Best drills for 6-8 year olds to learn IR?

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Jun 7, 2017
10
3
With my youngest turning 6 I recently started working with a group of 6-8 years olds on a 1 night a week basis just to get the fundamentals of softball down but after coaching my oldest for years on a relatively competitive "A" team I am the first to admit, while I can help with , I am not a "pitching coach". The problem as well is no one with in a 2 hour drive of our location teaches IR so I would really prefer to not send parents of girls this age who are really just seeing if there daughters are interested in pitching on a wild goose hunt paying hundreds of dollars just to see if they even like it....

So curious, are there any videos that really break it down to make it teachable for even a non "pitching coach"?
 

sluggers

Super Moderator
Staff member
May 26, 2008
7,132
113
Dallas, Texas
a) Overhand throwing. The better they are at overhand, the better they will be at underhand.

b) Go to the sticky thread entitled "IR in the Classroom". The posts from Boardmember are superb.

The specific drills from that thread are:

1) Lock it drill
2) Unlock it drill
3) Magician's drill
4) Liberty drill
 
Nov 18, 2015
1,585
113
Play catch underhand.

And I would use those exact words. If you say "just throw me the ball underhand", you're likely to get a stiff armed, bean-bag toss type of throw.

"Play catch underhand" helps them understand the overall purpose. To most - "throwing the ball underhand" is too short-term - they'll do it once or twice, and then be like "OK - what's next". "Playing catch" implies an activity, not an objective - gets them mentally ready to be doing something for more than just a minute or two.

That being said, I don't know how this would work with a 6YO, unless they're already fairly well advanced and don't have much issue with overhand throwing.
 
Oct 2, 2018
205
43
Georgia
I agree with just play catch underhand. My daughter is 10 and I just begun to "just play catch underhand" after she has been pitching 1.5 years. And it has made a huge improvement in her ability to throw it where ever she wants it to go within a tight window. That recommendation was made on this forum many times.
What I do it when we are warming up with overhand throws, I do one over and one underhand from the first warm up throw. And I throw the same way back to her, one over and one under.
 
Jun 7, 2017
10
3
Thanks everyone. Will work on “playing catch” under hand and will see if I can translate the video to 6 year old...wish me good luck lol

I’ll keep digging and keep focusing on building a good foundation


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