How to make practice more fun

Hey everyone! I'm looking for some advice on how to make pitching practice more enjoyable for my daughter. She's 11 playing in her second season of TB and she is doing phenomenally in the circle. Her top speed clocked in games is 50 mph with her cruising speed at 48, in her last tournament which her team won she pitched 10 innings over 3 games, struck out 24 of the 30 outs, gave up 0 earned runs and only 4 walks. That's pretty much been her experience since she's started in TB which was surprising to me and her coaches because she didn't pitch in rec games before, just went to a coach to learn how to pitch with the idea that she'd be ready to go when she moved to TB. Anyway - I feel like she's getting complacent and losing interest in the practicing part even though she's seen that when she takes time off it takes a bit to get back dialed in.

Are there any practice routine that you guys/gals have used that make it more interesting and fun? I'm over the arguments that happen a) to get her to even go out to the driveway with me, or b) to get her to engage fully when she gets out there. Current routine is overhand throw, stretch, wrist snaps, 9 o'clocks, then underhand toss w/o full windup/not on plate, then walkthroughs and then pitch from plate. We do this for an unspecified amount of time before we do a little game of get 3 simulated strike outs. Then we work on her flip change with wrist flips, then pitching it until it's consistent, then fast ball/change up and then 3 simulated strikeouts with me calling pitches. These workouts take about 30 - 45 min. She's starting to learn the drop ball from her pitching coach who she sees once a week so that will add some time to the workouts as well once we really start working on it. We try to pitch 4 days a week including the workout with her PC and then take Fri off before tournaments. Non tournament weeks I try to get one day on the weekend with her as well.

Please let me know what you guys think will help. Having a talk about it once or twice a week is wearing me down and probably not helping with her psyche.

Thanks in advance!

She is 11....at this age attention span is short. Try splitting the workouts up. Do 10-15 minutes, take a break, then another 10-15 minutes. In that break, let her talk about whatever she wants. Give her a warning prior to the end of break so she can get her mind back into pitching. Maybe even start back up with you trying to pitch a few to her. Laugh, joke make it fun....at the end of the day, what she will remember is the time she spent with you.

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Another tip, use the drop ball as her warm-up, since she is starting to learn it...and take out the wrist flips.

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Have a friend come catch for her. DD is a catcher and she loves to catch for her friends during their pitching practice. They are both aware that it is time to work - but for some reason it makes it more fun to have a teammate/friend there.

Crystal Brown said:

She is 11....at this age attention span is short. Try splitting the workouts up. Do 10-15 minutes, take a break, then another 10-15 minutes. In that break, let her talk about whatever she wants. Give her a warning prior to the end of break so she can get her mind back into pitching. Maybe even start back up with you trying to pitch a few to her. Laugh, joke make it fun....at the end of the day, what she will remember is the time she spent with you.

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Great advice.

DD is the same age as yours. Couple of things i do. 1) Don't practice at the house. We go to a field to practice, get's them a little time to think about it and listen to some music on the way in the car. 2) Grab some ice cream when you finish practice. My DD and i practice just about every day for an hour or so, and afterwards either go out and get some ice cream or grab a slice of pizza. Little rewards go a long way at this age.

Biggest thing is keep it lite. I try to joke around as much as possible while she pitches to me. The more fun they have, the easier it is on the both of you.

Also - what is recommended for #of days to practice? Am I trying to do too much at her age?

Yep, mine is a couple yrs older and it does get easier each year. For me it is learning that I need to be flexible on the routines we do and choose the right time to push and demand better and when to keep it laid back. What that means is we change the routine from more rigid focus and drills while some are more like a pregame warm up and pitch.

It's a balancing act for sure



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My DD has a competitive nature, including competing with herself. I imagine many girls who play softball do. So we use that to make it more fun.

Sometimes we'll go through teams she's familiar with and have her pitch to individual pitchers. Get her thinking about how they swing, what pitches they hit most often, what they struggle with. She decides what pitch to throw and where. We track balls and strikes (a good pitch is a strike).

Other times we'll set a tee up in front of a net and have her try to knock a ball off of it. She likes to do 3 points for hitting the ball, 1 point for hitting the tee.

We have a net that has 10 spaces for various pitch locations (high inside, high outside, high down the middle, etc). She'll start high and outside and work her way across and down. She can't move on til she puts a ball in the right spot. You can do the same thing catching for her and moving the glove around to various spots.

2 days+PC+tournaments=plenty unless she's begging for more.

Some ideas to spice things up:
-Four Corners: Count how many pitches it takes to hit all four corners.
-Long Toss: Throw three pitches rom about 2/3's distance, starting with just whips--no drive. Use more lower half as distance increases until she's using walk throughs. If she hits her mark 2 out of 3 times, she earns a big step back. If she fails to get at least 2 out of three twice, she takes a step forward. If she fails three times, she starts over. Keep track of how many paces for the next time.
-Bunny on a Bucket: Place a stuffed animal on a bucket and count how many times she can knock it off in 10 pitches. You and her catcher can join in. Her catcher can start from a squat. If she's good enough, use a ball on a tee.