Coaching Fastpitch Softball Hitters

Monday, May 16, 2011

Explore These Fast Pitch Softball Hitting Mechanics

Explore These Fast Pitch Softball Hitting Mechanics
By guest author: Marc Dagenais

Differences in style when doing the softball swings have been the major dilemma of many softball enthusiasts these days. Why not? If you really hear and see a myriad of softball hitting techniques virtually available everywhere, you don't know what to do first. Well, yes, you have to try all of them and choose which is most effective on your softball hitting strategy. But, why waste time when you will now be provided with the powerful and sure ball tips in softball hitting?

Kidding aside, this post will provide you with everything you need to know about softball hitting. We will provide you with the right kind of questions to be able to get hold of the right kind of answers, too.

Let's get started:

· How do I do the softball hitting? Pick up the pace and accelerate the bat through the ball. You drop bat speed when the bat makes contact with the ball. The answer is to speed up as you are hitting the ball explode the bat through it. Preserve a loose grip on the bat. Don't keep your weight on your back foot. Shift your weight from your back foot to your front foot so that you'll generate more hitting power.

· What are the fundamental considerations when hitting a softball? The head must be as at a standstill as probable. The eyes must judge the ball perfectly. The feet must accomplish a perfect weight shift. The hands must be in the right position throughout the whole process. The hips and shoulders must remain closed until exactly the right moment. It is a far more difficult thing to teach than almost any other skill. So let's break it down.

· What is the best exercise program in order to increase my hitting power? Squats are one of the best exercises to increase hitting power. Your entire body will benefit from this powerful movement. If you can't do squats, try leg presses or weighted dips. They are great for developing power in triceps, chest, and deltoids-important muscles for hitting. Try to condition the correct muscles and the specific fast twitch muscle fibers that are critical to faster muscles. This means you have to do more hits, longer drives, and fewer strikeouts.

· How do I increase my hitting power? It is essential for you to hit with superior power and get just about on more quick balls. Always remember to hit with your power zone. This means you must be comfortable with the hitting position so that an uninterrupted hitting power will be increased. The great hitters are the ones who practice and develop drills daily in order to boost their stamina. And most importantly, get your head in the game. You can get angry if you want so that you can focus all your energy on nailing that ball over the barrier.

If you read these carefully and take by heart every bit of information, you'll be surprised what you are capable of, especially in softball hitting. If you apply the mentioned proven techniques and you will practice hard, you'll soon dominate the softball arena and become the big difference in your team!

Marc Dagenais, MHK, CSCS, is a softball peak performance coach that helps players and teams hit with more power, run faster, throw harder, become mentally tougher, and be more dominant on the softball field. Visit us and sign-up to get tons of great FREE Softball Pitching tips to boost your game!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marc_Dagenais

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2405428

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Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Free Girls Softball Practice Drills

Free Girls Softball Practice Drills
By guest author: Marc Dagenais

Drill 1 - Soccer Ball (Softball Hitting)

Purpose: To learn how to drive through the ball.

Procedure: Place a soccer ball on a T. If the T is an open tube, place a small bathroom plunger in the T to hold the ball or use a traffic cone and a plunger. The batter hits the soccer ball hard off the T. If she does not drive through the soccer ball, it will not explode off the bat.

Drill 2 - Football Up and Down

Purpose: To develop the agility and quickness to escape a rundown.

Procedure: In staggered rows, players assume well-balanced positions as if between bases. The coach faces the players and gives hand signals to indicate the direction in which players move. The signals are right, left, down, and up. Players shuffle to the side on right and left signals. On the down signal they quickly hit the ground. Players should be absolutely flat. On the up signal they get up quickly to be ready to go again. In a rundown, players use the prone position to trip the defensive player.

Drill 3 - Timed Throws (Softball Catchers)

Purpose: To evaluate quickness of release and speed of the throw.

Procedure: The catcher catches a pitched ball in full gear so that the drill is gamelike. The coach starts a stopwatch when the ball enters the glove and stops it when the ball is released or when the ball reaches the shortstop's glove at second base. Good times for the ball to go from glove to glove for college catchers are between 1.65 and 1.75 seconds. High school catchers should make the throw in less than 2 seconds.

Drill 4 - Wall Drill (Softball Pitching)

Purpose: To develop proper rotation of the arm.

Procedure: The pitcher throws imaginary pitches using a wall to keep the arm straight in a perfect circle. She stands perpendicular to a wall with the pitching arm close to the wall and about four inches away. The pitcher uses the full pitching motion (including the stride and the opening of the hips), keeping the arm straight and in tight so that it does not contact the wall. The pitcher walks and moves down the wall throwing imaginary pitches.

Drill 5 - Moving to the Base (Softball Infield)

Purpose: To improve quickness and range moving to first base.

Procedure: The first baseman takes a position halfway to home as if fielding a bunt. On the coach's command "go," she sprints to the base (turning inward to the diamond), finds the base, takes the receiving position, catches an imaginary ball, and tags the base. The player repeats the drills, moving ever closer to home to increase the distance and push herself to improve quickness in getting to the base.

Marc Dagenais is a softball peak performance coach that provides softball tips, softball drills, and information on techniques for hitting, pitching, coaching, and training through his blog at http://www.softballperformance.com/blog
He also helps softball players and coaches improves their game by sharing with them the tips and strategies used by the world's best softball players and coaches to achieve extraordinary performances. You can sign-up to get his FREE Softball Tips at http://www.softballperformance.com/softball-tips.html. Go Sign-up Now!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marc_Dagenais
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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Zip-N-Hit Pro Batting Trainer by SKLZ

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Fastpitch Hitting - Swing Like "the Best in the World"

Fastpitch Hitting - Swing Like "the Best in the World"
By guest author: Joe M White

Many people who follow fastpitch softball consider Jessica Mendoza to be the best all-around player, and best overall hitter in the world over the past several years.

Mendoza can do it all at the plate. She is a great bunter, a very effective slap hitter, and hits away for a very high batting average and with terrific power. In fact, baseball fans can compare Mendoza side-by-side with most any major league baseball hall-of-famer, and see that they swing the way she does.

Although Mendoza isn't the first fastpitch player to adopt a Rotational swing, she does it at least as well as anyone who's ever played. More and more fastpitch players are turning to her method of hitting. Increasingly, Division 1 college coaches are converting their players to Rotational hitting (for example, Mike Candera, Head Coach at the University of Arizona, whose teams have won 6 College World Series National Championships, is teaching a peculiar variation of Rotational hitting).

While softball players can continue to have success using the Linear method of hitting, there are reasons for the shift to Rotational.

A Very Short History

Many in the fastpitch community are under the impression that Rotational is relatively new, and that Linear hitting has always been the norm. Actually, Rotational hitting was introduced to Major League Baseball by Shoeless Joe Jackson in the early 20th century, and after Babe Ruth copied Jackson's method, it became the swing of about 95% of Major Leaguers until the introduction of synthetic turf on many Major League fields from the 1960's to the 1990's.

Those early synthetic turf fields were nearly as hard as concrete. Major League batting coaches quickly realized that ground balls hit on it moved so fast, that many balls that were routine ground outs on natural fields were hits on 'turf. Many that would have been outfield singles bounced so hard they became doubles or even triples. So many began to teach Linear hitting to their weaker hitters. And in many cases it worked.

(Most of the Big Leaguers who hit over.300 in those years, and nearly all the RBI and Home Run leaders, continued to be Rotational hitters. As synthetic turf disappeared from the Major Leagues, so did Linear hitting. There are very few nowadays, and although many still use Linear terms to describe their swing, they actually use Rotational swings.)

The increasing use of Linear hitting in MLB coincided with the introduction of lightweight aluminum and composite bats. These bats were not only much lighter than wood -- and so could be swung much faster -- they also had more "pop." The ball came off the bat harder and faster, so grounders hit with metal or composite bats got past infielders more often than with the old wood bats.

While MLB rejected Non-wood bats, they were quickly adopted by youth baseball leagues, middle and high schools, and the NCAA. Along with the bats, coaches at all these levels began to teach Linear hitting. Boys and young men who might have struggled with heavy wood bats became good or even above average hitters by using aluminum/composite bats and Linear hitting.

During all this, fastpitch softball experienced a rebirth as a game for women and girls. Fastpitch softball was originally played with wood bats, and Rotational hitting was the dominant method for both women and men playing the game. In fact, relatively few women played fastpitch until the 1970's.

As young ladies took up the game, they used aluminum and composite bats, for the same reason their male counterparts were. Most of their coaches were men -- dads -- who were enthusiastically embracing the cutting-edge Linear hitting movement. So most ladies learned Linear hitting, which tends to create more grounders as we'll see.

Linear Versus Rotational

So what's the difference between Linear and Rotational hitting? Andy Collins has a pretty good definition of Linear hitting: "Linear hitting is a hitting style that has been used for many years in fast pitch softball and by many little league coaches, some high school, college, and even minor league baseball coaches who still prefer this method of hitting instruction.

"It is used to achieve solid contact hitting, producing... sharply hit ground balls which are designed to shoot through the drawn-in infielders on the hard dirt surfaces of softball (and astroturf surfaces in baseball). It is especially useful in slap hitting (fast runners who hit it on the ground and beat it out to first base).

"Baseball players who use this style, do so especially when they use the ultra light aluminum bats and... if they play on artificial surfaces."

A Linear hitter will normally hit ground balls. Most Linear coaches teach "hit the top half of the ball," and "swing down," which naturally produces grounders. They also teach "lead with the hands" or "take the knob (or hands) to the ball," and to set up with most of your weight on the back foot and then shift your weight to the front foot as you swing. All of these work together to lengthen the swing (producing slower bat speed and therefore less power) and cause a lot of ground balls.Read more.

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Friday, March 4, 2011

Fastpitch Softball Glove Review ACE70

Fastpitch Softball Glove Review ACE70
By guest author: Brad Henks

AKADEMA ACE70 FASTPITCH DESIGN SERIES SOFTBALL GLOVE

"Created to satisfy the needs of the competitive Fastpitch player, the Akadema Fastpitch Design Series is hand-crafted to increase the level of play on the field. Constructed of US Steerhide throughout the pocket and webbing, the back of the glove features exclusive AkademLyte leather, decreasing the overall weight of the glove and allowing for a faster break-in period and a more manageable feel. Smaller finger stalls used to decrease the distance between the thumb and index finger and Akadema Grasp Clasp Wrist System allow for increased playability. Endorsed by USA Softball stars Crystl Bustos and Monica Abbott."

Ok, so that is the company's blurb about this Fastpitch Glove. That's a lot of sales copy, adequately describing this line of fast pitch softball gloves. Sales copy is good, but does it tell the real story?

They sound pretty proud of this line of ladies Fastpitch Softball gloves. You know what? They should be. This is one heck of a nice softball glove, and for the price range it is in there really are not any competitors out there that can beat it. You can see why Monica and Crystl endorse these gloves; they are high quality.

The ACE70 is priced in the low middle of the range but the quality and build of this glove should have it in the upper range. This glove has some really nice features and it plays very well too.

Here are some of its features.

13" Slim Pattern

B-Hive Web

Grasp Clasp Wrist System

Small Finger Stalls

Deep Pocket

Right or Left Hand throw available

The Akadema ACE70 fastpitch glove is black with grey 1/4 inch lacing that makes a nice looking accent. There is some nice embroidered script Akadema on the back of the glove and also the logo, which makes this a really sharp looking softball glove. The model and series name are embossed into the inside of the glove for added effect. You hate to admit it but how well a glove, or bat or shoes looks does seem to make a difference to how you play - or at least how you feel about that glove or shoes, etc. So, that being said, this is one sharp looking fast pitch glove.

This glove is not as heavy as most thanks to the use of AkademaLyte leather on the back of the glove. This lighter weight leather is durable but allows for a quicker break in period. When you first get this glove it will be very stiff. You will need to do some break-in. If you use the Akadema glove conditioner on the palm and pocket and pound some softballs in there and play a lot of catch it should break-in in a few weeks for you.

The heavy Steerhide on the palm and fingers provides plenty of padding for those hot line drives to SS or those high fly balls in Center.

The 13" slim pattern is the perfect size for a softball utility player. The deep pocket seems to just absorb the ball yet it gives it back quickly to make that fast glove to hand transition on the infield. The deep pocket helps you hang onto those fly balls in the outfield too.Read more.

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Thursday, January 6, 2011

Girls Softball - Conditioning Program for Well-Rounded Athletes

Girls Softball - Conditioning Program for Well-Rounded Athletes
by Guest Author Becky Wittenburg

Girls' softball - like any other sport - requires both practice drills to hone technique on the field and a conditioning program to increase strength, enhance performance, and decrease the risk of injury. An effective conditioning program will include flexibility training, cardiovascular training, weight training, and agility training. Players who train hard will become more well-rounded athletes and be more physically and psychologically prepared for competition.

Flexibility Training

The first step in a conditioning program should be flexibility training to get muscles loose and warmed-up for the rest of the training session. Start with a couple minutes of light jogging, then move on to stretching. An effective stretching program starts with the ankles and moves up throughout the body, including the calf muscles, hamstrings, quadriceps, back muscles, shoulders, neck, and arms.

For proper stretching technique, hold the stretching position until the muscles relax, and then increase the stretch to the point of feeling resistance. Stretching presents a good opportunity to increase body awareness; athletes need to know not to stretch any particular muscle too far for risk of injury.

Cardiovascular Training

Cardiovascular, or endurance, training increases the muscular and respiratory systems' ability to perform over time. Programs that increase heart rate while working the body are ideal for cardiovascular training.

Encourage athletes to join a gym that provides guidance and equipment. Classes in aerobics, spinning, and kickboxing all present a great endurance workout. Players who prefer to work out alone can use treadmills, Stairmasters, and elliptical machines. Those who do not want to join a gym can participate in a running or biking program that provides regular endurance training.

Weight Training

Weight training not only builds muscles, which will enhance performance on the field, but also reduces the risk of injury. However, before an athlete begins a weight training regiment, she needs to be properly trained in using the equipment.

While softball players want to primarily build up muscles in the legs, torso, abdominals, and arms, they should also work the rest of the body, including the back, shoulders, chest, and wrists. Because individual players are at different stages in development and have distinct body types, it is difficult to present one universal weight training program. Athletes should work with their coach or a trainer to develop a program that works for them.

Agility Training

Agility training increases players' ability to execute moves quickly and effectively on the field. Athletes should focus on increasing balance and developing acceleration. Exercises that include line jumps, quick sprints, lateral maneuvers, backpedaling, and bleacher steps will increase balance and explosiveness. Softball players whose bodies quickly and accurately respond in any situation will be an invaluable asset to their team.

And if you'd like to see more free softball drills and coaching tips, go here to watch a free video:

http://www.softball-spot.com/vid/

Becky Wittenburg is a kids softball coach, and the owner and publisher of Softball-Spot.com, the web's #1 resource for softball practice drills, tips, and coaching ideas for youth and high school coaches.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Becky_Wittenburg

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Monday, January 3, 2011

The Advanced Skills Tee by Muhl Tech

The Advanced Skills Tee by Muhl Tech
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Monday, May 16, 2011

Explore These Fast Pitch Softball Hitting Mechanics