Coaching young players and teaching youth softball drills can sometimes be a challenge. Many young softball players are inexperienced and don’t know anything about softball mechanics, techniques, or other softball-related skills and strategies that older, more experienced players know.
In addition, younger players treat softball like what it is, a game, and games are supposed to be fun! This alone can frustrate coaches who prefer a more serious approach to the game.
At first look, these issues may seem like big problems, but the truth is that these are actually opportunities you can use to your advantage. As you know, when it comes to softball team training, one of the areas you must cover is softball hitting.
In this article you’ll find tips for using those opportunities for effectively teaching fastpitch softball hitting drills to young players. Learn how you can use the problems mentioned above and produce results without frustrating yourself and without removing the element of fun in the game for the kids.
1.Teach drills in a form of a game Use Games. Since one of the main driving forces behind why young players play softball is fun, one effective technique is using games or competition when teaching softball hitting. This way their softball hitting practice will feel less like work and more like fun. Players will actually enjoy performing these drills.
2.Start simple. Working with inexperienced players gives you an excellent opportunity to mold their softball hitting skills from scratch. One of the best things about working with new softball players is they haven’t yet formed bad softball habits. You get to start from square one and teach them how to perform softball hitting skills correctly. However, you must remember that these are young and inexperienced players and resist the urge to move quickly past the basics and on to complex concepts. Take your time and teach them the fundamentals first. Don’t move on until they show competence in the basics! You can even use softball training tools, such as a tee, to help your players develop good mechanics right from the start.
3.Use the right tools. When teaching softball hitting drills, the right tools help tremendously. This includes the bat your players use! Make sure your players have bats that fit them well. Using the wrong bat may actually hurt development of proper form. Players could form poor softball hitting mechanics if they use a bat that’s the wrong size for them. Make sure players are not swinging bats that are too light or too heavy, too long or too short for them. These are just a few simple tips to keep in mind when training our young softball team for hitting. Don’t worry if you don’t see any progress in the first few weeks. Softball hitting is a tough skill to learn! Just keep practicing. Remember that first your players need to learn the skill, and then they must perform the skill. When they are just learning, they need to time understand the concept, then need practice to get better at performing the skill. Keep at it and you will eventually begin to see improved softball hitting amongst your players.
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