Youth Softball Coaching Tips - One of your responsibilities as a coach is to give your players all the tools they need to play the game to the best of their ability. The game of softball requires mental and physical agility, and youth softball coaching tips can help you impart needed tips to your players to give them the wherewithal to maximize their abilities.
One of your responsibilities as a coach
is to give your players all the tools they need to play the game to the best of
their ability.
The game of softball
requires mental and physical agility, and youth softball coaching tips can help
you impart needed tips to your players to give them the wherewithal to maximize
their abilities.
Here are a few youth softball coaching
tips that will improve your team’s play:
Swing a Weighted Bat –
One of the helpful youth softball
coaching tips concerns itself with the feel of the bat in the hands of
your players.
In competitive fast
pitch competition, it is helpful if your players can swing their softball
bats through the hitting zone with speed.
In order to do this, they must be able to handle the bat’s weight.
One of the top youth softball coaching tips is to advise your players to
swing a bat heavier than the one they use in a game in preparation for
their time at bat.
In this way,
their bat will feel lighter, and they will be able to handle it better,
and swing it more quickly through the hitting zone.
Test Your Players –
One of the more beneficial youth softball coaching tips has to do with
imparting the rules of the game of softball.
It stands to reason that the better your
players understand the rules of softball, the better they will be able to
make the plays that will maximize their abilities.
You can impart this knowledge by holding
skill sessions after practice or when adverse weather has prevented your
normal weather routine.
You can
teach this by asking about game situations as you practice such as “if
there is a pop fly, are you going to start running to second base?”
As a coach, teaching your team
the fundamentals of the game involves teaching your team the rules of the
game.
Teaching Bunting –
One of the most needed youth softball coaching tips is to teach your
players the art and science of bunting the ball, and having fun while you
do it.
The fundamentals of the bunt
are simple:
Batters move their top
hand up near the trademark, and the object is to “catch the ball with the
bat.”
The batter adjusts the bat to
push the softball pitch up the first base line or the thirds base
line.
You can introduce fun into
the exercise by rewarding any player who bunts 5 consecutive pitches into
fair ground.
In this way, your
players are practicing an important, but long-overlooked part of the game
while having fun doing it.
Don’t Forget the Fun –
As a coach, teaching youth
softball can be difficult.
You
should always consider the age of your players and consequently their
attention spans and rigor in learning the basics.
Often the most effective ways to coach
about softball rules or teach technique mean adding a dimension of fun
into the softball drills you practice.
Turn drills into games, or make drills more fun by showing them how
the pros do it such as this interactive youth softball drill library.
Always
remember that playing youth softball should be fun for the team so they have a
desire to learn and consequently you will get greater enjoyment in your youth
softball coaching experience.
By Trevor Sumner who works for
Weplay.com, a youth
softball communitydedicated
to providing parents coaches and athletes the tools and information to
celebrate the love of the game.
Weplay
has one of the most comprehensive softball drill librariesin
its active softball community.
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