Category Archives: Instruction
Practice time v game time
In the past few years, fastpitch softball teams seem to have become more and more obsessed with seeing how many games they can possibly jam into a season. The belief is that the more games you play, the better you get.
Yet if you actually look at what the professionals say, more games doesn’t necessarily equal better performance. In fact, it’s the opposite, at least as far as developing skills goes.
The current thinking across different sports is that you should have anywhere from three to five hours of practice for every hour of game time. Yes, you read that right.
In this article on the USA Hockey website, they recommend a 3 to 1 practice to game ratio. They’ve done a lot of studies about the amount of stick time players get in games, and it’s not nearly enough to develop skills. You get far more in practice.
World class soccer programs go even more. They follow a 5:1 ratio, i.e. five hours of practice to one hour of games. Dan Coyle in his Little Book of Talent and The Talent Code recommends the same ratio based on his study of talent hotbeds around the world.
Finally, closer to home there’s this document from Softball Canada. While they don’t give a specific recommendation on what the ratio should be, they do recommend against a 1:1 or even a 2:1 ratio. They essentially advocate many more hours of practice time than game time.
Check out pages 10 and 11 for more specifics.
So there you have it. If you want your player to develop her skills, look for a team that emphasizes quality practice time and instruction over an endless series of games. It may not be as much fun to watch, but it’ll pay off better in the end.
So what do you think? Is practice time more valuable than game time? Or do you believe the only way to learn the game is playing the game?
Crazy stuff people teach about hitting
So tonight I was doing my last lesson of the evening. It was scheduled as a pitching lesson, but the dad asked if I would take a few minutes at the end to look at his 13U daughter Hannah’s hitting. When we got to that part I asked what exactly he wanted me to look at and he said the whole thing. It seems Hannah wasn’t hitting the ball very hard.
I figured the best place to start would be to ask her what she thought she should be doing — what has she been taught in the past. She told me that she had been to a few hitting clinics at a local D1 college, one I think most people would consider a top 25 program. I couldn’t believe what she then told me.
Apparently, all of the instruction had focused on the following: to start the swing raise your front elbow, and bring your back elbow down into the slot (my term, not hers). Next pull the front elbow, and then push the hands through at the ball.
That was it. No mention of the lower body, or the hips, or how to use the shoulders. Nothing. Nada. It wasn’t that she didn’t remember. It’s that’s all there was.
I then had her demonstrate what she’d been taught. After a couple of swings, where she perfectly executed exactly what she’d been told, I stopped her and said no wonder she is having trouble. We then started working off a tee.
We only had a few minutes so I couldn’t get into a full bore hitting lesson. But I figured I could at least help her use her arms correctly. I put her into the “turned” position, where the hips have mostly come through while the shoulders were still in their starting position. (Some call this the “stretch” position, I believe.) I had her keep her bat angled, then hit the ball off the tee.
In just a couple of swings she was hitting the ball harder than she had with a full swing. We finished by having her take a few full swings, focusing on maintaining what we’d worked on for the end of the chain.
I don’t know if it’s going to help her much this weekend. I mean, I’m good but that’s spelled with two “o’s.” If she works the drill I gave her during the week it may. But at least it’s a start toward becoming a better hitter.
The reason I share this story, though, is as a cautionary tale that can’t be told too often. Remember, just ’cause someone coaches at or plays at a D1 college or has some other impressive-sounding credential doesn’t mean they know the first thing about hitting. Or pitching, or fielding, or any other aspect of the game.
When you’re told something, don’t take it as gospel. Look at what great players do and compare that to what you’re being told. If the instruction doesn’t match what you see, find a better instructor. (If it’s a team coach, find a diplomatic way to ignore it and seek out better advice.) There’s a lot of bad information and theories floating around there, and listening to it will actually make you worse than if you just tried to stumble your way through it yourself.
Fortunately, there’s a lot of good advice out there as well — advice that will match what you see being done by top players. Some of the “experts” may disagree with one another on certain points, because it’s not quite an exact science. There is still room for interpretation. But what you’ll see is a lot more similarities than differences among good instructors, especially in the bigger picture. Certain aspects, such as the sequence of events in hitting (hips, then shoulders, then bat) are universal.
In tonight’s case, I’d bet good money that not a single even decent hitter on this college team does anything close to what was being preached in the clinics during their games. They may think they do, but they don’t.
If you want to be successful, don’t take anyone’s word for it. Even mine. Verify what you’re being told by comparing it to what great players actually do. If it’s wrong you’ll save yourself a lot of wasted time, and you’ll experience success a whole lot sooner. And if you find it’s right, you’ll be able to pursue it a whole lot harder. As it should be.
Fighting ignorance
I saw a “fact check” website yesterday that had a great motto. The first part was “Fighting ignorance one day at a time” or something to that effect. Then in parentheses under that it said “It’s taking a lot longer than we thought.”
I know the feeling. I’ve spent a lot of time and effort studying, evaluating and re-evaluating the optimum techniques for executing fastpitch softball skills, I’ve also had a number of years’ experience teaching those skills to players of varying levels of athletic ability. So I have a pretty good idea of what works and the way things ought to be done.
I won’t say I know everything — there’s always more to be learned and new information comes out all the time — but I do my best to remain current, and confirm my thinking with what other top coaches are doing. That’s what I share here on Life in the Fastpitch Lane and other places as well.
Yet sometimes it can get awfully frustrating when I hear that there are still people teaching drills and techniques come from the era when mullets were in style, i.e. the ’80s. Especially when they try to foist that junk on one of my students.
I’ve seen it happen with hitting, where some team coach will start telling girls who can really rip the ball to squish the bug, take the knob of the bat to the ball, swing down on the pitch and other stuff that will actually prevent them from continuing to hit well.
Recently it happened with one of my pitchers. She was at a practice with her new team, which is connected to one of the local high schools, when the team’s “pitching coach” came over and started talking to her about snapping her wrist and pointing her elbow at the catcher (aka using “hello elbow”). I put “pitching coach” in quotes because the guy’s only qualification is that his daughter pitches at that school and he’s worked with her some.
Luckily the girl’s dad texted me right away, and he’s going to talk to the head coach, who said he knows some players have private coaches and let him know if there are conflicts. Still, until it’s resolved you have yet another person who doesn’t have a clue about how top pitchers actually pitch offering advice that was either told to his daughter at some point or that he got off some VHS tape.
People, listen up! Focusing on forcing a hard wrist snap is a gigantic waste of time! I can’t emphasize that enough. There are no muscles in the wrist. The muscles run from the elbow through the forearm to the hand. The wrist’s primary contribution is flexibility and quickness, not power.
What’s viewed as the wrist snap occurs as the result of a pronation (turning in) of the lower arm as it passes the elbow during release. It’s nothing you have to or even want to try to do, especially if you are also achieving brush contact. Trying to force a hard wrist snap actually gets in the way of the wrist making its contribution because it slows it down. It’s not where power comes from. The best the wrist can do is add a little bit. But if you make it the focus – for example doing endless wrist flips — you’ll actually defeat the whipping motion and slow the pitch down.
If you don’t believe me, how about seeing what NFCA Hall of Famer Cindy Bristow, one of the fastpitch world’s most accomplished coaches and instructors has to say about it? Or what about Bill Hillhouse, a former men’s National Team fastpitch pitcher and another highly sought-after pitching coach thinks about the wrist snap? If those two authorities tell you don’t waste your time on it, why would you continue to do it? Or listen to anyone who says you should?
The same goes for the hello elbow. It’s completely unnecessary as well as unnatural. Follow-throughs should be long and loose. You don’t need to touch your throwing-side shoulder after you pitch. You don’t need to point your elbow at the catcher. Again, that kind of stuff will get in the way of maximizing the pitcher’s potential.
For my part, I guess all I can do is keep trying to bring good information to people as best I can, and teach my students to remain strong and steadfast in their commitment to learning why we do the things we do. We’ll continue to fight ignorance one day at a time – even if it takes a lot longer than we thought.
Bill Hillhouse is coming to Southern Wisconsin
Got a note the other day that Men’s National Team pitcher and pitching instructor Bill Hillhouse is coming to Greendale High School in Greendale, Wisconsin October 12 – 14. He’ll be doing a demonstration/explanation of pitching on Friday night, group lessons on Saturday and individual private lessons (by appointment only) on Sunday. 
This is a great opportunity to have your mechanics looked at by one of the most knowledgeable instructors in the game today. I’ve followed Bill’s writings, both on his website and in Softball Magazine, and have communicated with him directly as well and I think this is a great opportunity for pitchers in the Southern Wisconsin/Northern Illinois area.
More information and a sign-up sheet is available on <A href="/files/55650-48775/hillhouse_clinic.pdf”>this form. (If the form doesn’t work on the Discuss Fastpitch Forum, you’ll need to go to http://fastpitchlane.softballsuccess.com.)
I’m hoping to get up there myself, so perhaps I’ll see you there!
Fastpitch success story
Heard another great fastpitch softball success story yesterday that I had to share. This one involves a pitcher who has gone from what Jeff Janssen might call forming to performing.
Her name is Tina Kliver, and she is a second-year 16U. I met Tina after the last summer season (2011). Her dad Bob contact me about getting a pitching lesson for Tina to see if I could help her. She really wanted to pitch, and they’d been to a couple of pitching coaches in the area who have good reputations (and one of whom has a great resume), but she was struggling.
When I met Tina her basic pitch was a fastball in the dirt at the hitter’s feet. I could see some core things I thought would help and we gave them a try. They did help in that first lesson, but more importantly Tina and I seemed to click. She has the same quirky sense of humor I do.
We worked throughout August and September, and then every other week in the off-season. (She was a two- or three-sport athete in HS plus doing some other stuff so every week wasn’t going to work.) It took a little while to lock in the core mechanics we wanted.
Her first time out throwing with the new mechanics was pretty much a disaster. She struggled and had to be taken out. But there were some good things that came out of it, and she understood what she needed to do. We kept working, not just on basics but on throwing different pitches too.
She didn’t get to pitch more than a couple of times in the HS varsity season since her team had a couple of very good, established pitchers ahead of her. Then fast-forward to yesterday.
I received the email every coach hopes to get. Tina pitched a six-inning no-hitter (have I mentioned I hate time limits?) plus a few innings in a couple of other games when other pitchers struggle. So she went from hoping to get a couple of innings here and there to being the go-to pitcher for her team.
Time will tell whether it’s permanent, but I have a feeling it is. Yesterday should give her the confidence to go out and be the pitcher she’s capable of being. It just goes to show you what you can do when you’re motivated and determined. For those of you who are struggling right now, take heart! If you want it bad enough you can make it happen.
It’s fun to be impressed now and then
The other night I was doing a fastpitch softball pitching lesson with a girl named Kristi Gandy, a longtime student of mine and one of the pitching studettes in the area. Kristi is a high school senior who will be pitching at Lake Forest College next year, and will likely be spending lots of extra time playing in post-season tournaments with them.
For most of her lessons this year Kristi’s brother Jim has been enlisted to catch. (They have a reciprocity agreement, as she catches for his baseball pitching lessons too). But the other night, she had a new catcher, a girl named Amanda whom I’d met once before when she came out to observe one of our team practices.
Now, I have to admit that given what I do in my off-hours I tend to be pretty hyper-intensive about technique. I like things to be done a certain way, and while I don’t spend a lot of time with the catchers who come in to work with my pitching students I do notice what they do.
So it was a real pleasure to watch Amanda catch. Her stances were excellent, as was her glove work, her blocking, and just about anything else you’d care to observe. I was pleasantly impressed with her.
Afterwards I decided to let her know. I complimented her and asked her who her instructor was. She said it was Laura Matthews, one of the coaches at Lake Forest College, which is how she was hooked up with Kristi. Her hitting coach is Joe Kinsella, the head coach there, and one of his assistants works with her on catching.
I see a lot of bad technique taught by people who you think ought to know what they’re doing, so it’s nice to see excellent technique being taught now and then. What was most impressive was learning afterwards that Amanda is in 8th grade. Here she is, not even in high school, and doing a great job catching for one of the top pitchers in the area, and a senior to boot.
Can’t wait to see where she is as a player in four years!
Fastpitch softball hitting game — High Fives
One of the challenges of teaching fastpitch hitting, either in lessons or in a team setting, is getting some game-like pressure into practice. After all, just about anyone can look good in the cage when they’re relaxed. But when there’s something on the line it can be a whole different ballgame (so to speak).
Tonight I had that situation with a couple of hitters. I wanted to give them a little bit of skin in the game to see how they handled the pressure, and have a little fun while we were at it. So I came up with High Fives.
The rules are pretty basic. You can use a pitching machine, front toss or some other method of delivering the ball. You make the pitch, and if the hitter hits a line drive or strong fly ball she gets a point. If she swings and misses, fouls it off or hits a pop-up or weak grounder she loses a point. A strong ground ball is neutral — it doesn’t gain or lose her a point.
Score is kept in the same manner you use for basic card counting in Blackjack. (Originally I was going to make the game 21, but realized it could take forever to finish.) So if she hits a line drive with the first pitch, it’s +1. A fly ball on the next pitch is +2. A pop-up on the next pitch takes it back to +1 and so forth. You can also go into negative numbers, i,e, -1, -2.
Five is the magic number, which gives the game its name. If the hitter gets to -5 the game is over and she owes you five pushups. On the other hand, if she gets to +5, the game is over and you owe her five pushups. The hitters usually get pretty excited when they win and you have to drop and give them five.
Now, you don’t have to use the same exact scoring system I use. You can adjust it to the types of hits you’re trying to achieve.
If you’re looking for a way to spice up hitting practice give this game a try. Just be sure you’re ready to pay up!
There’s more to rotation than merely turning
It seems to be pretty well-established in most fastpitch softball circles these days that rotation is a critical, must-have element of good hitting. Yet it’s important to keep in mind that the mere act of rotating itself doesn’t guarantee success. When you rotate, you actually have to do something, i.e. generate power with it.
As a hitting instructor I see it all the time. Players understand that they have to “turn on the ball.” Yet they do it in a way that looks good in slow motion video but doesn’t actually accomplish what it’s supposed to accomplish.
The idea of rotation in hitting is to recruit the big muscles — thighs, butt, core, back, chest, etc. — to help move the mass of the bat. Those muscles create power and batspeed. The smaller muscles in the arms can then be focused on getting the bat head on-plane with the ball and making fine adjustments. But when the big muscles aren’t used, hitters have to depend on the smaller muscles to get the bat moving, which means they’re less capable of making adjustments. They also don’t hit the ball as hard.
However you go about it, rotating the hips has to be an aggressive, ballistic movement, not an easy turn into position. I will tell hitters to “pop the hips” to get them more aggressive. It’s not just about speed — the body has to be used properly, driving the back side up and around the front side — but assuming the right things are happening “pop the hips” gets the idea of being more aggressive.
Another thing a quick, powerful rotation does is give the hitter more time to see the ball before committing the bat to the swing. If the hitter can cut the time of rotation in half, that extra time can be added to the time he/she has to see the path of the ball (and if he/she is really good its rotation), which helps the hitter make a better final decision on where to take the bat.
I tell hitters I always want to see them making their positive move (striding as I teach it, although a forward shift with no stride also counts) and at least starting hip rotation on every pitch. Sometimes they worry that they’re going to swing at a bad pitch, but when they do it they see committing to strong rotation on every pitch actually makes it easier to hold back on a bad pitch because they can start the bat at the ball later.
When they make the powerful hip turn they also see how the ball jumps off the bat at contact. It just gets easier to hit well. Maybe when you’re moving faster overall you have less time to take yourself out of a good hit — you’ve gathered the info you need and now you’re just executing, reducing the act to see ball/hit ball.
Something you want to watch out for is the “rotation” that is more about turning the back leg than driving the back hip forward. The old “squish the bug” cue is the worst example of it, but there are other ways that are less than optimal as well. If the thigh bone (femur for those who like medical terms) is primarily rotating in the hip socket you don’t have rotation.
Instead, you want the back hip to drive forward around the front hip and into the ball, which at the point of contact generally results in the back foot being up on the toe with the heel pointed at the sky rather than the catcher. (Mark, I’ll save you the trouble — see these videos for some good examples.) I say generally because you’ll always be able to find cases where it doesn’t happen, but those are more the exceptions where a hitter has to make an unexpected adjustment, such as an inside pitch that gets to them more quickly than they were ready for.
The point is just turning isn’t enough. To really be successful with it, the hitter has to practice and become confident in his/her ability to rotate quickly and powerfully in order to maximize the swing.
Now it’s your turn. What have you observed in hitters when it comes to rotation? How have you gotten them to commit to doing it more powerfully? And what kind of results did you see?
The real measure of an instructor
Had some time on a cold, snowy day to ponder an issue that perplexes many parents of fastpitch players — how to choose a private instructor.
One tried and true thing many people do is look at the top players in their area and assume that whoever coached those players up can do the same for their kid. Maybe that’s true. But it’s no guarantee.
In my mind, the real measure isn’t the coach’s top students — the kids just dripping with athleticism who blow everyone away. It’s the ones with average ability/athleticism who become successful that you ought to look at. Here’s why.
The outstanding athletes will probably be successful no matter who their instructor is. Sure, some instructors will take them farther than others, but the raw material has to be there first. As they say in the computer world, garbage in/garbage out.
The average ability players, though, test the instructor’s ability to take those student to the limit of what they can do. Which means there’s a far greater likelihood that that instructor will be able to do the same for your player, especially early in her career.
When you see a player who isn’t tremendously gifted standing out on the field, that’s a kid who has been coached up. That’s the instructor you’ll want to seek out. And if your player does have that little something extra, odds are the same magic will work for her too. Only a little better.
How to tell it’s time to find a new coach
The short answer: His/her video collection is on VHS.
The longer answer: A lot has changed since the 1980s. High-speed video has given us insight into things we couldn’t see before. But some people still cling to the “old ways,” like the Pagans in medieval times.
Their rationale is that they’ve been doing it that way for X number of years and have had success. Yet it’s likely they had success in spite of what they teach instead of because of it.
There is plenty of good information out there. And tons of video of top-level players out there. The simple test — aka the Hanson Principle — is compare what people tell you to the best players in the sport. If what you’re being told doesn’t match what you see, it’s time to find a new coach. There’s simply no excuse for accepting bad teaching.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 