The coach putting them through conditioning

[Amy in AZ.]

I hear about this probably once or twice a year. The volunteer coach has decided to get the 11 yo girls in shape and he spends a complete practice running some sort of military boot camp. The most recent one, that has put my catching student out of the game, is some sort of a crawl. You are on the balls of your feet, but your butt the air and hands on the ground. They run suicides like that. Then, they run a mile and do all kinds of calisthenics.

This happens once a week. I contend that you cannot get someone else's daughter in shape, by exercising once a week.

Also, this type of conditioning is not even needed by 11 yo girls playing rec ball. The girls don't like it. They are sore the next day. The parents don't like it, but won't say anything.

So, my catcher is out, with a muscle strain in her lower back. She is on her way to the doctor, this morning. When she told the coach that she was hurt, he said "train harder" and laughed.

 

[quincy]

IDK what coaches are thinking sometimes. SB is hard enough without knowing anything about it so just stick to messing them up in that.

 

[guero_gordo]

He's a football coach. Bear crawls are always on the menu, especially for linemen.
Sounds like he's also a part-time rocket scientist.

 

[Eric F]

The most recent one, that has put my catching student out of the game, is some sort of a crawl. You are on the balls of your feet, but your butt the air and hands on the ground.

"Bear crawl". IMO, It's a good core-strength exercise in small doses. I'm not surprised that someone got hurt doing it for an extended amount of time.

 

[riseball]

At all but the highest level conditioning is a waste of time. Once your players demonstrate proper throwing and fielding mechanics and can get a bunt down 75% of the time you have other work to do.

 

[quincy]

A little off topic but DD’s Team has someone working with the pitchers. She will gladly do wrist flips, under the leg wrist flips and a couple other drills which neither of us thinks is helpful. I drew the line at weighted balls which I know their DD uses. If they pull those out DD is going to say no.

 

[RetiredCoach]

In my fastpitch coaching world, there's really not enough time to work on conditioning since we have, relatively, so little time to work on hitting, fielding, pitching, etc. The closest that I come to conditioning is a warmup job to center field and back and 15 minutes of intensive baserunning drills.

 

[Jojo]

I've seen some coaches do this, they spend an hour working on conditioning and agility, then just have an hour to work on their actual skills.

Had a high school pitcher whose coach was all about conditioning and not so much playing, I think every other time I saw her something was injured or sore. She never seemed healthy. She even admitted by her senior year that she wasn't a better ball player for it, but she sure was buff.

 

[chinamigarden]

Conditioning as a team is an off season activity. At least in my opinion.

 

[KCM]

Conditioning as a team is an off season activity. At least in my opinion.

But when is softball season off?