The Advanced Youth Baseball Training Tips and Techniques Blog provides youth baseball coaches with free youth baseball drills, tips for coaching youth baseball, youth baseball training techniques and articles on coaching young baseball players.
Advanced Youth Baseball Training Tips and Techiques
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Showing posts with label little league baseball training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label little league baseball training. Show all posts
Coaching Youth Baseball By Guest Author Mike Xavier
The secret to developing a winning youth baseball team is to build a foundation of the correct championship attitude in your players. This solid foundation is supported by four critical pillars that must be present to succeed and explained to your squad repetitively.
The first pillar is called crossing the lines attitude. When your players are at home with their families, they must be nice to their siblings, respectful of their parents and perform their daily chores without a fuss. They absolutely should be nice as nice can be. But when they cross the foul lines on a baseball field, that is not that place. On the field, they need to have the mindset of being the toughest guy around - taking a ball off their face and still throwing someone out. Upon crossing back over the lines when the game is over, they return to help their mom take out the trash.
Next is the attitude of no excuses. They need to be taught that they need to take personal responsibility for everything that they can control. Items such as, the sun was in their eyes, the grass is too long, the umpire stinks are all excuses. Your coaching staff should set an environment of trust where no cares if you mess up if you take responsibility for your actions and fix it proactively.
Everyone can perform well when things are going great, but the mark of a true championship team is how they respond when things are not going well. This leads you to the pillar of dealing with adversity. By bringing this to the forefront of their thinking, they begin to check their emotions to the side and look for solutions on how to get out the the jam they currently are in.
Finally, the fourth pillar to complete the support of your team's attitude foundation is referred to as - we are all in this together. Have your players look around at each other as you describe that the last time you checked we are all in this together. Coming together as a unit will significantly alter the odds in your favor to be on the winning side of the score. This almost always involves picking each other up when something goes wrong, but also occasionally can involve getting on each other when a player is dragging a bit.
By developing these four characteristics in your team's attitude with your consistent words and actions, your team will win at home and your team will win on the road.
Get your team hitting with more power and confidence in less than a week to win your tournament http://www.baseball-strength.com
If we hold our hands up and pop our wrists, we can do that over and over again very quickly. If someone were to throw a punch at us, our hands would quickly and automatically pop up in defense.
As an infielder, we don't have to think about a ball thrown to us. Our hands will react to the direction of the ball and make the catch without having to think about it.
Think of the catcher after he gives the sign. He is taught to frame the pitch. His hands automatically go to the pitch without any thought or direction.
So the hands are auto reactors. Is this good for the hitter? The answer is: No! The hitter who allows his hands to react automatically as his first movement towards the pitch will never have full body support.
When the hands go too early, this is when we hear the coach yell out, "Wait on the pitch!" Now, let's apply this to our baseball hitting mechanics.
These are the steps:
1. Coil (Load): The hitter collects his weight on the backside 2. Stride: a linear step towards the pitched ball (30-40% of weight transfer) 3. Body Rotation: Hips rotate toward the ball 4. Hands will then, and only then, execute the stroke
Here is one of our best little league baseball coaching tips: "HIPS TAKE US TO THE BALL. HANDS TAKE US THROUGH THE BALL."
So, when we are leaning how to hit a baseball, do we trust the hands? The answer is:
Don't trust the hands. Then, trust the hands. In other words, discipline the hands to wait until we get into the launch position, which is with the hands inside the ball and the hips rotated.
Our hands do not initiate the stroke until we rotate to the pitch. They travel in rotation with the pivot, but they do not commit to the pitch until the rotation is complete. This rotated position with the hands still back is what we call the DRIVE position. It is at this time that the hands will launch.
NOW we can trust them. Let them explode the bat to the ball.
One final note. Remember that when we hit, the hands are in a double lever system. That is, they don't personally go to the ball. They are holding the bat, which goes to the ball. The hands always end up in front of the body. They are responsible for directing the bat to the proper cut line on the pitch.
Former Tulane Hall of Fame Baseball Coach, Joe Brockhoff, fully explains his baseball hitting drills with the Super 8 Hitting System, completely demonstrated with videos and hitting drills to help you hit with more power and raise your batting average. http://www.kewego.com/video/iLyROoafMM8J.html.
If you are looking for great coaching articles, please consider one of our sites: The BaseballCoachingDigest.com, the YouthBaseballDigest.com or the BaseballParentGuide.com. Have a safe and happy season! Nick Dixon
Shop CoachesBest.com for your baseball coaching needs including baseball training aids, training videos, and other coaching supplies. Check out the Derek Jeter Hurricane Hitting machine by SKLZ at HurricaneTrainer.com.
See the “Original” Rotational Hitting Machine at BatAction.com. Are you looking for the perfect trainer to teach proper timing and swing mechanics? You can stop looking and go to HandsBackHitter.com.
Article Title: Over-training: Are We Playing TOO Much? By Steve Zawrotny
Perhaps you have heard of a concept leadership and management guru Stephen Covey calls 'Sharpening the Saw.' While he was aiming this idea to the business world, it has applicability to those who coach and play sports as well.
Basically, the concept goes like this:
Don't get so busy sawing that you forget to sharpen the saw.
What happens to the saw while you are sawing?
It gets dull.
What happens when your saw becomes dull?
You can still saw, but the process becomes much less effective. The work is harder and takes longer - you just don't saw as well.
To bring this back to baseball and softball, I've noticed a trend that is not new, but may well be developing into a problem. The situation is the growing proliferation of travel teams at all age levels at nearly all times of the year. While things do slow down a bit in areas of the country with cold winters, in many places, baseball and softball are becoming nearly a year round activity.
First, there is the normal spring ball season. Practice for this may begin in January or February (in some places, even earlier), with games beginning in late March. The season continues until June, then summer league begins. This typically will run into August, and then school starts again.
In many areas of the country, this means Fall league ball. Practice for this often begins in August, and the Fall season can run into late October.
So, you have 10 or so months of 'sawing' with young ball players, leaving perhaps two months to 'sharpen the saw.' I wonder if this is enough time for players to work on new skills development, along with appropriate strength and conditioning.
No doubt that the best way to improve in baseball and softball is to play a lot. This is why many of the best (but not all!) players come from warm weather states - CA, TX, FL and others. They simply have better weather allowing them to play and practice more.
But is there a point where the returns for all these games and travel diminish? Where it's time to stop and take some time to 'sharpen the saw?' I think there is. Consider the major league season: April - September, then the playoffs. Two teams go all the way to the World Series in October.
Therefore, the vast majority of big leaguers are playing about 5 months (admittedly, a LOT of games), not counting Spring training (pre season). And there are various winter leagues that certain players participate in for additional skill development.
But, while playing a lot of games in a relatively short period of time is physically demanding, the big boys have a LOT of down time with which to recover or Sharpen the Saw.
I submit that coaches and parents need to consider this idea carefully. It is well known that acquiring a new skill takes time, and that there is usually a decrement in performance as one learns and implements a new skill. That's why it's usually best to not make any major mechanical adjustments during the regular season. And, with all the games and practices during the regular season, coaches know it's tougher to provide a lot of individual attention to their players.
This is becoming more apparent by the increasing number of questions I get about how to implement a good all around Strength & Conditioning program during the season. Or how to fit in arm strength or bat speed workouts between games and practices. It can be done, but it's not easy.
Here are some key points to consider:
1) In what areas does your player(s) need to improve? Prioritize them.
2) Take the first priority (let's say it's running speed improvement) and make it the first thing to work on after any skill work for that day. Skill work requires more precision as it is performed. For this to be most effective, one should not be tired or the skill work can suffer.
3) If your player has multiple areas where they need to improve, consider taking some time off from all the playing and games. Will missing Summer or Fall ball really hurt you, considering you'll be working on new skill development, along with S & C?
4) This brings us to the idea of 'active rest.' The athlete remains physically active, but in some other sport or activity than baseball or softball. Sort of the 'cross training' concept, which allows the ballplayer to recover physically and mentally from their regular routine. As long as the ball player is staying active, most any activity will suffice.
Here's a basic format for a well rounded off-season S & C workout:
M - Strength, Flexibility work
T - Power work, Flexibility, Energy System conditioning
W - S, F
TH - P, F
F - S, F
Sat - ES, F
Do any hitting or pitching mechanical work before these workouts, e.g., skill work in the AM, S & C work in the PM.
5) Let the energy level of your player(s) be your guide. If s/he is having fun, is full of energy and enthusiasm about their workouts, is not feeling unduly sore, etc., then let them go. On days they may be feeling tired and worn down, it's time for a day off. Just pick up at the next day's workout - don't worry about making up for the missed work.
Remember, everyone needs to stop and 'Sharpen the Saw' at some point. If it means not playing as many games in order to do so, so be it. The idea of taking one step back in order to more quickly take two steps forward is very legitimate and worth making a part of your player development program.
