Resources

In this week's episode of Fastpitch TV, Gary Leland talks about the NFCA convention, what the NFCA is, and why you should join if you haven't already.

Watch More Fastpitch TV

In this episode of Fastpitch TV, Jennie Ritter talks about the Q Sport, what the basic idea of the Q Sport is, what it tells you about player ability, how it helps softball players improve their game, and more.

Does your team need more speed, power, quickness, bat speed and agility? If so, you are probably looking for a good softball specific training program. We have a high performance softball training program specially designed for travel ball and high school teams that requires little equipment for an affordable price. To order, click here

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RECOVERY AND REGENERATION
Ice Therapy
by Laurel J. Freeman

Ice, anyone? Ice isn't just for cold drinks. In the past eight to 10 years, many studies have shown the benefits of ice as therapy. Here are the answers to some common ice-related questions.

What does ice do?

Ice is one of the simplest, safest, and most effective self care techniques for injury, pain, or discomfort in muscles and joints. Ice will decrease muscle spasms, pain, and inflammation to bone and soft tissue. You can use ice initially at the site of discomfort, pain, or injury. You can also apply ice in later stages for rehabilitation of injuries or chronic (long-term) problems.
During an initial injury, tissue damage can cause uncontrolled swelling. This swelling can increase the damage of the initial injury and delay the healing time. If you use ice immediately, you will reduce the amount of swelling. Ice decreases all of these: swelling, tissue damage, blood clot formation, inflammation, muscle spasms, and pain. At the same time, the ice enhances the flow of nutrients into the area, aids in the removal of metabolites (waste products), increases strength, and promotes healing. This "ice effect" is not related to age, sex, or circumference of the injured area.

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Yes, it's hard to believe we're already in the thick of tryout season. All the comfort of knowing what the days ahead will look like is gone, replaced by that feeling in the pit of your stomach over all the uncertainty that will be dominating your thoughts for the next week or two.

That feeling applies to both players and coaches, by the way. For the players it's obvious, especially if you're trying out for a new team.

Suddenly you're being judged and evaluated by a group of strangers who don't know your track record. You have to perform right here, right now if you want to be selected. It can be very nerve-wracking, which doesn't help your performance any.

Yet it can also be stressful for coaches. You can look at all the skills you want, but it doesn't answer how a player will perform in a game situation, what type of teammate she will be, how high maintenance her parents will be, what kind of game knowledge she has, etc.

I hope you're enjoying all the giveaways we're bringing you this summer.  While we've done one for Got Bustos gear, an Insider Bat, and Ringor Cleats, we haven't really done one for Softball Performance.

Well, today we're going to change that!

Get $100 worth of softball training resources you need to raise your game to the next level.

• Throw harder
• Hit farther
• Run faster
• Increase your pitching speed
• Get more hits
• Earn more playing time
• and help your team win more games!

From DVDs to Pitching Books to Coaching Resources to Hitting Audios and more, Softball Performance helps you become more dominant on the diamond.

If you win this $100 Softball Performance Giveaway, you'll get to buy products from the following list:

When you first twitter, it can be a bit tricky to get started.  One of the things that helps is finding some great people to follow so you can interact with them.  I have 3 great tips for you to find and start following some really great softball tweeps so that you can have lots of softball fun on twitter.

The first thing you need to do is open a new tab in your browser right now and sign in to twitter. Once you're logged in you can check out these great ways to follow softball people on twitter.

Make Use of Softball Lists on Twitter

The cool thing about twitter lists is that you can simply "follow" the list and you will begin seeing updates from everyone on that list in your twitter feed.  This saves you a lot of time because, without lists, you'd have to go to each persons twitter page individually and click on the following button.  Here are two softball lists you may be interested in.

Stacie's College Softball List - Stacie created a twitter list of college softball players, conferences, and programs.  Click here to see this list.  Once you are there simply click on the green "follow" button.

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Saw this quote from Michael Crichton today and couldn't help but think about what we do at Discuss Fastpitch:

"Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had."

Change the word "scientists" to "softball experts" and you can see why I'm including it here.

Seeing differing opinions can get rough sometimes. It's tough for those seeking information to help themselves, their teams or their daughters to know who to believe when opinions and suggestions seem to oppose one another.

It can really be tough to read when those opinions are expressed with a fervor you would normally expect to be reserved for religion or politics rather than how to hit or pitch a ball. Yet it's those differences that help us all advance the level of our knowledge.

How do you know who's right? Here's the simple answer: no one is right, at least 100%. Different people have different things that have worked for them. Mostly, they are shades of the same color.

Here's a free softball workout just for you.  It's fun, short and sweet, and will really get your heart pumping if you do it right (that means go as hard as YOU can!)

• you don't need any equipment
• you can do it in a relatively small amount space
• you can do it with friends or teammates all at the same time

Remember, just because you don't have access to a gym doesn't mean you can't get a good softball workout in (Softball Team Training is proof of that).  But I'm going to show you once again that you CAN improve your strength, power, and fitness for softball even if you don't have a track, gym, or weight lifting equipment.

It's now Day 11 of the 10th Anniversary Softball Performance Tour and I have a very useful free resource for you:

College Recruiting Tips for making it to the next level.

These articles are all free and they will give you some insight into the very exciting, yet sometimes overwhelming journey of the college recruiting process.

Read the free articles HERE.

I also received word that some of you didn't receive the message for Day 10 of the tour. Day 10 covered a fun coaching resource called Softball Coaching Essentials from A to Z.

It's a free 18 page report that shares 26 (A to Z) tips for softball coaches.

Download it at no cost HERE.

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Previous Stops Along the Softball Performance 10th Anniversary Tour

You may not realize it, but this year is SoftballPerformance.com's 10th Anniversary! So much has happened and changed over the past 10 years and Softball Performance is no longer just a single website, but rather a full network of useful softball websites designed to help you raise your game to the next level!

Over the past few months we have been working very hard to put together even more quality resources for you. Because the network has expanded and changed so much, and because we have recently added a number of new things, for the next few weeks, we are going to take you by the hand and give you a tour of the latest and greatest resources available to you in the Softball Performance Network.

Whether you are ready to make use of the new tools right now or not, you'll at least have a good idea what's there for you when the time comes.

Today will begin the first stop on our tour. It's actually a brand new site that I really think you'll like.

Just a quick note today to let you know about a free Sports Nutrition Webinar taking place TONIGHT!

In this webinar, nutrition expert Jeff Cavaliere is going to share 5 very simple, yet important, nutrition truths that can help you increase your overall performance and energy level.

Being someone who never paid attention to nutrition until recently, I can understand if you're wondering whether it really makes a difference or not.  I'm here to tell you that it DOES!

Last year while shaping up (after having 5 kids) I finally started consciously trying to make better nutritional choices and I was very surprised at how much it affected my performance.  Actually, I didn't really notice until one day, after weeks of eating healthier, I slacked off and had a fast food meal for lunch.  Not only did my stomach protest, I just felt plain slow and sluggish during my workout that afternoon.

I couldn't believe how much having that "junk food" before my workout made such a big difference in my energy level for the rest of the day and more importantly during my workout that day. (Man that was a tough one!)

One very common problem among softball players and teams is throwing arm pain.  This was actually a topic of conversation recently over at Ohio Fastpitch Connection and of the posters there shared a throwing video done by Marc (which you'll also be able to see toward the end of this post).

Sometimes you see players throw the ball and you just know that their arm must give them grief because it's quite obvious that they're doing it wrong.  However, there are lots of times when I see some of the "best on the team" with the "strongest arms" also get arm pain because they aren't doing it right either.

Unfortunately, these players' mechanics are often overlooked because the end result (a strong, sizzling throw) looks so "good" that their parents and coaches forget to look at the process (or mechanics) they are using to throw the ball.  So I often see lots of good softball players with "great" arms experiencing arm pain half way through the season because of poor throwing mechanics.  They can "get away" with these poor throwing mechanics, so to speak, because of arm strength.  However, sooner or later it all catches up with them and hurts them (literally) and their team.

There are many softball programs out there who do not have access to a weight training facility.  There are also many parents out there who want to help their child get more fit and ready to play softball, but don't really have access to a gym or weight lifting equipment.  Often times people think that you need a gym in order to get into top shape.

This couldn't be further from the truth!

I have been able to get into pretty great shape myself without visiting a gym in years.

Does it take some equipment? Yes, but nothing overwhelming.  I've used some light dumbbells, a stability ball, and some resistance bands.  Other people throw in a medicine ball for additional training options.  All of these items you can find a your local sporting goods store.

I realize that having to guy them all at once can be costly, but you can start small.  You don't need to have everything in order to improve your fitness level.  You can also look through local classifieds for used items.  So many people buy exercise equipment, then never use it, or use it or a short while, then give up on it (you know that's true!).

This is a bit of a follow up to the recent post on college recruiting. I received some interested messages via e-mail after that post and there were also some very good points made in the comments section by readers.

One of the big questions that came through after that post was…

"We've already contact college coaches, but still don't have any communication going with them. What else can we do?"

or

"My daughter goes to recruiting camps and showcases, but there still doesn't seem to be interest. What else can we do?"

This brings me to 2 critical things you need to remember when it comes to "getting noticed."

1. I call the attempt to get noticed "marketing." Why? Because it's just like marketing or sales. What you are really doing is "marketing" your student-athlete. The thing to remember is, and anyone in sales knows this and will tell you this, you will hear NO way more than you hear yes.

Therefore, in addition to everything else college recruiting is, it's also a numbers game. Just like any other type of sales and marketing, the more you put in, the more you get out. The more people you reach and get the word to, chances are, the more responses you have.

We often compare baseball to softball and try to find differences.

Have you ever noticed that a major difference between male baseball payers and female softball players is…

…their ability to dive head first?

While most young boys on a baseball team will fearlessly dive head first, very few young ladies on a travel ball team can do the same.

Can anybody explain this to me?

Are boys less fearful?

Are girls too scared?

Some might pretend it's a "female anatomy
thing" and I won't argue this as I can't
relate.

Others will say it's dangerous.

Whatever.

I will admit - I used to think that only "naturals" (i.e. very athletic girls) could ever learn to slide head first.

However, I quickly changed my mind last year.

I now know that any female can learn to dive  head first fairly quickly and easily.

I've seen it happened before my own eyes.

My friend and instructor Dalton Ruer is a baserunning and short-game specialist.

He's mastered the art of getting young girls getting past their deepest fears and teach them  how to dive head first safely and effectively in a matter of minutes!

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="164" caption="Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) are essential for good health and optimal performance"][/caption]

We all think fat is bad for us. It's true for certain types of fat. However, there are other types of fat (EFA's or Essential Fatty Acids) that are good for you. In fact, they are essential for good health and optimal performance.

Young female softball players need these good types of fats. Some of the benefits for softball players for getting enough of EFAs (good fats) are:

• Increases brain function and decision-making
• Improves mood
• Speeds up recovery time
• Maintains joint and connective tissue
• Reduces PMS symptoms
• Helps maintain a good level of muscle-repair
• Other health benefits (decreases risk of cardiovascular disease and of cancers, etc.)

Good sources of good essential fatty acids (EFAs or good fats) are:

1. Fish oil
2. Nuts
3. Avocados
4. Vegetable oil
5. Supplements

For the best EFA supplement, I definitely recommend EFA Icon by Prograde Sports Nutrition.  The supplement is an extract from Antartic krill that is highly unsaturated (very healthy!) and been shown to be one of the best EFA source on the planet (much more powerful than all other EFA sources).

One of major problems in youth softball in North America is our short-term focus when it comes to softball training for young players.

For example,in the 12U category, we are thinking about winning  tournaments, dominate the opponents, going to Nationals, etc. rather than to focus on building fundamental skills and thinking about the long-term development of the kids we work with.

We tend to forget that 12U is far from being the "be all and end all" of softball. It's rather just an "early developmental stage"  in the career of a softball player.

One of the topic I'm really passionate about talent development and what it takes to help athletes achieve their full potential.

I've studied this stuff a lot over the last 10 years and it has become one of my specialties.

My final major paper for my Master's Degree was on the long-term development of elite softball players. I also did study talent  development as part of my doctoral studies and coaching certification courses.

Based on my expertise on the subject, I've been part of a committee with Softball Canada that has been working over the last few years to put together the "Long-Term Player Development Guide for Softball  in Canada".

If you're like me, you have 2000 passwords (barely an exaggeration) for your all your online sites whether email accounts, bank accounts, profiles on social networks, etc.

It would be easy (yet not very safe) to have the exact same login name and password for every site and account that you own. The problem is that in most cases, you are required to use a variation of different number of letters and numbers

How do you keep track and manage all of those passwords?  There are many options… notebooks, excel files, word documents, etc.

The other pain in the a** is that you have to type your login name and password every time your want to access your info, account, email, etc.  This ends up taking a lot of time.

For the past year, I have used a little software that has been literally a huge time-saver in my life.  It's actually the best small investment I have made in the last year.  They have a free version (limits of 10 passwords). The PRO version is something like $30 but it is totally worth it - trust me.

Super Easy Password Management

Core training is currently a hot topic in sports and for a reason - it can really help your game if you train it well or it can really hurt it if it is weak or not trained properly.

My good friend Barry Lovelace is known as the "King of Core" because of his unbelievable knowledge of core training and how innovative he is with it. He is the creator of Core Power for Baseball system (yes, it's good for softball too! I have checked it and I love it!).

As a softball peak performance coach, I get asked training questions all the time and many of them are about core training.  So, I thought I would asked the most frequently asked questions about core training to Barry so you could hear from someone else who know a lot of that topic.

Barry kindly took the time to answer my questions. Here are his answer to the most F.A.Q. about core training:

Barry also decided to give all of you a special deal on his best-seller Core Power for Baseball.  Just click on the link and you'll get a great deal!  However, the deal is only good until Sunday May 17th!