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The Effect Changing Bodies Can Have on Athletic Performance
No, this isn’t a “Freaky Friday” type of post, although I suppose that type of body changing could be an interesting topic. This is about physical changes with a player’s body.
Back around the fifth grade, most of us learned in health class that as we pass from childhood to adolescence, the hormones in our bodies start to go crazy and major changes begin to manifest themselves. One of the most visible and significant is rapid growth.
A girl who was once a cute little butterball suddenly shoots up 4, 5, 6 inches and becomes a lanky young woman. Another goes from a scrawny flyweight to a muscular middleweight.
Or maybe one day you look and realize the girl who used to have to look up at you now has a significant height advantage over you. (I was going to say looks down on you but, while that is also part of the deal, it’s a separate conversation for another day.)
Sometimes it happens gradually, but more often it seems like it happens overnight. And when those rapid changes do occur, they can have a significant impact on things like balance, proprioception, and coordination – all essential requirements for athletic performance, especially in a precision sport such as fastpitch softball.
Take hitting for example. We all know (or should know, at least) that a big contributor to good hitting is timing. You need to get your foot down on time and your body parts moving in a proper sequence in order to take a round bat to a round ball and hit it square while it’s traveling toward you at a rapid speed and moving (intentionally or unintentionally) in two planes simultaneously.
Sounds complicated doesn’t it? Well, it is.
Now imagine trying to do all that while standing on 4 inch high stilts while having the bat strapped to 3 inch long boards at the end of your wrists. It would be pretty awkward, don’t you think?
Yet that’s what kids who experience rapid growth spurts are going through every time they swing the bat. They used to know where their entire body was in space, including their limbs (which are the most difficult to manage), but surprise! those body parts suddenly aren’t where they used to be anymore.
The result is that hitter has to figure out how to manage this new, sometimes oddly proportioned body in order to achieve the level of performance she was achieving before. And worse yet, those body parts may still be growing, which means she’s trying to adjust to a moving target with runners on base and the game on the line.
And you wonder why she’s struggling some.
The same is true for pitchers and fielders. Things aren’t where they used to be anymore, and until they figure it out performing smoothly and confidently may be off the table for a while.
Another complicating factor is some of this growth may come with what we call “growing pains.” That’s not just a euphemism for the socially awkward teenage years.
It’s a real phenomenon causing physical pain every time they move. One place it shows up a lot is in the legs, or more specifically the knees, with a little gift from nature called Osgood-Schlatter Disease (OSD).
OSD causes pain just below the knee due to an irritation where the tendon from the kneecap attaches to the tibia, one of the bones in the shin. It can cause pain during activities such as running and jumping – or squatting.
Many a young catcher has had to find a new position thanks to a visit from the OSD fairly. And while it will eventually go away as the body settles in to its new configuration, it can take a while. In the meantime many movements that used to be pain-free now come with a cost.
Another thing that can happen during this time of development is what might be characterized as a “thickening” of the body. While your adolescent girl may not gain a great deal more height, especially if she’s not genetically disposed to being tall (thanks mom and dad), her body change from being a little twig to being more, um, stout.
While that will help her in certain ways – thicker muscles will add strength that can make up for a lack of overall size – she’ll still have to learn how to manage that newfound strength so she doesn’t fall into a habit of “muscling up” where she should be remaining loose and flexible. If that thickening happens rapidly it could throw her off considerably until she gets used to her new body.
Then, of course, there’s the elephant in the room for many young women – the development of breasts. That alone can have a serious effect on her movement patterns overall, how her back feels, her posture, her core strength, her flexibility in certain positions and more. And, of course, the larger they are the greater impact they will have on her physically.
All of which explains why your daughter’s or your players’ performance may suddenly go in the toilet for a little while. It’s not that she’s forgotten how to run, or hit, or pitch, or throw overhand, or field a ball.
It’s that what used to work for her body no longer works with the proportions she now has. And until she figures it out her performance may suffer for a little while.
So what can you do as a parent or coach? First of all, understand that his is going on and be a little more forgiving of any performance downgrades.
It’s not that she’s not trying, or is screwing up on purpose. It’s that she honestly doesn’t know how to overcome the situation right now.
Second, you can help her understand what’s happening to her as well. Explain that this is a normal, natural part of growing up, and encourage her to keep working hard. The coordination or balance that has temporarily abandoned her will come back once she gets used to playing as who she is now.
Once you have those parts understood, find devices or exercises or routines that can address the issues she’s having and help her get back on track faster. For example, if she is having trouble with balance get a balance cushion or pad and have her stand on one foot, first with her eyes open and then with her eyes closed, so she can feel her body in space. (The link will take you to a Google search results page.)
Seek out other exercises from professionals as well that can help her. Or you can hire a professional trainer to work with her while she’s having these issues.
If she’s having problems with feeling her body in space, especially her limbs, look into proprioception exercises. A new device from PantherTec called the Kinesthetic Awareness Training (KAT) module can also provide helpful feedback to bring the brain and body back into alignment. (Watch this space for a future product review.)
If she’s complaining about pain, especially in or around her knees, don’t just dismiss it as being soft. Get to your pediatrician have her checked out for OSD or other physical issues. Playing sports can take a toll on the body, and not all problems are the result of a specific injury.
Sometimes it’s cumulative wear and tear, and sometimes it’s something more serious. No matter what, get it checked out and addressed before the body’s instinct to avoid pain starts creating patterns in her movements that are less than ideal.
Finally, don’t assume this is just a preteen/early teen problem. The effects of puberty can last into young adulthood, and many of them can go up and down at different times.
Before you hit the panic button, try to recognize what’s happening physically with your daughter’s or your players’ body and help her address those changes. Because the sooner she is able to deal with how her body feels now, the sooner she’ll get back to performing the way you and she want.
Developing Fastpitch Pitchers: The Speed v Accuracy Debate
One of the age-old questions when developing fastpitch pitchers is whether coaches should prioritize speed or accuracy.
Of course the real answer is they should focus on mechanics and everything else comes from that. In other words, focus on the process and the outcomes will take care of themselves.
Still, you do need some way of measuring whether the mechanics you’re working on are helping your pitcher get better or not. The two most common are speed and accuracy.
So we again come to that question: which of those should be the priority? In my opinion, the priority for young pitchers should be speed. Here’s why.
Let’s say you choose to prioritize accuracy. Understandable, especially if you are a team coach.
You want pitchers who can get the ball over the plate and get hitters swinging. After all, you can’t defend a walk and all that, and no one likes a walkfest.
The problem is, if you sacrifice speed for accuracy your pitcher will develop a way of pitching that is totally focused on that outcome. That will get her by up until about the age of 12, especially if you’re not playing high-level ball.
But at some point she will need to gain some speed or she won’t be pitching anymore. While it may have been good enough to “just get the ball over the plate” when she was younger and the opponents didn’t hit very well, those hitters have been developing too.
And they can now crush those slow meatballs all the way toward South America.
So she’s going to have to gain some speed. The problem is, that’s going to throw off her whole way of pitching because she’s going to need to use her body differently than she’s been doing it, which means her accuracy will go down anyway. And now she’s neither fast nor accurate.
Let’s look at it from the other side. If you focus on speed first, your pitcher may have some trouble throwing strikes at first.
Young people don’t always have total command of their bodies, and some have less than others. Which means you could have arms and legs (as well as pitches) going everywhere when they try to use their full energy But…
The more they work at it at full or near-full energy level, the better they’ll be able to feel their body moving in space. Pitches that were way wide, or going to the top of the backstop, or rolling in the dirt, start getting closer to being strikes.
The zone keeps narrowing until finally the pitcher can throw reliably. Only instead of throwing meatballs she’s bringing heat.
And as she gets older, the mechanics she developed to build that speed continue to be refined, giving her better and better control without having to go back to the drawing board and re-learn how to pitch.
In the end, it comes down to what your goals for that pitcher are. If all the team coach cares about is not giving up walks to ensure a better shot at wins in the short term, it might make sense to go for accuracy.
Your pitcher will definitely get more opportunity to pitch right now.
If, however, you’re looking to develop your pitcher in a way that delivers long-term success, put the priority on speed and let accuracy come later. Because by the time a pitcher is 13, she needs a minimum level of speed to even be considered for most teams, much less given the ball when it counts.
You show up to a tryout with speed and no one cares how many batters you walked or hit when you were younger. They may even be willing to take a chance on you if you look a little wild.
But show up throwing in the mid-40s or less and you’re probably not going to be pitching much no matter how accurate you are. Because by that time accuracy will be considered table stakes, not a point of differentiation.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 