Pre-Game Softball Hitting Warm-Up
I've got a bit of ranting to do today.
There is a key principle that we use extensively in sport- the principle of specificity.
Basically, it means that the more specific to game conditions your preparation is (in training or in warm-ups), the more you'll be ready to compete at the highest level.
In other words, it's important that your preparation mimics as closely as possible what you'll have to do in competition.
Easy principle to understand.
We all know that hitting is difficult and challenging. Therefore, it's even more important that you pay attention at how you prepare for it.
What does a hitter has to do in a game to do well?
It has to track the ball coming from the pitcher's mound and adjust to variable speed, location and movement.
Your preparation MUST reflect that.
Now, I see all kinds of crazy stuff being done by done by teams before game that are far from warming up the tracking and adjusting ability of hitters. Some of these things are:
1) Use of a pitching machine - the worst! It doesn't train your batters to adjust to variable speed, location or movements.
2) Side toss rapid fire swings - how in the hell doing cardio hitting is going helping a kid prepare to track a ball coming from in front of them?
3) General side toss - I'm definitely not a big fan for 2 reasons: (1) many kids try to jack the ball up in the air as far as they
can and not focusing on proper line-drive mechanics, and (2) the ball doesn't come from the right perspective.
I am not saying you shouldn't do side toss stuff in a pre-game warm-up, I am just saying that because the ball is coming sideways, it doesn't prepare the hitter properly or optimally from a tracking and adjusting to various pitches.
Instead, you should do some form of front toss whether live pitching with a coach, front toss from 20-25 feet from behind a net, or just plain front toss with whiffle balls.
Front toss is specific. You can use a few other warm-up exercises like tee work, bunting, or even some side toss but make sure you have some form on front toss to help your batters properly.
One more thing: focus on quality swings, not on the quantity!
Be as specific as possible and your team will be ready to compete.
Who loves ya? 
Marc
"Your Softball Peak Performance Coach"
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Comments on Pre-Game Softball Hitting Warm-Up »
I am now coaching younger kids , do u a combination of , wiffle balls bunting and hitting , and us a hit stick like and tee then moving at differnt speeds and getting them to keep there hands back and having fast hands . If we have the room will live pitch
Well, I'm glad someone else has finally said it! Usually, its just me ranting about use of poor "training principles" which actually undo hitters. I concur with your thoughts as indicated below.
Apparently the principle of specificity in training is easy to understand - but hard to implement for some. To me, this one principle applies to pre-game AND practices, if coaches want to breed success.
— I'll take a dollar for every HS coach who swears by the pitching machine to "get in your cuts" but has a crummy team batting avg.
—– the practice of using pre-game rapid fire side-toss & side-toss in general before games, really tick me off. I've observed over 15 years now how the repetitive use of these drills has taken many kids with fairly good swing mechanics, or those in the process of acquiring proper swing mechanics, and plummeted their batting averages and confidence.
Over the years, I have been called upon many times to re-work a good player's hitting mechanics during their HS season because they are experiencing a severe hitting slump. 9 times out of 10, the player has been fed a steady dose of "soft toss" (from the side) and pitching machine BP during HS practices. This regimen created bad habits (mostly, looking for the ball too late in the hitting zones —see side toss). But each time, after some focused work and reinforcement, using front toss, live pitching and hitting zone drills, each and every kid responded with much better results in their next game. And parents report back the HS coach's comment "what did you do with little Sally this weekend, she looks great!"
Well, breaking the habit, if caught early is easier than having the kid play all spring and summer with the same ignorant side-toss approach. And if the player has been trained from an early age under these flawed practice regimens, it becomes much more difficult to re-train them for success later.
—the rapid-fire thing never made any sense to me in pre-game. Why would you want to fatigue players before a performance?
—Look at the professional baseball model for in-season hitting maintainence (mechanics and timing) and you'll see live pitching BP before games; in increments of 8-10 swings per round; but nobody is feeding a pitching machine on the field. These players know timing is king, and the game situation does not include two large rubber tires and a ball chute.
The prevalence at the higher levels of front-toss vs side-toss is also demonstrative of value specificity in training….as practicing the tracking of the ball into the hitting areas, regardless of speed, provides for muscle memory in the player's swing mechanics.
Keep up the good work.
I would agree that front toss is ideal, but the reality is that sometimes there is little or no space to warm up especially for travel ball. In High School and College you can count on at least having half the outfield to warm up. In travel ball many times the field is in use prior to your game, only 5 minutes is allowed between games, and the surrounding area may not have a cage and our open area large enough to accommodate front toss with even wiffles. That's why god invented pop up nets and side toss. So don't throw side toss under the bus. In addition to that it's not as easy for a beginning coach to throw underhand front toss as it is for a beginning coach to do the same for baseball. If warming up your girls involves hitting them with every fourth pitch your only getting them ready to duck dive and dodge, not hit.
I like to use a combination of both front toss with the foam balls and small golf whiffles. We also use side toss as well so that they can get the feel of the game ball coming off the bat. I am starting to believe in more of the front toss looking to possibly get 2 shrot rounds in before a game instead of the side toss. Side toss however is something that the girls can easliy do with each other where front toss at times can be a challenge for some of them to throw decent pitches. Are there any other good pregame warm ups out there that can help these girls be successful at the plate I would love to know.
We use a front tennis ball bounce drill in our pre-game along with front toss and tee work. It gives our hitters the opportunity to hit a smaller ball, wait on an off speed pitch, hit through the middle of the ball, and work on contact points.
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Re:RP~ you lost me when you stated "Baseball". The problem is there are too many folks still thinking this is baseball and believing that the two are the same. It's not. The baseball comparisons have to stop. Yes, I too have found myself doing soft toss prior to games. Is it the best? No, of course not. In a perfect world, we would have 30 minutes in a cage with a screen to throw some BP but that is not always the case. We have to do the best we can with what is available. The options sometimes are soft toss or nothing? Which would you say is better? I have tried both and honestly did not see the difference either way. Our preparation was doe at practice and the "focus" is done in the on-deck circle.
Can you really tell me that 10-15 balls prior to a game is going to make that much of a difference if you failed to hit the 200-300 balls the week prior? Make your focus be the weeks and months prior to competition and your pregame warm up can take a back seat. Prior to competition, get your mental focus. Moreover, prior to an at bat.
Re:RP~ you lost me when you stated "Baseball". The problem is there are too many folks still thinking this is baseball and believing that the two are the same. It's not. The baseball comparisons have to stop. Yes, I too have found myself doing soft toss prior to games. Is it the best? No, of course not. In a perfect world, we would have 30 minutes in a cage with a screen to throw some BP but that is not always the case. We have to do the best we can with what is available. The options sometimes are soft toss or nothing? Which would you say is better? I have tried both and honestly did not see the difference either way. Our preparation was done at practice and the "focus" is done in the on-deck circle.
Can you really tell me that 10-15 balls prior to a game is going to make that much of a difference if you failed to hit the 200-300 balls the week prior? Make your focus be the weeks and months prior to competition and your pregame warm up can take a back seat. Prior to competition, get your mental focus. Moreover, prior to an at bat.
Coach in Houston,
Yes soft toss is better than nothing. We managed to squeeze in front toss with wiffles before every game and had the top hitting team in our area at our age level(14U). We usually had two stations of front toss whiffles, one station side toss and one station of front toss real balls(bunts only). IF pressed for time, personel, or space side toss was always the first thing we dumped.
The problem with side toss is that players can in general choose the height they want to hit the ball at by waiting or timing their swing to make contact at that height. You can force high and low swings by changing where and how you toss, but to some extent the batter still has the opportunity to choose contact height. Add to that that your not getting the benefit of tracking the ball coming in from the correct angle and there are some valid reasons why you should make the effort to do front toss where possible.
Its been my experience that many kids can be taught the mechanics of a proper swing, but far fewer are taught to make the adjustments to actually hit. You see them all the time killing a pitching a machine and then striking out time after time unless a pitcher happens to throw the ball into their swing path. Unfortunately tee work and soft toss can further reinforce the lack of ability to make adjustment unless someone is really forcing the issue( changing tee heights, etc ). Many times I've seen a coach adjust a tee to a different height because a kid was struggling to hit at a tee that was low, high, inside, outside then both coach and student are pleased when the correct position is dialed in and good contact occurs. Is a pitcher going to make that adjustment for them as well? There are mechanics involved in making good adjustments to hit balls at different places. Tee work is a great way to teach your body how to hit balls that are inside/outside/high/low, but the final piece of the puzzle is training your eyes and hands to communicate where that ball is going to come into your zone and it happens on a level below conscious control and needs to be reinforced by repetition and the better the simulation the better the practice. For that reason I think front toss is substantially better than side toss.
I agree that you aren't changing a kid with 15 minutes of pregame warm up hitting for that game, but we played 105 games, thats over 26 hours of hitting practice in pregame over the course of a year and I think it does matter over time what you work on and how you work on it.