What's in a Day of Practice?

Hi All,

Thought I would make an entry about what could be seen a fairly routine day of practice here at Longwood.

We were meant to play a double header against James Madison yesterday, however it was forecast for a 90% chance of rain so the respective coaches decided to postpone the games to another as yet unknown time.  We do hope to get these games in however picking a time and date is difficult as there are plenty of other games in store for both teams as the season progresses to an end about 5 May, with the hope of playoffs beyond that.  What is often lost amongst these discussions is travel.  The schools are a minimum of an hours drive from each other, so isn’t like we can just meet any old time for a game.

So I have finally worked out the rules for practice according to the NCAA.  Each player can only practice for a maximum of four hours per day.  Each player can only practice for a maximum of 20 hours per week.  Each player must have at least one day off per week.  However a travel day to play can be considered a day off and a double header does not count for the entire period the games are played but count for only three hours.  Even if the games go for 6 hours total, they only count for three hours.

So considering our games on Wednesday were canceled and we don’t play again until the 6^th against Radford at their place, this weeks practice has looked like this:

Monday:

The girls met for weights (or lifting as they call it here) at 1430pm.  Those who had classes at this time, met at 1000am.  After weights, pitchers and catchers met at the field at 1530hrs for a work out until 1600pm when the rest of the group arrived.  At that time the pitchers pitched to the hitters at different locations and various hitting drills were completed.  About 1800pm the group came together for some ‘scrimmaging’ with two make shift teams.  This finished at 1900pm.

Tuesday:

The pitchers were instructed to meet at the field at 1500pm.  We began a warm up for a work out, however word came down that there would be a scrimmage for practice and therefore pitchers were warming up for a game.  At 1600pm the rest of the team arrived and warmed up for the game.  Two sides were chosen and it was directed that the losing team would do double the conditioning after the game!  The game went until about 1800pm and there was fielding and bunting practice until 1900pm.

Wednesday:

A practice schedule was made for the girls to come in pairs, similar to the photograph below, for indoor hitting.  One pair of girls would come, hit in our indoor cage for an hour doing various drills and then move over to face live pitching for 30 minutes in the other cage.  When the girls moved over to the live pitching, I videotaped each of them for about five to ten swings.  I would then cue up each hitter’s video and they would come out and watch it in slow motion.  Honestly, videotape shows you so much and is a vital training aid.  Some of the girls who thought their swings were O.K could see for themselves that there were flaws in the swing.  It is usually the case that you can tell someone for ever what they can improve, but until a person see’s it for themselves, the message can sometimes miss the mark.  So after the analysis, they re-entered the cage to work on their techniques.  I have made a document on what we saw with the aim that we will return to the video in a couple of weeks to see how things measure up.  Some of these things take a while to change so the hope is for steady improvement.

                                   This is one of our indoor hitting cages

Why do we want to perpetually improve on a hitting technique?  For many reasons, to increase power, to increase the chances of connecting with the ball, to be able to hit the ball wherever we want to rather than in one direction but most importantly, good teams will pick weakness in a swing and pitch to those ‘holes’ effectively giving them a great chance of getting us out and ultimately winning.  Every hitter has an area in the strike zone where they will hit the ball better than other areas and not hit so good in one area compared to other areas.  As a pitcher, I am aiming at those not so good areas.  “My best pitch at their weakness”.  For example, Lefties have a tendency to ‘fall off the ball’ or have their weight fall away towards first base as they swing.  Is that case I would pitch down and away to them as they would have trouble reaching it.  Another hitter may ‘drop their hands’ in their swing and I would therefore pitch a riseball up and in to them.

The hitting finished about 1530pm and I was down to the gym at 1530pm to begin pitching practice with one pitcher, then the second pitcher at 1600pm and then the third at 1700pm, finishing at 1800pm.

Thursday:

Below you can see the hitting schedule for the girls for Thursday which was similar to Wednesday. 

I then met one pitcher at 1600hrs and we worked for an hour.  I have been working to increase her speed, confidence and movement.  Notice I did not say accuracy!  At this stage of a pitchers career, a lot of people make the mistake of focusing on accuracy.  This puts a lot of pressure on a young pitcher and they get into bad habits which effect the entirety of their pitching including speed, movement and accuracy itself.  What we see is the pitcher begins to ‘aim’.  They slow down their pitching motion and try as hard as they can to hit the proposed target.  Some coaches chastise them for missing and the aiming becomes worse.  They try to be ‘perfect’ in their accuracy which as we know is impossible for anybody!  Everyone makes mistakes.  With the over emphasis on accuracy, comes anxiety!  When young pitchers, and older ones too for that matter, become anxious, they tend to tense up.  That is their shoulder, their arm and their wrist.  However to throw hard and get movement, you need rhythm and ‘snap’, which comes from having a loose muscles rather than tensed muscles. 

Coming back to trying to be perfect, what we humans tend to do is say to ourselves, ‘don’t miss’ or ‘don’t throw it over the plate’.  In this negative self talk, our brains only hear ‘miss’ or throw it over the plate’!  We don’t hear the ‘don’t’ and therefore what we are trying to avoid, because a self fulfilling prophecy.  How many times have I observed myself or some other pitcher trying not to throw it over the plate, throw it right over the plate and get walloped.  Where was my sport psych when I was younger?

So what about accuracy you ask?  Well speed and movement are items which cannot be compromised on at the higher levels of this game.  If you have speed and movement, accuracy does not become so much of an issue.  If you cannot throw hard and or don’t have good movement, well you better be accurate.  So what I picked up from my young charge yesterday was that when she was free to work on movement and speed, she threw great movement and speed.  As soon as I asked her to work on her spots, she slowed right down and lost movement.  There was an ‘AHA’ moment for me as a coach.  We talked about it and I encouraged her to just let it go.  Back came the speed and movement again.  And guess what?  The accuracy wasn’t so bad either - Lesson learned!  I will continue to work on this with her however others may need to be schooled on this approach, to ensure she isn’t confused by mixed messages.

Once we finished our workout, I began working with another pitcher.  Whilst we worked, the rest of the squad did fielding practice.  Practice finished about 1830pm.

Friday:

Although tomorrow is yet to come (does it actually come?), our schedule is similar to the last two days.  I will be meeting the first pair of girls at 0800am.  I will throw some batting practice to them with plastic balls.  Once they have hit with me for an hour, they will go next door to face coach who will throw more live pitching for 30 minutes.  This will go on all day until 1545pm, when the whole team will meet at the field where will once again scrimmage for a couple of hours.

After all this, we have the weekend off in its entirety and practice will begin again on Monday before three days of games next week: Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

So as you can see, its pretty serious business at this level of play!  Keeping in mind these girls also have full study loads, it’s a pretty full on for the girls.  If you are wondering if they get tired, the answer is definitely.  Some girls more than others, some girls more than others on one day over another.  But they turn up and put in their all and therefore I must do the same to support them in their endeavour.

On the weekend I am thinking of getting a massage and hitting an out of town mall.  Oh and the obligatory reading.  But more on the book I am about to finish soon.

D

                             Oh and this is one of the Farmville locals :-)