Help Your Pitcher Maintain Off-Season Gains Into Pre-Season AND Beyond

Hey There Friend!

Has your pitcher been working hard this off-season?

Is her confidence steadily growing as she invests the time and reps to improve things like her foundation, power and spins?

If your pitcher trains like I ask my pitchers to do, she's been spending time learning correct movement patterns with her mechanics; working to improve strength and power AND developing correct, fast spin.

My pitchers have also been doing most of this work up close into a net so that they don't have to worry about RESULTS while they work on improving their PROCESS.

As we get close to the end of off-season training and begin to look towards pre-season, it's important to take some time and focus in on HOW to maintain the gains our pitchers have made.

In the past, has your pitcher worked REALLY hard on improving something during the off-season AND made great progress with it during practice ONLY to go back to her old habits as soon as she starts throwing to her catcher?

If so, you certainly aren't alone!

Some of the most common things I hear from coaches and parents include:

• "She looks great when she practices without a ball but as soon as she starts throwing a ball she goes back to what she used to do!"
• "My pitcher throws much harder in practice than she does during games. She looks completely different out there!"
• "My daughter has perfect spin with her spinner (from 10' away), why doesn't her curve ball move more when she throws it from full distance?"

All of these things are an indication that the new movement pattern they have been working on during practice isn't part of their permanent muscle memory YET!

So, how can we as coaches and parents help them make a better transition from off-season to pre-season and then from pre-season to in-season?

Here's a checklist that I like to use to figure out just how "set" a pitcher's muscle memory is with her MECHANICS AND EFFORT. I use this to determine how they should structure their practice sessions at home:

1. Can she perform the correct movement/effort without a ball?
2. Can she perform the correct movement/effort mixing a pitch WITHOUT a ball followed immediately by a pitch WITH a ball up CLOSE to a net or wall?
3. Can she perform the correct movement/effort mixing ONE pitch WITHOUT a ball followed immediately by 3 pitches in a row WITH a ball up CLOSE to a net or wall?
4. Can she perform the correct movement/effort with a ball up CLOSE to a net or wall?
5. Can she perform the correct movement/effort mixing a pitch WITHOUT a ball followed immediately by a pitch WITH a ball from FULL DISTANCE to a net/wall/catcher?
6. Can she perform the correct movement/effort mixing ONE pitch WITHOUT a ball followed immediately by 3 pitches in a row WITH a ball from FULL DISTANCE to a net/wall/catcher?
7. Can she perform the correct movement/effort with a ball from FULL DISTANCE to a net/wall/catcher?

So, let's say your pitcher is REALLY GOOD up close into a net. Her foundation is strong, effort level is high through step #4 but as soon as she start working from full distance on #5 she begins to revert back to some old habits...

1. That's totally normal! Throwing from full distance is different than throwing close to a net/wall because we can see the RESULTS of the pitch.
2. It just means that your pitcher need to start practicing at #5 now! She's really good at #1-4, so #5 is where her attention should be. Try to keep her focused on her process and NOT the results of the pitch YET!
   
3. Once she can make the correct movement/effort at #5 she gets to move up to #6...make sense?

The FASTEST way to create a new habit that becomes a permanent part of your pitcher's muscle memory is to create a habit of doing short, frequent practice sessions. 

My pitchers that invest in 5-10 minutes of FOCUSED, DAILY practice are able to progress through the checklist MORE QUICKLY than pitchers that practice 3 times a week for 30 minutes! (NOTE: This doesn't mean that the longer workouts aren't important, they absolutely are! It just means that if you are trying to change or create a new movement pattern, the short/daily workouts are the fastest way to do this!)

Once your pitcher can get through #7, start putting a batter in the box.

Once she can do things correctly with a batter in the box, start adding pressure by doing things like targets or counts.

She WILL get it IF the change you are wanting her to make is important to her AND if she trusts and follows a process!

 I would also use a similar checklist with learning a new spin:

1. Can she effortlessly and correctly spin her spinner or a ball up in the air to herself?
2. Can she hold correct spin alternating a spinner & ball from 5' away from her target?
3. Can she hold correct spin alternating a spinner & ball from 10' away from her target?
4. Can she hold correct spin alternating a spinner & ball from 15' away from her target?
5. Can she hold correct spin alternating a spinner & ball from 20' away from her target?

You get the idea...right? Keep slowly adding distance and effort until she is able to hold spin from full distance. This will likely take weeks, months and, in many cases, YEARS to master!

The point is, learning a new skill is HARD.

Good results are rarely immediate.

Pitchers, parents and coaches MUST TRUST THE LEARNING PROCESS and work it!

The LITTLE THINGS are the BIG THINGS when it comes to greatness and there isn't a FAST TRACK to EARNING what comes to other who have done the WORK!

As you and your pitcher continue on the pitching journey you are on, remember:

• Don't give up when things get HARD.
• TRUST your process of learning a skill.
• If you don't HAVE a process of learning a skill, GET ONE! (BTW, I can help you with this one if you need it!)
• Invest in doing FREQUENT, CORRECT reps.
• Your DAILY HABITS matter the MOST.
• Celebrate the LITTLE victories along the way.
• HAVE FUN! You are getting to do what you LOVE and how awesome is that?! ; )

As always my friend, let me know if you have any questions that I may be able to answer for you! I'm here to help! My email: [email protected]!

Have a fabulous week and I will talk to you again soon!

All My BEST,

Myndie