Stretch and run at start of practice. Conditioning should be done outside of practice.
Practice time (6hours/wk) is too valuable to be spent on conditioning
Practice time (6hours/wk) is too valuable to be spent on conditioning
Conditioning
- Thread starter TexAg1998
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Greenmonsters
Wannabe Duck Boat Owner
Some coaches are only comfortable practicing what they think they know.
Practices are at least 3 hours, 3x per week, but the first 1:15 is all conditioning.
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We don't usually us the term conditioning so I had to look it up to be sure. Conditioning - "Bringing something to the desired state for use."
So for your first league doubleheader you want the team to be able to handle both games, for your first tournament you want your team to be able to handle multiple games on back-to-back days. Handle with little or no diminished performance because of fatigue. Additionally you want your team to be at peak physical condition to handle your season and prevent injury.
I wouldn't do any "conditioning" that doesn't have a purpose. I'll outline some things we do, maybe it will help or give ideas, this would be for 16U;
Separate your season into sections if you can;
Fall - After your last game, fall ball, tournament, etc. take some time off 2 weeks??, then focus on building strength/building muscle. Workout if possible 3x/week progressively adding weight and limiting reps. Need about 6 weeks to really accomplish anything. Major muscle groups; Legs, chest, back, core (not abs but you can do abs too.) Keys again are progressively adding weight with reps in the 8-12 range, goal is to gain strength/muscle. Don't recommend you throw or hit here, work on other less joint stressful activities if you must.
Winter - Here you focus on training that new strength/muscle into building fast twitch muscles, I call them explosives. You can do lots of training and test their progress with SPARQ tests (high jump, 20 yd sprint, 5-10-5 shuttle, & Power ball throw) and add in box training, etc. 3 days/week would be perfect, don't over do it, your not building endurance, your training muscles to move quickly and develop explosive power. This takes more recovery than you might think. Goal here is to create a better softball athlete that can jump higher, sprint faster, explode into pitches, power at the plate, etc.
Spring - For us they start up with the HS program in March and do lots of running, sprinting, swinging, core, maybe agility, etc. After we get them back we have about 2-3 weeks before our games. Now I want to get them in game shape but also learn our game plan, here's an example of what we might have done at practice last year;
1. Good dynamic warmup with some sprinting exercises at the end (a arms, skipping, high knees, etc. mix it up).
2. Partner runs - in partners, we simulate a pitch and sprint the bases - PlayerA Sprints to 1B, PlayerB Sprints to 2B (slides) - On the next pitch PlayerA sprints from 1B to 3B (slides) and PlayerB goes from 2B to H while the next group of 2 goes to 1B & 2B. - On the next pitch PlayerA tags from 3B (leadoff then tag, very important). They get back in line and switch roles for the next run. This is a fantastic drill for teaching base running and you can add variations like having your base coaches there to give a round and stop signal at 3B, etc or wave through. We do this to learn how to run bases and execute our offense but also get them in shape.
3. Infield grounders w/buckets - everyone participates lots of reps (no throws, drop ball in bucket), add buckets as endurance builds. Work on moving all directions and setup to throw (but don't).
4. Take a break then throwing progression.
5. Pre-game warmup - Here we throw in our pre-game hitting routine. 4-5 stations (side toss hit line drives to our 1/2 of the field, tee into bownet, front toss bunt, front toss wiffle) - At practice we will add in a pitching machine station which we wont do pre-game. Important thing here for us is that they each get 40-50+ quality swings and build their swing endurance. We do lots of swinging in the winter and our girls have a purpose and things to work on, we try not to just "go through the motions"
6. Now we'll work on whatever we need, maybe separate into IF/OF or run scenarios, or pitcher catcher work, etc. Depends on our plan for the year.
7. I like to end with Agility (ladders) if we have some time left, the girls love it (we crank up some music) because it's fun and it helps our footwork and overall "conditioning."
We use Fall and Winter to build a better softball athlete. It will have a direct benefit to your team this year and in the future, it also creates athletes that will have improved speed, power, range, etc. If you just work on skills all the time you will not have the same results. This is similar (scaled down) to what you will see at the college level. I'm no expert but I do have some experience coaching in college and coach a local travel team; 16U currently. I can share our results from last year using this plan; So in 2015 we did not implement this and as a team we stole 126 bases in 37 games (we had what I considered a pretty fast team). Then in 2016 our strategy was to run more and we used the above program, we ended up stealing 234 bases in 33 games. We went from 3.4 SB/game to 7.09 SB/game, we also met our average & slugging goals for the year which were a stretch for us. Of course this is based on our team and our strategy given what we had. This year we have a completely different team with more power and less speed, I'm excited to adjust for power with a different focus this year but the core concept of building a better softball athlete will be the same.
So for your first league doubleheader you want the team to be able to handle both games, for your first tournament you want your team to be able to handle multiple games on back-to-back days. Handle with little or no diminished performance because of fatigue. Additionally you want your team to be at peak physical condition to handle your season and prevent injury.
I wouldn't do any "conditioning" that doesn't have a purpose. I'll outline some things we do, maybe it will help or give ideas, this would be for 16U;
Separate your season into sections if you can;
Fall - After your last game, fall ball, tournament, etc. take some time off 2 weeks??, then focus on building strength/building muscle. Workout if possible 3x/week progressively adding weight and limiting reps. Need about 6 weeks to really accomplish anything. Major muscle groups; Legs, chest, back, core (not abs but you can do abs too.) Keys again are progressively adding weight with reps in the 8-12 range, goal is to gain strength/muscle. Don't recommend you throw or hit here, work on other less joint stressful activities if you must.
Winter - Here you focus on training that new strength/muscle into building fast twitch muscles, I call them explosives. You can do lots of training and test their progress with SPARQ tests (high jump, 20 yd sprint, 5-10-5 shuttle, & Power ball throw) and add in box training, etc. 3 days/week would be perfect, don't over do it, your not building endurance, your training muscles to move quickly and develop explosive power. This takes more recovery than you might think. Goal here is to create a better softball athlete that can jump higher, sprint faster, explode into pitches, power at the plate, etc.
Spring - For us they start up with the HS program in March and do lots of running, sprinting, swinging, core, maybe agility, etc. After we get them back we have about 2-3 weeks before our games. Now I want to get them in game shape but also learn our game plan, here's an example of what we might have done at practice last year;
1. Good dynamic warmup with some sprinting exercises at the end (a arms, skipping, high knees, etc. mix it up).
2. Partner runs - in partners, we simulate a pitch and sprint the bases - PlayerA Sprints to 1B, PlayerB Sprints to 2B (slides) - On the next pitch PlayerA sprints from 1B to 3B (slides) and PlayerB goes from 2B to H while the next group of 2 goes to 1B & 2B. - On the next pitch PlayerA tags from 3B (leadoff then tag, very important). They get back in line and switch roles for the next run. This is a fantastic drill for teaching base running and you can add variations like having your base coaches there to give a round and stop signal at 3B, etc or wave through. We do this to learn how to run bases and execute our offense but also get them in shape.
3. Infield grounders w/buckets - everyone participates lots of reps (no throws, drop ball in bucket), add buckets as endurance builds. Work on moving all directions and setup to throw (but don't).
4. Take a break then throwing progression.
5. Pre-game warmup - Here we throw in our pre-game hitting routine. 4-5 stations (side toss hit line drives to our 1/2 of the field, tee into bownet, front toss bunt, front toss wiffle) - At practice we will add in a pitching machine station which we wont do pre-game. Important thing here for us is that they each get 40-50+ quality swings and build their swing endurance. We do lots of swinging in the winter and our girls have a purpose and things to work on, we try not to just "go through the motions"
6. Now we'll work on whatever we need, maybe separate into IF/OF or run scenarios, or pitcher catcher work, etc. Depends on our plan for the year.
7. I like to end with Agility (ladders) if we have some time left, the girls love it (we crank up some music) because it's fun and it helps our footwork and overall "conditioning."
We use Fall and Winter to build a better softball athlete. It will have a direct benefit to your team this year and in the future, it also creates athletes that will have improved speed, power, range, etc. If you just work on skills all the time you will not have the same results. This is similar (scaled down) to what you will see at the college level. I'm no expert but I do have some experience coaching in college and coach a local travel team; 16U currently. I can share our results from last year using this plan; So in 2015 we did not implement this and as a team we stole 126 bases in 37 games (we had what I considered a pretty fast team). Then in 2016 our strategy was to run more and we used the above program, we ended up stealing 234 bases in 33 games. We went from 3.4 SB/game to 7.09 SB/game, we also met our average & slugging goals for the year which were a stretch for us. Of course this is based on our team and our strategy given what we had. This year we have a completely different team with more power and less speed, I'm excited to adjust for power with a different focus this year but the core concept of building a better softball athlete will be the same.
Some are saying conditioning is a waste of valuable practice time. In some scenarios that might be true. But if it's a serious team with enough time devoted to practice, it's critical. The mental aspect is huge, knowing you have worked so much harder than your competition, it makes you not want to fail and have wasted all that work. My small HS that has won like 30 titles in a row we conditioned like crazy.
We did it at the end. You cannot learn new engrams (movement patterns) as well with fatigued muscles.
We did it at the end. You cannot learn new engrams (movement patterns) as well with fatigued muscles.
I agree completely. My whole complaint about our team is that the conditioning is done at the beginning, the girls are then fatigued throughout practice, and they run out of time to work on some crucial skills.
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