Since I had about 30 minutes of driving to do. I decided to call him back right away. Personal phone access to me is one of the privileges you get as a member of the Softball Performance Achievers Club.

On our last conversation about 1 month ago, he wanted some training tips to help his 16U daugther get in great shape for an upcoming tryout with a very competitive travel team.

The team had recently lost a key player and the coach decided to hold a new tryouts early november to fill this vacancy.

I just told him to get my 21-Day Express Shape-Up Softball Workout.

This workout was designed to get softball players in great shape quickly. All you need is 30-minutes per day, 6 days per week for 3 weeks to significantly boost your strength, power, and speed.

He was skeptical about it. I told him that it was normal. I told him to give it a try and if it didn't work for him, that I would fully refund him.

He gave it a try.

Tonight, he called to update me on the results she got following this program.

Her overhead throwing velocity increased from 56 to 58 mph.

Her home-1st time is .11 sec faster than it used to be.

She is able to get lower when she fields the ball when before she had a hard time getting her hips low because of lack of flexibility.

At the tryouts, she hit two rocket shots in left field and she had solid at-bats the whole time.

But he said that the best benefit she got out of it was the fact  that she just felt prepared and strong and that gave her a lot of  self-confidence at the tryouts.

Oh ya.. I almost forgot… she made the team too!

That call made my day!!! I have a huge smile on my face right now

You see, nothing makes me more happy than hearing success stories like this one. That's the reason I am coaching anddoing this kind  of work!

Bottom line, quick workouts do work! Of course, doing a a good softball training program over an extended period of time will give  you even better results but it is possible to see a difference in a short period of time.

IMPORTANT NOTE: this program is also a very good program to get started on the right foot with conditioning. It requires very little equipment and can be done almost anywhere in only 30 minutes.

If you've been thinking for a while about getting a training program, that's definitely a good one to start with.

It's the off-season for a lot of you. Don't wait too long. Get started now with your off-season conditioning and experience great results.

Train hard. Play hard.

Who loves ya?

Marc
"Your Softball Peak Performance Coach"

I've coached and watched a lot of softball games in my life.

A couple of years ago, I even spent an entire summer  scouting (charting pitches, identifying pitching patterns,  measuring speed, etc.) and filming the best pitchers in the world (Finch, Roche, Ueno, Fernandez, etc.) for the Canadian Women's National Team.

One thing that seems to be consistent accross all levels is the difficulty that the majority of batters have hitting  the low inside and outside pitches.

At the younger levels (not talking about 18U Gold or college ball), I strongly believe that if a pitcher keeps the ball  low most of the time and throws strikes on the low corners  (even only using a fastball), she can get easily 80% of  the batters out.

Do you know many teams that carry a lot of of hitters able to consistently hit rockets out of low inside or outside pitches?

I don't.

Most teams may have one or two such hitters - maybe three if they are lucky.

Hitting a low inside or outside pitch (even if it is a strike) solidly is tough and challenging!

As you know, I strongly believe in shifting the odds in your favor.

Think about this for a second…

Most hitters fail at least 70% of the time (less than .300  batting average) at the plate.

The same hitters probably fail at least 85% of the time on low inside or outside pitches for strikes.

What are the odds that 2 or even 3 hitters will line up several hits in a row to score a run if you keep the ball low, throw  strikes and avoid giving up walks?

The odds are very low - especially if your defense can do the job of getting the batters out on easy grounders or lazy pop-ups.

Bottom line - there are two things I want to emphasize:

1) Keep the ball low on the corners. Throw most of them for strikes.

2) Practice keeping the ball low.

Unless you are practicing a rise or a high pitch on purpose,  everything you throw even in a warm-up should always be BELOW the  waist (and knee-high ideally).

I see a lot of pitchers who warm-up and keep throwing everything  high until they get in their full motion. That's a mistake.

Why so? Because you're training the habit of throwing the ball high. Pitching is a matter of timing and consistency of release point.

Start right away learning to throw strikes low inside or  outside consistently on each pitch - even in the warm-up.

To go a step further, I would probably ban anything that is above  the waist - unless it was meant when working with younger pitchers!

Just doing this will quickly help you get most of the batters out!

Imagine when you start mixing them up with change-ups and other moving pitches in addition to keeping the ball low, you can become a very effective pitchers even if you don't throw that hard!

Who loves ya?

Marc
"Your Softball Peak Performance Coach"

They may not have the most power but they basically can do what they want with a bat.

This is a common characteristics of elite hitters - they control their bat.

Working on bat control is certainly not as "fun" or "cool" as working on power but it will definitely help you become a much better hitter.

Working on bat control is about learning to control what you do with your body. The body controls the bat. If you  control your body, you will control your bat.

You have to increase your body awareness (what you do with it) and your overall hand-eye coordination.

You know you've developped very good bat control when…

- You can make quick adjustment to hit a ball thrown to  any location.

- You can hit the ball pretty much anywhere in the field almost at will.

- You can control how hard you hit the ball.

Coaches usually have extremely good bat control in a controlled environment (they aren't facing moving pitches thrown at them)  because they spend all their time doing hitting balls to different  players all over the field -basically doing fungo.

Athletes should definitely spend more time doing "fungo-type"  drills to increase bat control.

However, one of the best drills that I've found to quickly  increase bat control and that mimics facing a real pitchers  is to is to play "pepper" with a pitching machine.

Assuming your regular hitting stance, your goal is to hit a nice  slow grounder to different location (left, center, right) a full but controlled swing (that includes the follow-through too!).

You should swing at 75% of your maximum speed. The key isn't to hit  with power but to hit the ball to the desired location at a moderate speed.

I often tell my athletes to imagine they are hitting a grounder to an 8-year-old girl. Thinking about that puts you in the right mindset where you know you have to hit the ball not too hard and to the desired location.

Again - make sure you use a full swing and that you follow-through.

No half swing. The key is the speed at which you swing and how swing so that the ball does what you want.

This is a tough drill - especially at first. You are very likely to find yourself not being able to do it at all at first.

However, with a bit of work and focus, it doesn't take that much time to master.

And once you master it, you will have much better bat control and be a much better hitter.

Who loves ya?

Marc
"Your Softball Peak Performance Coach"

It was not your traditional fitness testing.

It was what we call a "functional assessment".

They are basically testing and screening the body to see if the body functions properly from an athletic perspective.

They tested for muscular imbalances, postural and alignment problems,  stability and flexibility issues, faulty recruitment patterns, etc.

Each athlete spent a total of 80 minutes individually with a therapist who completed a thorough functional assessment on each of them.

What is the idea behind a functional assessment?

The purpose of this kind of screening is to identify various issues and factors that can lead of overuse injuries (you know the nagging injuries like shoulder and arm tendonitis or knee and back pain that just doesn't go away) or affect performance because the muscles are not functioning optimally.

Bottom line - prevent injuries and optimize performance.

You can compare elite athletes to race cars. To ensure optimum performance and avoid potential breakdowns during competition, a lot of time is spent inspecting the car and tweaking it.

What we did today was the inspection and testing of the car to find  what out what needs to be fixed, adjusted and tweaked to prevent breakdowns and optimize performance.

In 2005, when I took the responsibility of strength and conditioning coach with the Canadian Women's National Team Program, there was a ton of injuries within the group of athletes, most of them were overuse injuries.

After talking to the main team therapist, we agreed that completing a thorough functional assessment on our athletes would be really  helpful to design customized programs with corrective exercises to rectify the situation.

All of our athletes went through a functional assessment and within a year, the number of injuries was drastically reduced to the point that within the last 2 years prior to the Olympics, there was almost no overuse injuries.

Now, not everybody can complete these kinds of assessments. Only highly trained therapists or trainers can perform these.

However, if you are serious about your game, I strongly encourage you to invest in such an assessment. Then, work with the therapist to design a customized corrective exercise program to help you prevent long-term overuse injuries and optimize your performance.

I know - it's never very attractive to invest in prevention.

However, in a sport where we do so many repetitions of the same movement, it's definitely worth it.

Elite athletes and coaches are always looking for the edge over their opponents.

Here's your chance to do something that 99.5% of elite softball players don't do.

That will give you a competitive edge over your opponents and make you a better athlete.

In my case, I know it will make my athletes better, healthier, more dominant performers on the softball field.

I also know that none of our opponents are doing this. And this give us a competitive edge.

Train hard. Play hard.

Who loves ya?

Marc
"Your Softball Peak Performance Coach"

I realize more than ever than kids today want results now.

If it doesn't work right away, it's no good!

Why is that?

They are used to getting everything right away.

They live in a world with…

- Instant chat

- Instant texting

- Instant 24/7 news

- Instant download

- Instant pain relief

- Etc.

Even most of the advertising today for various  products promises quick, if not almost instant results.

Bottom line - young athletes are conditioned to  instant results.

Today's society is losing track that success takes work, effort and time.

There is a quote that says:

"The only place where success comes before work, it's in the dictionary!"

And that's true.

More specifically… LEARNING TAKES TIME!

Learning a new skill or changing a bad habit doesn't happen over night. IT TAKES TIME!

And you need to work at it too.

Here's in a a nutshell how learning works:

At first, when you learn a new way of doing something, your performance doesn't improve, it goes down!

Why? Because you are not used to this new way yet and you are thinking about it.

As a lot of coaches say: "It's not in your muscle memory yet!"

After a while, this new way will become more natural and it's only at this point that you will get better.

You've got to be patient. If you fix your swing mechanics, it will not pay off right away. It will be off in a couple of weeks or even months.

Again, remember this: LEARNING TAKES TIME! And effort. And work.

When you learn something new, of course, it will not work right away and it is very likely to be worse than it was until you  master the new technique!!!

Train hard. Play hard.

Who loves ya?

Marc
"Your Softball Peak Performance Coach"

Softball is somewhat of a complex game.

Yet, to be successful, it comes back to accomplishing a few very simple things.

Doing those simple things will "shift the odds in your favor."

What are these simple things?

Here's my top 10 list of rules to shift the odds in your favor.

1) Pitching - keep the ball low most of the time and on the corners.

How many hitters do you know that can hit an inside or outside low pitches very hard?

2) Pitching - Throw strikes early. Get ahead in the count. Then mix.

3) Avoid walks at almost all cost except in a few situations.

I'm allergic to walks. Most of the time, almost 60-70% come to  score - especially when given early in the inning.

4) Don't give easy bases to any runner, especially to the  trail runner.

5) Always get at least one "sure" out. Lead runner if you can.

The team that gets to 21 out the fastest usually wins.

6) Catchers or any fielder - don't throw if you have almost  no chance to get an out.

The team that makes the least errors usually wins.

7) Swing at strikes and if you are going to swing at a bad pitch -  swing hard.

Even if you are chasing a bad pitch, at least, send a message or  swing hard enough to maybe get a scratch hit out of it instead of a lazy pop-up or weak grounder.

8 ) With two strikes and less than 3 balls - swing at anything that looks like a strike.

I would rather go down fighting and have a chance to hit than get beat without a fight.

9) Be aggressive on the bases. Make the defense work to get you out.

10) Get the sacrifice bunt down in fair territory and don't aim for the lines.

The purpose of the hitter in a sac bunt situation is not to be safe at first. It's the to advance the runner. Too many are trying out to bunt the perfect ball - often along the lines and it rolls in foul territory.

Make sure the ball is in play well inside the lines and just try to  bunt not directly at a fielder to make sure the runner will make it safely to the next base.

Bottom line…

Offensively - Put the ball in play. Swing the ball hard. Run a lot. challenge the defense.

Defensively - Get at least one "sure" out on every play. Avoid walks like the plague in most situations.  Keep the ball low most of the time. Get ahead in the count. Don't get easy bases. Force the opposite team to "earn" their
runs - don't give them to them.

These are somewhat very simple and very basic.

Yet, I see many youth teams forget about it. They often lose focus by focusing too  much on the more advance strategies.

I'm been applying and "really emphazing" these basic rules with my pitchers, catchers, fielders, and hitters very systematically over the years - very successfully.

And at various levels of game from 12U to 23U.

The thing is that you have to always emphasize them until it becomes second nature - even though most of them are very obvious.

Play to shift the odds in your favor and win A LOT more games.

Who loves ya?

Marc
"Your Softball Peak Performance Coach"

Let me rephrase that.

I was working with a terrific young pitcher who was wasting her time swinging the bat - in her mind.

You see, she was coming from a baseball family where pitchers (her dad and brothers are all pitchers) don't hit.

Furthermore, that perception was reinforced by her own coaches who didn't want her to get her hurt to protect their precious jewel the year before.

Mind you - she was 12 years old.

Basically, in her mind, she was no hitter.

However, today, I am not writing about whether pitchers should hit or not - that's not the purpose of this article.

It was just to set the table.

So, why was I working with her on her hitting then?

Because, a SMART coach saw how athletic she was and asked me to spend time with her on her hitting believing she could be a great hitting asset to the team.

I saw the same thing. She could be a good hitter.

Her swing was not good at all but she had all the tools to be a good hitter.

One exception - in her mind - she was not! She didn't see herself as a hitter.

Most of my work with that kid was spent telling her how great of a  hitter she could be and working on having her SEE in the theater of her mind that she was hitting beautiful, game-winning, line-drive doubles and triples.

Of course, I fixed part of her mechanics - easy task with such a natural athlete - but most of the time was spent getting her to believe SHE WAS a hitter.

I spoke to the coach again yesterday. Guess what happened this past summer?

You probably guessed it. She became a great asset to her 12U team finishing the season with a .473 batting average and was considered by the coach her second best hitter.

And she got the MVP because she also threw a bunch of shutouts during the summer.

The lesson here is that you have to BELIEVE and SEE YOURSELF IN YOUR MIND being successful before you can actually be successful on the field.

What is the saying already?

"Yes, we can!"

Who loves ya?

Marc
"Your Softball Peak Performance Coach"

P.S. Remember - you've got to believe that "YES YOU CAN"!

I currently teach nutrition, sports conditioning, and weight training classes.

I've also taught sports psychology and a few other  fitness-related PE classes in the past.

Last week, in one of my nutrition classes, we were doing  our traditional food log analysis.

I asked my students to keep a detailed food and exercise log for a whole week. After that, we input all the data into a popular online tracking software and look at the results.

This is the most significant exercise of the semester as students get to learn a lot about their own eating habits and are often shocked at what they find out!

One of my students is a 6'3", 18-year-old talented female basketball player that plays for the college team.

We were looking at her numbers and what she discovered blew her away.

Her estimated daily caloric expenditure is around 4000 calories which is totally normal for such a tall and active elite athlete of that age.

Her daily caloric intake for that week was around 2600 calories.

That's a 1400-calorie deficit per day! This is huge!

This is really bad news for an elite athlete.

Talking to her, i learned that she is often tired and has a  hard time focusing in class, especially in the afternoon.

And at that time, she had a cold that just wouldn't go away.

Guess what?

All of that might have surprised her but I was not surprised one bit.

This is VERY TYPICAL of student-athletes.

Most of them are so busy with school and training that they don't eat enough.

And a lot of the time, they don't eat well either. 

And then they expect to perform well!

Try to run a car without gas - you will not go too far.

You've got to feed the machine!!! And you've got to feed with good stuff, not crap like highly processed or fast food.

You have to eat more, eat more often, and make better choices more often if you want to perform well.

And guess what - nutrition does play a role in softball, especially when you train regularly and play at a high level.

Here are a few additional nutrition tips for you:

Softball Nutrition Tips

Nutrition Tips for Softball

Eat more. Perform more.

Marc
"Your Softball Peak Performance Coach"

I hear you:

"What the heck is a functional assessment?"

Let me give you an analogy.

When you intend to buy a used car, before you pay for it, you take it to an independent expert mechanic for a full inspection to make sure everything is alright.

A full inspection also helps identify what will need to be replaced or fixed in the near future to to keep the car in good condition and running well.

A functional assessment is like a full car inspection but for the body.

The aim of a functional assessment is to identify what needs "fixing" in the body in order to prevent injuries and optimize performance.

It could be muscular imbalances, faulty muscular recruitment patterns, tightness in certain areas, bad posture, or bad alignment.

All these things can eventually lead to injuries and also hurt your performance because the body is not as efficient as it could be.

I am taking them to see a team of expert trainers who are going to perform individual functional assessment on each of them.

They will probably diagnosed a lot of different things that will need work such as strengthening certain stabilizers muscles, increase flexibility of others,  fixing poor posture or alignment, etc.

From there, I will design an individualized corrective exercise program for each one of my athletes.

Athletes are like race cars. You need to fine tune them to get the most out of them.

Did you know that many of the exercises that are prescribed to athletes for correcting these various problems are found  in my Dynamic Warm-up for Softball System?

We use dynamic warm-ups not only to prevent injuries for the upcoming game, practice or workout but also to train the body to be more athletic and prevent long-term overuse injuries through carefully selected exercises that do fix some of these common problems.

My team goes through the routine that is found in my system and after only 3 weeks since I started working with them, I am already seeing a big improvement!

They are more stable.

They are more solid.

They look more like athletes when they move.

This is pure pleasure to my eyes. That means that my athletes will sustain a lot less injuries and will perform a lot better.

Imagine after 6 months of doing this… in addition to the individualization of their corrective exercise programs, I will have nicely fine tuned race cars!

Just like big storms like Katrina, Injuries do happen.

It's not a matter of if but when. Make sure you are prepare for it and you might not get hit too hard.

Make sure you take preventive action.

Train hard. Play hard.

Marc
"Your Softball Peak Performance Coach"

It's time to:

1) Rest and recover from last season.

2) Heal injuries.

3) Do conditioning to get faster, stronger, more powerful, and
prevent injuries.

4) Work on fundamentals.

In other words, it's time to get better for next season!

Often, people wonder - what should I do more of?

In an ideal world - everything!

In reality, there is just not enough time.

Fundamentals is the most important as softball is a highly technical sport that requires you to master a variety of complex skills.

Within fundamentals, should you more defense (throwing, fielding) or offense(hitting, bunting, etc.)?

My answer is: offense.

Especially if you are in an indoor environment for part of the year because of the winter.

Why?

Because hitting is like golf, it takes A LOT of time to learn, refine, and master. It's even harder than golf because you're hitting a moving object.

Because it's like pitching - you need to work on it for hours to improve a little at a time. To get your mechanics and your timing right.

Of course, you need to work on defense. But you can change the mechanics of fielding and throwing much faster than you can  change the mechanics of hitting.

Pitching and hitting should be the MAIN focus of the off-season.

Then, defense and conditioning are next in line.

If you want a split, I would spent 60-70% of the time on the first two and 30-40% of the time on the next two.

Train hard. Play hard.

Who loves ya?

Marc
"Your Softball Peak Performance Coach"