My daughter (14U) and I are getting a little frustrated with her new coach/team. Girls are spending really a small amount of their practice time with a bat in their hand. No joke... hour and 45 minute practice last night and my kid had a bat in her hand (including being on deck) for probably not much more the five minutes. She got maybe 10 swings and half of those she was asked to bunt. No soft toss drills... no tee drills... no front toss. Just a quick bp and move on... and this has been the norm now for 5 practices. Worse yet, pregame... nothing... no batting warm up. I do not like the way this is going. Curious of what other teams are doing. How much time should a girl spend actually doing batting practice during an average practice/game warm up?
% of BP during a practice and game warm up.
- Thread starter Mr.Ed
- Start date
Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch
Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.
We practice 2x weekly. One dedicated to defense one to offense.
Pre-game we hit soft-toss and either front toss/t work /wiffles
depending on the park. If we have a stretch run of bad offense or
bad defense, I modify weekly practice accordingly. At 14U, if a player
is struggling at the plate, we encourage her to work outside team practice
to improve. With a fall roster of 12-13 elimination games will be be performance
based
Pre-game we hit soft-toss and either front toss/t work /wiffles
depending on the park. If we have a stretch run of bad offense or
bad defense, I modify weekly practice accordingly. At 14U, if a player
is struggling at the plate, we encourage her to work outside team practice
to improve. With a fall roster of 12-13 elimination games will be be performance
based
A typical 2 hour practice for my TB team last summer was the first 45 minutes were dedicated to just hitting. We would have 5 stations. Live BP, Machine BP, Bunting, Soft Toss, and Tee. We would keep rotating through all of the stations. Then we would go to the field for the remainder of practice. Not sure how much it helped. I encourage every girl to take personal hitting lessons in their spare time.
- Jul 28, 2008
- 1,084
- 0
I do the same thing.
This is exactly what is killing me. There are no stations with this guy. All girls move as a group. Subsequently they're able to do just a few drills and the majority of the time the girls are standing around watching another girl. My girl is coming off a coach (she had to move up) that really made great use of the time he had with his team... very organized well run practices. New coach... not so much. Very frustrating. We're working at home on our own more then ever.
We do very little hitting in practice. Our girls are expected to hit at own their own. Most have hitting coaches and hit 5 days a week. So team practice time is just that , team drills and plays. Most of the elite teams I have worked with do the same thing. As you get older this is almost expected. Now, down at the younger ages we would work with those that did not have hitting coaches.
It all depends on your team goal. I can see this at the younger ages, but as they get older and play travel ball it is expected. There are many sites on how to organize a practice and drills. Sounds like these coaches are not aware of how to run a practice. How you approach them will be tricky, but if you handle it correctly it would be a win-win situation for them and the kids. I would ask them in a polite way if they would like to know about web sites on how to run a practice . It will be for their benefit, since if kids get bored they tend to leave teams for greener pasture in travel ball.
In our fall rec league we only have one practice a week and I plan on spending about half of each practice on hitting.
Mr. Ed: Does your coach have help at practices so he can set up stations? Maybe make a friendly offer to do some long tee work, etc. with half the team while he works on infield with the rest.
Mr. Ed: Does your coach have help at practices so he can set up stations? Maybe make a friendly offer to do some long tee work, etc. with half the team while he works on infield with the rest.
Mr Ed, sent you a PM. Key to a good practice is having a written plan. I pass out my plan to each of the kids and what we plan on accomplishing wiht estimated times .
Last edited:
