Resources

I read a lot of stuff to stay up to date with current trends and latest research findings in softball, strength and conditioning, sports psychology, nutrition, sports injuries and so on.

In one of its latest publication, the NSCA (National Strength and Conditioning Association) has a great article on the importance of core training for softball pitchers.

In a nutshell, the authors are explaining that:

1) Instability occurs in the softball pitching motion due to the re-distribution of weight and this can create mechanical problems for pitchers.

At the beginning of the pitch all the weight is on the back leg. Once the lead foot hits the ground the weight shifts and most of it is distributed to the front leg. A weak core will not be able to withstand the pressure and that leads to bad mechanics.

The job of the core muscles is to be strong enough to support the pressure and keep the body stable during the pitching motion and counteract the instability produced by the weight re-distribution producing an efficient and fluid motion.

2) The core is responsible for creating rotational power. A well-trained core allows to put force and power behind each pitch.

We are almost sold-out on the Express 4-minute Workouts for Softball 2-DVD set.

Why so many people have taken advantage of this special?

It's a great deal.

It's the perfect solution to stay or get fit quickly when
you have no time!

Because you get all these benefits when you do the workouts:

- Pitch faster and throw harder
- Swing the bat harder and hit the ball further
- Steal more bases
- Get better jumps off the bases
- Explode out of the batter's box
- Run down more balls in the field
- Be mentally tougher
- Get more extra bases when running
- Develop an athletic body
- And much more…

There are only 11 left right now. They are going fast. So,
you've got to hurry to get your copy!

Express 4-Minute Workouts 2-DVD Set Sale

I've decided to sweeten the deal a bit and also include a
few cool bonuses...

1. In-Season Conditioning Audio Coaching Program

2. How to Deal with Injuries Audio Coaching Program

3. Abs of Steel Workout - great workout to help build
a strong core and abs of steel!

4. Upper Body Power Workout -great workout to help you
build power for hitting and throwing!

WARNING - The Season is around the corner and that's why I've got this super deal for you…

No Time? No Equipment? No Space? No Money? No Problems!

"Give Me 4 Minutes of Your Time Twice A Week and I'll Get You In Great Shape For This Season!"

STOP Making Excuses and Get It Done Quickly and Easily!

** Fast forward to the 5-minute mark to get the scoop on this super deal! **

Express 4-Minute Workouts for Softball - 2 DVD-set!

*Super Deal!*

Get your hands on these 2 amazing DVDs - each DVD features ten express 4-minute workouts (a total of 20 different workouts) using no equipment whatsoever or only a pair of Dummbells!

Can be done anywhere and anytime!

Get in shape and…

1. Pitch faster and throw harder
2. Swing the bat harder and hit the ball further
3. Steal more bases
4. Get better jumps off the bases
5. Explode out of the batter's box
6. Run down more balls in the field
7. Be mentally tougher
8. Get more extra bases when running
9. Develop an athletic body
10. And much more…

As a strength coach and fitness expert, people (including girls playing softball who are always concerned with their look) always ask me, "What snacks can I eat that will help me lose 'this'?

When they say "this" they are pointing to some part of their body that has a bit too much fat for their liking.

Now I think some people are waiting for me to say, "Oh, don't worry, you can eat cookies, chips and candy all you want. Everyone has been lying to you. They actually make you thinner!"

Seriously, sometimes people really do want me to tell them what they WANT to hear.

But, fortunately, some people are serious (and most softball players are) when they ask me that question. They really do want to know some healthy snack options that will help them lose 'this'.

So here's what I tell them:

Raw almonds, walnuts or pecans (Not the roasted variety. And don't even think about the ones with sugar sprinkled on them!)

Fruit or veggies cut up into sticks (Stay away from dipping them into things you know you shouldn't)

Hard boiled eggs

Low-fat cottage cheese

Hummus

Unless you've been living in a cave for the last few years, you know how important core strength is to perform on the softball field.

It helps with hitting power, bat speed, throwing velocity, pitching speed, agility, injury prevention, etc.

In other words, too many benefits to overlook it!

What is the core?

The core is the musculature of the lower trunk which is comprised of all your abdominal, low back and hip muscles.

The core is responsible for transferring power from the lower to the upper body by stabilizing the trunk and generating rotational power.

However, you must stay away from leg raises or a floor-based crunches or sit-ups (or close variations of them) as they only focus on training one abdominal muscle (the “six-pack” muscle) and this muscle doesn’t help in transferring power or generating rotational power.

Any other core exercise is likely to benefit you, especially is the meet the two criteria mentioned above.

To train your core properly, you must integrate into your routine exercises that will (a) involved many muscles of the core and (b) force the trunk to stabilize.

I'm probably working too hard, I have a cold that  just doesn't want to go away. You can picture me walking around with my box of  white tissues. It's actually pretty funny!

People have been laughing and sympathizing with me.

Outside of being a little sick, It's been very busy over here.

We've been filming several new DVDs over the last few days and working on many new projects. You'll the see the results of these efforts in a couple of weeks.

Also, I've also been coaching quite a bit lately.  We've had more and slightly longer practices.

I am taking my 16U team to a tournament in 3 weeks and want them to "feel ready and confident" to compete.

You know that a high percentage of confidence comes from the feeling of being prepared to perform at our best.

I am actually quite happy with the progresses lately.

Several players have improved significantly on various aspects of the game and they're also working harder and developing the work ethic I'm been trying to instill over the past few months.

You know, things are not always easy With a bunch of  15-year-old athletes who weren't used to push themselves and work hard.

Most softball players are now in the off-season. What should you with that time?

1) You recover and regenerate for a few weeks; heal all injuries and recharge the batteries (mentally and physically). Don't jump right away into heavy training if at all possible. Give yourself some time off.

2) Work on the fundamentals - mostly hitting and pitching. These two critical skills need a lot of work and take time to learn, refine and master. It's time to fix some faulty mechanics, learn new pitches, or change your technique.

3) Get in great softball shape. After a few weeks off, pick up  some dumbbells and make sure you start preparing your body for next season. Your goal is to get stronger, faster, more explosive, more flexible, develop more stamina and prevent injuries.

4) Get more functional - look and move more like an athlete. It's a big part of conditioning but it's also improving the little things like your basic posture, your overall body flexibility, working on your muscular imbalances and so on.

And you know the best way to become more functional? Go through a functional dynamic warm-up before each practice, each workout, each training training session.

Over the years, more people have heard about dynamic warm-ups and how important they are. As a result, I've been asked more  and more about them and how to perform them.

So, I've ended up teaching the principles of dynamic warm-ups and  how to perform them to hundreds of softball coaches, players, and  teams in the past 10 years.

Since dynamic warm-ups have become more mainstream in recent years  and that people consider me an authority on the matter, I've also  started to receive tons of requests for a resource for coaches,  players, and teams on how to do and perform softball-specific  dynamic warm-ups.

I resisted doing so for a long time because I had so many other  projects I wanted to complete.

However, after much "arm-twisting" from the softball community,  using my intimate knowledge of the game of softball (which many trainers don't have) and my expertise in performance  enhancement, training and conditioning, I finally went to work and created a brand new dynamic warm-up protocol for softball that any coach, player or team can use to successfully prevent injuries and increase their performance!

And it's now available:

This weekend, I spent part of it at the ballpark watching  games since it was the playoffs of the local elite girls fastpitch league.

There's a coach that I've known quite a few years who reads my emails that came up to me to tell me that all the hype around all that "dynamic stuff" is just B.S. and he doesn't believe in that $&*@.

Now, I know this coach, it's not surprising coming from him. He's very opinionated, close-minded, believes he's always right and when he's not happy with how things are going, he yells and gets mad.

Just as a curiosity, I asked him: "Why do you believe that dynamic warm-ups is just a bunch of B.S.?"

He answered that he's been using static stretching for  25 years for himself and with all the teams he's coached  and he never had any problems.

I replied: "So, if my 83-year old grandma has been a smoker all her life and is still healthy today, I must assume that smoking is good for me right?"

You should have seen the look on his face. I think he got my point and didn't really know what to reply to  this twisted logic. He mumbled something and left.

The olympics are going on. The summer season over.  The off-season has arrived. It's time to get back  to work to increase your strength, power, and  speed for next season.

To give you an incentive to get started NOW and to get  you started with your own customized, softball-specific  workout program - I am running a HUGE OLYMPIC special  on my personalized program design service.

The price is down by almost 50%! The special runs until  sunday midnight but the price will increase every day  at midnight!

This is to make sure YOU take action NOW! Too many people procrastinate way too long to get started with their off-season conditioning!

No more excuses!

Go to…

I want my own, softball-specific workout program!

Train hard. Play hard.

Who loves you?

Marc
"Your Softball Peak Performance Coach"

I've been pretty quiet over the last week because I've  spent all my time watching my girls at the Olympics and  putting the finishing touches to my brand new resource!

I've been telling you for the last 2-3 weeks that I was  cooking something for you - it's ready!

If you are a softball player or the parent of a young  softball who is going to attend tryouts soon, you'll  love this.

It's a Tryouts Peak Performance Kit.

It's designed to help any young softball players prepare themselves to deliver their absolute best performance at  their next tryouts and leave the coaches with a lasting  positive impression!

There is a saying - if you fail to prepare, prepare to  fail. It couldn't be more true for softball tryouts.

Guess what? Most softball players fail to prepare.

And most don't deliver their best performance at tryouts  because they (a) aren't well-prepared, (b) choked  under pressure, and/or (c) don't really know what to expect.

This brand new resource is a blueprint on how to prepare  to perform extremely well at tryouts.

Fore more information, go to:

Tryouts Peak Performance Kit

When you are interested in a topic, you buy just about everything you can find on the topic. Since I am quite interested in softball conditioning, I have bought just about every book, manuals, DVD, and resources I could on strength and conditioning for softball and baseball.

Since softball conditioning is one of my areas of expertise, I often get asked my opinion on various resources on the topic.

As a result, I have decided to do a review of one of the most popular books on the market  for softball training - The Ultimate Guide to Weight Training for Softball.

After months of development and testing - it's finally ready!

My new softball Facebook application is completed and has been officially launched.

The application is call: "Softball Tips and Trivia!" It was developed for all softball fans like you. It gives you the chance to test your knowledge of the game with a super softball trivia and it also provides you with great softball
tips to help you improve your game.

Challenge yourself with our softball trivia. Answer our  questions to find out how much you really know! The questions range from easy to difficult! You can even compete against  your friends and others and see how you rank! You can even  challenge your friends and see how they compare to you!

We also provide you with great softball tips to help  you improve your game. We have hundreds of tips for you  to discover. They are displayed on your profile.

For those of you who have a Facebook account, you can check the application out at:

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=8888958051&ref=s

If you want to add me as a "friend" on facebook, you can do so by using he following email:  marc (at) softballperformance.com

Have you heard of rotational hitting? I certainly do.

You almost have to have lived in a cave not to have heard of the debate between rotational and linear hitting that is  going on in the softball circles (and baseball too).

Don't worry - I'm not getting started on that topic.

However, I just want to mention that those interested in the  debate should definitely check out the softball hitting section of my softball discussion forum.

At the present moment - the thread about Rotational Hitting has more than 174 replies!!! It's definitely something that people are interested in.

For those who are not familiar with http://www.discussfastpitch.com - it's a new discussion froum that was launched 6 weeks ago to promote intelligent and interesting discussions about the game of fastpitch softball.

You're invited to come over and check it out.

On another note, many people contacted us earlier this week to see if they could buy our Bonus Audio CD on successful hitting.

Because of all the requests, we've made it available.  The softball hitting audio program is an interview with Michael Bastian,  International Clinician and Consultant with  Women's Chinese  Olympic Softball Team.

This sale ends in…

Hurry - Click on the Link Below!

Take Me to the Super DVD Sale Right Now

This weekend, I was sitting in the bleachers watching a softball game during a tournament and a man came over and introduced himself.

He recognized the logo of my website on my jacket because he`s an avid reader of this newsletter.

He told me all about his daughter - 5'6, 15 years old, lefty,  throws 54-56 mph, has a decent change, trying to master the  drop and the rise, practices 3 times per week for about an  hour - and he said that he didn't think she had progressed over  the last couple months.

I suggested to him that they should go to a pitching coach.  He said that they can`t really afford it since the season cost  so much so he is sorta becoming a pitching instructor for his daughter reading books and watching tapes on pitching.

After talking to him for a while and questioning him on what he was doing with his daughter, it became clear that he wasn't  doing enough spin work.

I told him that I was pretty sure that's the reason he wasn't seeing much progresses lately.

You MUST practice spinning the ball.

In this podcast, Marc Dagenais, interviews Robert Campbell, publisher of the nation's leading softball magazine - Softball Today. This interview is a follow-up to a previous post about the magazine's great fundraiser for softball teams. The post generated so much interest for the magazine and the fundraiser that Marc invited Robert to be a guest on his podcast. During their interview, Marc grills Robert on the the magazine, their unique bat reviews website and also their great fundraiser.

Here are the podcast's relevant links:

Softball Tips - A Great Fundraising Technique (my previous post about their great fundraiser)

Softball Today Magazine

Bat Reviews

You can listen or download the interview right below.

 

 Podcast #6 - An interview with Robert Campbell of Softball Today Magazine [17:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Last week, I was talking on the phone with Mike, one of my customers whose 16 years old daughter plays short stop  on a very competitive travel team.

Just like many young softball players, she eats, sleeps  and breath's softball and her dream is to play college ball. Her dad totally supports her and is very proud of her (I  could tell listening to him!).

During our conversation, I almost fell off my chair when  he told me how much money he will spend this year just  on softball.

A little over $6000.00!!! Wow! That's a lot of moolah…

That includes team fees, tournaments and travel expenses,  his own hotel and gas (gas alone is getting pretty expensive),  uniform, high-tech bat, cleats, hitting lessons, training  facilities fees, etc. When you add things up, that's one  heck of a bill to play softball which is suppose to be a  highly accessible sport.

Not anymore I guess.

So, I asked him if the team did any king of fundraising or  had sponsors to help off-set the cost of the season.

Someone asks you: "Which bat is the best?"

What's your answer?

What do you based your answer out of?

You can based your answer out of personal experiences, price, bat reputation, endorsements, sporting good store salesperson's recommendations, subjective bat testing, objective bat testing, etc.

To me, it's one tough question to answer. And nobody can agree on the same answer.

Do I have an answer to that question? No I don't.

Do I have a personal preference? Yes I do.

Is it objective? No it's not. It's a subjective choice.

And what makes things worst, there is so much choice now on the market that you can easily get confused.

Would you for…Easton? Louisville? Mizuno? Worth? Anderson? Combat? Mattingly? Miken? or DeMarini?

Which model would you go for?

As you see, it's almost impossible to give an answer without some form of personal bias.

There are just too many variables that you have to take into account and personal preferences and beliefs are heavy influencers of bat choices by softball players.