Weight Training Specifically for Softball

In order for a female softball athlete to improve her performance on the diamond, it is essential to train as hard off the field as well as on the field by having a weight training regime specifically designed for softball. Some athletes workout on the ball diamond for two to three hours at a time - fielding grounders and shagging fly balls - and believe it to be sufficient.

Now, however, with the level of competition much keener, to stay ahead of the pack an athlete will have work just as hard training her body as she does fielding and hitting.

The primary objective of a weight training program for a female softball athlete is very simple: The stronger and more flexible your body, the less prone you are to on-field injury. A weight training program helps build strength. The strength you develop will allow you to swing the bat faster, throw the ball further, and run bases faster. Speed and strength are the two most important components for success in softball.

If you serious about elevating your softball game, no matter what caliber you currently play, a weight training program will help take your game to the next level.

Caution: If you are planning to begin a weight training regime and have never lifted weights before, check first with your team's coach and your parents.

Resources: For more on the subject strength and weight training, click the post: The Top Two Books on Weight and Strength Training for Softball.

Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women's Sports

Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women's Sports is one of the most important books ever written about and for female athletes. It is a must read for young women in all competitive sports. Coaches and parents, too, will find this book an invaluable reference tool.

Read the book's overview and you will be absolutely convinced you have to have it. Immediately!



Overview
Warrior Girls -by Michael Sokolove
Amy Steadman was destined to become one of the great women's soccer players of her generation. "The best of the best," Parade magazine called her as she left high school and headed off to the University of North Carolina. Instead, by age twenty, Amy had undergone five surgeries on her right knee. She had to give up the sport she loved. She walked with a stiff gait, like an elderly woman, and found it painful to get out of bed in the morning.

Warrior Girls exposes the downside of the women's sports revolution that has evolved since Title IX: an injury epidemic that is easily ignored because we worry that it will threaten our daughters' hard-won opportunities on the field. From teenage girls playing local soccer, basketball, lacrosse, volleyball, and other sports to women competing at the elite level, female athletes are suffering serious injuries at alarming rates.

The numbers are frightening and irrefutable. Young female athletes tear their ACLs, the stabilizing ligament in the knee, at rates as high as eight times greater than their male counterparts. Women's collegiate soccer players suffer concussions at the same rate as college football players. From head to toe, female athletes suffer higher rates of injury, and many of them play through constant pain.

Michael Sokolove gives us the most up-to-date research on girls and sports injuries. He takes us into the homes and hearts of female athletes, into operating theaters where orthopedic surgeons reconstruct shredded knees, and onto the practice field of famed University of North Carolina soccer coach Anson Dorrance.

Exhaustively researched and strongly argued, Warrior Girls is an urgent wake-up call for parents and coaches. Sokolove connects the culture of youth sports -- the demands for girls to specialize in a single sport by age ten or younger, and to play it year-round -- directly to the injury epidemic. Devoted to the ideal of team, and deeply bonded with teammates, these tough girls don't want to leave the field even when confronted with serious injury and chronic pain.
Warrior Girls shows how girls can train better and smarter to decrease their risks. It makes clear that parents must come together and demand changes to a sports culture that manufactures injuries. Well-documented, opinionated, and controversial, Warrior Girls shows that all girls can safeguard themselves on the field without sacrificing their hard-won right to be there.


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Editors Note: "Baserunning Energy Regulation" is our second excerpt from the national bestselling book Focused for Fastpitch by Gloria Solomon and Andrea Becker


Baserunning Energy Regulation
an excerpt from Focused for Fastpitch


The explosive power needed to make sudden movements requires players to exert enormous amounts of energy on command. This is particularly challenging when a player must transition from swinging the bat to getting out of the box. These movements are completely different. Hitting requires the production of force to manipulate an object (the bat), and running requires the generation of power to move the body.

Performing this transition efficiently can make the difference between a hit or an out.


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Drill 25: Burst of Power will teach hitters to generate a surge of energy after making contact with the ball.

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Burst of Power
Mental Skill Energy Regulation
Physical Skill Baserunning

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Purpose: To help players develop a burst of speed when leaving the batter’s boxImplementation Each player hits a ball off of a tee at home plate and then runs to first base. Instruct players to use a trigger word such as “go” or “now” to inspire a burst of power to get out of the box. Players say this trigger or activating word to themselves to increase energy when transitioning from swinging the bat to getting out of the box.

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Variation This drill can also be performed starting with a dry swing (no ball) at home plate or when hitting against live pitching. To make this drill more challenging, instruct players to use exaggerated sprinting motions (high knees) for at least 10 steps as they accelerate out of the box.

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CONCENTRATION
Baserunning requires a type of concentration that is unique compared to other softball skills. Most skills require a player to focus broadly (on many cues) and then shift her attention to a narrow focus (one cue). For example, a hitter will first scan the field, paying attention to many factors, but when she steps into the batter’s box, she will narrow her focus and hone in on the delivery of the pitch. Although a base runner must also scan the field and take into account many aspects of the situation, when she turns her attention to the delivery of the pitch, she must continue to sustain a broad field awareness. One mental lapse can affect a runner’s ability to respond to a play.

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Drill 26: Wait for the Catch will teach base runners to direct and shift their attention according to the demands of the situation.

Another situation that requires astute concentration is when a base runner is sliding into a base during a close play. A player must be aware of the direction the ball is arriving from and the position of the defensive player who will be applying the tag. If a base runner can maneuver her body to get around the tag or stretch as far away from the tag as possible, she will increase her chances of being safe at the bag. During a game, a smart maneuver around a tag at the plate could mean the difference between scoring a run or being called out--and could therefore change the entire momentum of the game.

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Drill 27: Find the Bag emphasizes avoiding the tag when sliding into base.26 Wait for the CatchMental Skill ConcentrationPhysical Skill BaserunningPurpose To improve baserunning skills by requiring players to react to a variety of baserunning situationsImplementation Position base runners at any or all of the bases. The coach hits to the outfielders from home plate. Base runners must assess the situation and react appropriately when the ball is contacted. Runners should be taught to change their focus from broad (to analyze the situation) to narrow (as the pitch is being delivered), and then back to broad (when the ball crosses the plate).

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Find the Bag
Mental Skill Concentration
Physical Skill Baserunning and Sliding

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Purpose: To improve players’ ability to avoid the tag when sliding into a base during a close playImplementation Players line up at first base to take turns as the base runner.

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A shortstop gets into position to cover second base, and a pitcher delivers a pitch to the plate. On the delivery, the base runner attempts to steal second base. The catcher makes a throw to second, and the base runner tries to avoid the tag while sliding into the base.Variation To decrease the difficulty, a coach can position herself between second base and the pitcher’s circle to throw the ball to the shortstop (who will apply a tag at second base).

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The coach can rotate her position around second base so that throws will arrive from different angles. Base runners can also start from second base and practice avoiding a tag at third base. The coach can also hit to the outfielders, who will make plays on base runners advancing from home plate to second base, first base to third base, or second base to home plate.
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Focused on Fastpitch from Amazon.com.

A Typical Girls Fastpitch Softball Player

A TYPICAL GIRLS FAST PITCH SOFTBALL PLAYER

TYPICAL GIRLS FAST PITCH SOFTBALL PLAYER (TGFPSP) is first and foremost somebody's little girl.

The TGFPSP still has all those little girl attributes. The only difference is now she looks cute dressed in sliders and shorts. If she is wearing ribbons in her hair, they are team colors. She still bakes cookies ... team bake sale. And she has probably earned a few bucks ... at the team car wash. Now she is, and always will be daddy's (mom's) little second baseman.

The TGFPSP takes pride in how much dirt she can collect every weekend. Go to dinner on a night that she is not playing and it takes an hour of primping to get ready, and she still feels self-conscious. Go after a game and she'll walk right into a restaurant with a streak of dirt across her forehead, ratted hair, stained shirt and brownish/white socks. Or brown toes with sandals! Let's EAT!

The TGFPSP is ready and willing to play at the drop of a hat! If she can get away with it, she will play on two teams. (In the same day no less) She has a huge wardrobe: plenty of tournament shirts and shorts from all the teams she has played on. Her parents do her school shopping every weekend at the tournament T-shirt booth. When you say, "wear something nice", she thinks it means a tournament shirt without dirt stains.

The TGFPSP needs to get an athletic scholarship. Her parents have spent $100,000 on camps, private instruction, batting cages, gloves, bats, equipment, uniforms, player fees, concession stands, travel and lodging. THEY'RE BROKE!!!

The TGFPSP is a fierce competitor, willing to stand in against a fast pitcher at close distance that even pro baseball players would have trouble hitting! And she might be 5'2" and 100 lbs. soaking wet. She might play first or third base at 20 feet from home plate, saying I dare you to bunt ... drive one down my throat!!!

The TGFPSP has more spirit than maybe any other team sport. At least it sounds that way. Softball is the only sport where a girls ability to cheer sometimes effects roster decisions. She can't bunt or hit, she is a liability in the field ... but she cheers constantly!

The TGFPSP is playing the game for all the right reasons! SHE LOVES IT! She could hang out at the mall, stay home and watch TV, or spend her summers at the pool. Instead she has a tight schedule with limited free time, hangs out on the practice field with a coach in her face, and spends her summers getting baked on a 105degree field with no shade.

The TGFPSP has her priorities in order: Tournaments, League Games, Team Practices, schoolwork, individual practice and batting cage, family, private softball instruction, church, conditioning, softball camps, boys. (Maybe church comes before the batting cage.) At least on Sundays.

The TGFPSP is diligent and hardworking. She knows you get out of something, what you put into it. She is not the type of kid to take the easy way out! She is competitive, not willing to give up. She learns many valuable lesson during the course of her softball career, like:

The TGFPSP has a lot of fun every summer, enough to make her come back next year regardless of all the sacrifices, the money, the occasional bad coach, drinking water that people have put their hands in, etc.

Lets Play Ball you can stay at Holiday INN for $15 bucks a night if you are willing to go 4 to a room.
hotels don't monitor pool usage, and you can go swimming anytime, whether your a registered guest or not.

Continental breakfast means: 3 bowls of cereal, bagel, 2 donuts and 4 glasses of OJ.

Unlike the geographically challenged, softball girls know how to get from home to every field in a 25 mile radius.

At one time, she looked cute as a button, dressed in pink with pony tails. She played with dolls, helped mom bake cookies, and has probably earned a few bucks baby-sitting. She has been, and always will be daddy's (mom's) little girl.

Source: Softball Joe

The Art of Slap Hitting

The Art of Slap Hitting
by J. Cox - Fastpitch Softball Bat

Slap hitting is often used by batters who are fast runners. Often times this batter is a lefty, which can give her an even better chance of getting on base. This technique is often used against pitchers who are difficult to get hits against, it gives you a chance to get the ball in play.

The ability to be a slap hitter, isn't just something you can do without practice. Just like any other softball skill, the more you practice, the better you can do it.

Sometimes slap hitting is used to advance base runners. When this is the primary goal, the ball is often hit away from the base runner, down the first base line for example, to get a runner from second to third base. If the goal is to get yourself on first, then the goal might be to bounce the ball, or slap it to an area of the field least defended.

In general terms, slap hitting is basically hitting the ball, at the same time getting a jump towards running to first base. The end result is the ball is usually hit with a half swing, or a running swing.

The runner must remain in the batters box throughout the entire swing, so timing becomes very important. But if you can master this skill it can be quite helpful in getting a good jump to first base.

If a player becomes a good slap hitter it can become a great weapon for the team. You will be valuable as a player who can advance runner, and get on base yourself.

J Cox runs Fastpitch Softball Bat, a site that find bargains for the fastpitch athlete.