When you think about the Long Term Athlete Development model, setting teams by developmental age rather than chronological age is the ideal. As everyone is aware, not only is there a developmental difference in skills and abilities but there can also be a vast difference in size and strength...
I definitely agree, playing up to periodically challenge the team is important to the improvement process. I would just have hard time putting my team in an intentional mercy situation
I always planned tournaments with the end and most important tournaments in mind. It would also depend on what I wanted to accomplish with my team in the year. A 14U B team should have the fundamental skills at 70-75% by now and might be working more on tactics and mental training. I also...
Being that most people would agree that mental training is an essential tool for success in softball especially being such a complicated game... I am curious... how and when do you practice mental training with your teams and how old are they?
You are absolutely right. When all skills are equal, it is mental training that makes the difference between successful performances and disappointment. Mental training is a tool that is best introduced and developed much like technical and tactical skills. Start at the beginning of the...
Thank you. I have no intention of leaving. This is a great forum for discussion from what I can see and look forward to learning from others and sharing what I can. Cheers :)
No worries at all. I am not going anywhere :) Thank you though for the message and I know I will definitely be learning here. It's a great place for good in depth discussions.
Is attacking my credibility really necessary? I am going to respectfully chose not participate in this discussion any longer and simply agree to disagree with you. Hitting is a skill that has as many "ways" to hit as there are pitches. You will find all of them if you like. I am not saying...
Can you show a video with a softball hitter rather than a baseball hitter? the hitter you show "for baseball" is moving his hips and shoulders at the same time. There s no progressive rotation of the hips. Are you saying that in your opinion the core should start the rotation rather than the...
Thank you Cannonball. I am definitely finding that more explanation and insight is required on posts here which is good thing. It is refreshing to have real discussions with people in the game knowing that we will not always agree but will sometimes have to agree to disagree. :)
Sometimes being flat is not necessarily to do with mental training. A yearly training plan will allow you to plan when you want your players to be on and use the rest of the time to build them up to that great performance. If you are practicing year round, there is a chance that even though...
Thank you BadMonkeys for challenging me and making me delve deeper into this one segment of hitting. What I am referring in pivoting is the biomechanical effect of beginning the hip rotation with the back foot driving forward into the ball rather than over or under the ball predominantly using...
Yes sort of or with the front half. Some players in lifting up onto their toe of the back foot will change the whole swing that they started with. The idea with this move is to drive the back leg however with young players it simply moves the hips up because they don't know how it feels yet...
The small step in the initiation phase of the swing is the starting point of the rotation. It is to get the lower body moving in their forward motion through rotation to the ball. The preparation of the swing or starting point starts with the feet about shoulder width apart because then they...