coaching. This isn’t just for youth coaches, either. It also applies to high-level travel, high school, and college coaches as well.
It may feel good to you in the moment but I guarantee it isn’t helping you achieve your overall goals. People like to say “kids today are different” or “kids today are soft/snowflakes/whatever disparaging word you want to use.” But that’s not true.
Kids today are way tougher than they used to be because they have to be with all the pressures of social media and being filmed and critiqued all the freaking time and everything else that’s going on in their worlds. As a result, they aren’t as willing to put up with all the yelling and screaming kids of past generations were.
Some will speak up about it, but others will just internalize it until it negatively affects their performance, stuffing it into the same box as all the other ignorant crap they have to put up with on a daily basis.
No one wants to do poorly. Instead of yelling and screaming, learn to control your emotions and speak to them in a way that will help. Sometimes that may mean having a stern or difficult conversation with them.
But you can do that quietly, in a spirit of mutual respect, and actually produce better results than yet another session of public humiliation.
…to stop trying to set a record for the most games played in the fewest number of days. It feels like there is some sort of contest going on to see which team can play the most games in the shortest amount of time.
Unfortunately, the prize for winning this competition is often players with over-use injuries, player burn-out, and ultimately players quitting the team or the sport because it’s just too much for them or their families. Not to mention a deterioration of skills because they have no time available to practice.
There is no real benefit to playing 100+ games in an eight-week span other than, I suppose, bragging rights for the coach/team/organization. Especially at the younger ages.
But your players will be much better-served if you build in not only practice time but also rest and recovery time between games or tournaments. Doing so gives players time to stretch their abilities without the constant pressure to perform, and to keep both their bodies and brains in better working order.
,,,to learn something new. There are way too many coaches out there who seem to think they learned everything they need to know about the sport and how to coach it during their playing days.
That’s not just old coaches either. Plenty of just-out-of-school coaches apparently feel the same way.
Nothing could be further from the truth. If you look at the most successful coaches, the Patty Gassos and Mike Candreas and Pat Murphys, they’re always looking for and incorporating new information into their technical coaching as well as coaching styles.
Take an in-person or online class. Read a book, Watch a YouTube video. Talk to other coaches. There are lots of sources of great information that will help you become better at what you’re doing, whether it’s coaching your daughter’s rec league team or vying for a conference or national championship. Or even coaching a certain professional football team that can’t seem to figure out a way to score more than 3 points in 4 quarters.
Just be careful. Because once you start down this path you’ll find that the more bites you take out of the information apple, the bigger the apple will get.
You’ll never know it all. But you’ll know a lot more than you used to, and you’ll be better at what you do.
Final thought: Remember that softball is a game, and games are supposed to be fun. Take that approach and you’re likely to have a better and more successful experience in the coming year.
Good luck to all, and have a safe and prosperous new year!
Fireworks photo by Rakicevic Nenad on Pexels.com
Weather Outside Frightful? You Can Still Practice Part 2
Last week we talked about how even though the weather outside may be bad it doesn’t mean you can’t practice your pitching.
Well, I must have called out the softball gods because wouldn’t you know it we got hit with a couple of rounds of snow. Nothing major, but enough for a potential white Christmas if it sticks around.
So since the point has been proven this week we’re going to cover a few indoor practice ideas for…
Hitting
- Dry swings – Millions, maybe billions, of words have been written about how to hit. We’re not going to add to that total today. This is more about taking whatever you’ve been taught and applying it in a way that can lock in muscle memory. All you need is a bat and enough space to swing it without damaging anything. (In a pinch, you can also use the core from a roll of wrapping paper.) Get in your stance and work on whatever you need to work on. Having trouble separating your hips from your shoulders or leading with your hips? Just do the first part of the swing. Working on your bat angle? Start from the point right before that and bring it in. Or go through full swings. If you can do it in front of a mirror without putting the mirror in danger even better.
- Tee swings – You’ll need a little more space for it, but if you the room to set up a tee and a net you can get a lot of quality practice time in working on your swing as well. A basement or garage is the obvious choice, but any empty or unfinished room that’s at least 10 x 10 will do. If you’re worried about stray balls doing damage get a set of foam balls or use some rolled up pair of socks in place of a regular ball. All you need is something to aim at and to see how the “ball” is coming off the bat.
- Throwing balls into a net – Bear with me on this one. All you need is a couple of balls, or a couple of rolled up pair of socks, and somewhere to throw them. Get in your stance holding a ball in either hand. Then go through your swing motion and as you get to the point where you would make contact, let go of the ball. I would recommend starting with the bottom hand but you do you. Try to make the balls go out as straight as you can. This exercise will help you with extension and getting the rhythm of the overall swing.
- Vision Training – One of the major contributors to quality hitting is your ability to see the ball well. If you can pick it up quickly and track it all the to the plate effectively you’ll have a much better chance of driving it hard on a regular basis. There are lots of things you can do to train your vision. There are commercial apps such as VizualEdge that enable you to train multiple parameters from the comfort and privacy of your computer or other device. If you prefer a more 3D approach, WinReality offers a virtual reality system that will put you right in the middle of the action as well. But there are other, less costly options as well. If you have a gaming system, first-person shooter games have been shown to improve peripheral vision as well as visual acuity (the ability to change focus quickly). They’re also a good way to blow off steam when you’re feeling pressured. You can even place red, yellow, and green beads along an 8 to 10 foot piece of string, tie one end to a doorknob or other object, and spread the beads out along the string. Then place the other end of the swing against your nose and focus on the different colored beads rapidly, starting with the farthest bead and working your way to the closest one. Find what works best for you and train your eyes just like you’d train your body – hard and often.
- Balance training – Hitting is tough enough without being off-balance on top of it. So the better balance you have, the better you’ll be able to control the bat through all the twisting and turning forces required to hit the ball hard. To help improve your balance, try going through the hitting motion (with or without a bat) while standing on an unstable surface such as a stability pillow or stability pad. Or anything you have laying around, like an old rug, that will challenge you to keep your balance. If you can groove your swing with one of those you’ll be well-prepared for when you’re on solid ground. Or one of those tournaments where the grounds crew leaves before the first pitch is thrown.
So there you go – five ideas on how to work on your hitting when you can’t go outside or get to an actual facility. Be a little careful with a couple of them, since they do involve creating actual projectiles.
But if you’re diligent you’ll be amazed at how much you improve. And delighted that you will have gotten all the basics out of the way so you can do more fun things at lessons or team practices.
Snowstorm photo by Jeffrey Czum on Pexels.com
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 