Membership Package Year 1 Effective Coaching Package Practice Keys
PLAN YOUR PRACTICES... 2 HAVE A MASTER LIST... 2 Who Has to Read It?... 3 EQUIPMENT... 3 PEOPLE... 3 Parents... 4 TIME... 4 Throwing Ideas... 5 INDOORS... 5 POST- PRACTICE EVALUATION... 6 KEEP YOUR PRACTICES... 6 Copyright 2015 Softball Excellence LLC. All Rights Reserved. Page 1
Plan Your Practices A practice plan is a written plan that outlines your practice; reminding you what you want to do, when you want to do it, how long you want to do it for, where you want to do it, and whose going to be involved with doing it. You may be the type of coach that can organize a practice off the top of your head and accomplish what you want in the desired time. For the other 99.8% of the rest of us a practice plan is a critical part of a successful practice. It may be written out on a napkin or typed on your work stationary; it really doesn't matter as long as it gives you enough detail to allow you to move through your practice in a structured, efficient and organized manner. Objective - What Are You Trying to Accomplish The practice plan starts with an objective, or basically, what you want to accomplish during this practice. You might come up with your practice objectives after a game by asking yourself, where did we get hurt? What execution problems did we have? Think in big terms (meaning force plays at second instead of defense ) and limit it to no more than 3 to 4 points. Early in the season this can be difficult because there's so much to cover. This is another example of where the objective can help you plan. Let's say you have 5 practices before your first game. Do you just go practice to practice and hope you cover everything you want? If so you may miss something important or take valuable time teaching things that would be better covered during the latter part of the season. Write a list of the skills, situations, and plays you want to cover for the season and this becomes your master list that we ll talk about below. Prioritize those items and then break them down into an objective list for each of your first 5 practices. It usually takes longer than you think to practice certain skills, so less is better when it comes to practice objectives. Have a Master List A Master List is simply a list of skills that your players need to be able to do for the season, by position, as well as a list for Team Defense and Team Offense. The key to this list is that it s realistic. For instance, you might attend a coaching clinic and hear a college coach talk about the list of skills they want their shortstop to practice, but your shortstop doesn t have that level skill, and won t be expected to do everything a college shortstop would do so whack that list down to reasonable. This list isn t for you to put down every skill you know each position can do, it s to serve as a reminder for you to make sure you have allowed practice time for your players to practice the skills listed. For your Team Defense list you might not get in very many 1 st and 3 rd plays during the course of a season, so don t list them. Instead, make sure you list bunt defense, slapper defense, and steal coverage. Be sure to make your master list reasonable for your players at your level and remember that the master list is simply a guide to remind you what things to plan for your players to practice. Copyright 2015 Softball Excellence LLC. All Rights Reserved. Page 2
Who Has to Read It? - If you re the only one who ever needs to read your practice plan then writing it out on a napkin might be just fine. But, if you post practices for your players to see, or your assistants get copies, or anyone who helps you set up equipment needs to read it then it s probably a good idea to type it out since most of us struggle reading our own writing never mind someone else s. Equipment One area that can really trip you up during practice is equipment. Softball is an equipment- heavy sport and we tend to use a lot of it during practice, so it s important to know 2 things about your equipment: What kind will you need for today s practice? Where is it going to go and when? You might draw it out on a map to help everyone know where the buckets and screens need to go and when during practice they need to go there. Whatever equipment you re going to need for that day s practice should be out and ready to go before you start, as well as mapped out in some way to help you figure out what goes where and when. There s never enough practice time so don t lose any of it wandering around trying to find balls, or bases, or T s when you could have done that ahead of time. Buckets, buckets, buckets - you can t have enough BUCKETS! Empty ones get full and are quickly rotated out with the full ones. They don t have to be new or fancy. In fact, they don t even have to be buckets. You can mix buckets and crates as long as they hold balls and you have a bunch of them. The more buckets and balls you have the more reps your players can get without interruptions. Be creative with your equipment as well as providing safety. Small cones can provide movement paths for slappers, while protective screens can provide safety for a coach or player tossing front toss. People I know it can be a challenge, but try to figure out ahead of time how many players you re going to have available at practice each day. You might have 15 total players on your team but maybe only 13 can be there that day. Or, they re all there but 1 is injured and can t practice. Or 3 will be an hour late because of exams. Whatever the scenario (and there always seems to be one), do your best to know it ahead of time so that you can make a plan for the players that ARE there. You might have to move people around Copyright 2015 Softball Excellence LLC. All Rights Reserved. Page 3
in positions, or leave right field open, or only do certain drills after you know everyone will be there. Whatever the adjustments, chances are you ll be making them based on the number of players who can practice that day so know that ahead of time and make sure your plan fits reality. Parents - If you have parents that always seem to come to practice then put them to work running buckets back and forth. Exhausted parents aren t as likely to complain and interfere. Plus, when parents are actively engaged in what you re doing they are less likely to criticize it. I m sure you could use the extra help so give them something very specific to do, explain to them exactly how to do it and then let them help you. Time Practicing longer than 2 ½ to 3 hours starts to have a negative return since players can only give their best effort for so long. I know that travel ball teams usually can t practice during the week so you ve got to maximize your time on the weekends. But, holding 6+ hour practices isn t the same as holding 2, 3 hour practices. Your players are practicing to do their very best in a game, which means they need to be near their best effort level during practice. Nobody can do that for 6+ hours, so in order for your players to last than long, they ve got to dial it back, which doesn t help their maximum effort at all. Instead of holding super long practices, be creative and efficient with your time and ask more of your players over a shorter period. Another time trap we can easily fall into is planning for something to take 20 minutes but staying on it until we get it right. Which sounds great, but some days that might take 45 minutes now you ve got to cut out another skill that no doubt also needs practicing, or extend your practice. Neither option is ideal so be mindful of the time you give things and keep yourself within that time. A great way to be creative with your time is to limit the size of the group that s practicing. In other words, your entire team doesn t need to practice together every single practice. Once- in- a- while you can practice in smaller groups to allow more time with less players. The example to the right shows your team with 3 different groups (Group 1, Group 2 and Group 3). You can have these groups be whatever you want; infielders, outfielders and pitchers/catchers, or freshmen, sophomores and juniors/seniors. This type of smaller group practice allows you to spend very specific time with each group. You re there for 2 hours but each group is there no more than 45 minutes because the groups are smaller and the work more specific. Copyright 2015 Softball Excellence LLC. All Rights Reserved. Page 4
Throwing Ideas - One thing to be very aware of is how much you make your players throw. We need our player s arms to be strong and healthy when the end of the season comes, instead of being sore and injured. To do that requires that you create Throw and No- Throw Days, or Throw and No- Throw Drills. This means you can still hit your players tons of groundballs or flyballs, but they don t have to throw every single one back. On the No- Throw days or drills, the fielders will simply roll the balls off to the side after they field them, thus saving their arms and yet allowing for lots of defensive repetitions. Those rolled off balls will go toward an empty bucket and it gets filled up and rotated when the other bucket is empty. Indoors Practicing indoors is a reality at some point for most of us, and while it s not ideal, it s not the end of the world. We d all love to have huge field houses with tons of room to pitch, hit and throw. But the reality is that most coaches have less than an ideal indoor environment so the key is to make the most of what you have. You might have to use hallways, and classrooms and only parts of a gym. Take what you have and make it work. I ve held pitching practices for college pitchers inside a small classroom. We simply modified our equipment and instead of pitching regular balls at regular speed, we pitched foam balls, buckets, and basketballs. Instead of focusing on the entire motion at full speed, we really paid attention to the release and the finger pressure and hand motion to make each pitch work. It turned out to be one of our most productive practices and yet it was 2 college pitchers and catchers in a 20 x 20 classroom. In addition to being creative with your space and facilities, you ll have to be creative with your equipment as well. Your players might have to hit and field tennis balls instead of scuffing up the gym with real balls. One thing to remember is that if you re inside practicing, chances are your opponents are as well. Keys to practicing indoors include: Modify the balls you use for safety and for restricted flight. Use more Batting T s. Shrink your distance and get better at doing things faster. Use cones or throw- down bases and shrink your defensive distances. Use hitting screens to allow your players to hit balls off front toss. Have your outfielders on their knees and toss balls high to them to practice fielding technique. Copyright 2015 Softball Excellence LLC. All Rights Reserved. Page 5
Post- Practice Evaluation A great habit to get in to is after you hold a practice go back and evaluate your plan. What worked and what didn t, and why. Did you allow enough time for each skill, and if not, what changes do you need to make next time. Were certain drills effective? If not, what adjustments should you make next time you use that drill? And finally rate your practice. You might use a numbering system 1 through 5 with 1 meaning it stunk and 5 meaning it was a GREAT practice. Rating your practices allows you to quickly separate the 4 s and 5 s from the pile, and then go back and really tweak the lower rated ones or completely eliminate them. Keep Your Practices It s a great habit get into to save every practice you ever hold. Keep them in a 3 ring binder, or if you re a techie keep them on your computer. Be sure to include your rating and your notes. After a while, instead of always having to make up new practices you ll be able to go to your notebook and pull out a great practice from the past. Copyright 2015 Softball Excellence LLC. All Rights Reserved. Page 6