Softball Pitching Practice Tips

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

Over the weekend, I had a chance to work with one of my high school-age pitching students. She was telling me a little about her high school coach's approach to pitching practice.

What it amounts to is "throw 30 fastballs, 30 changeups, and 30 of another pitch." As a kicker, he also wanted those 90 pitches completed as quickly as possible. My student asked me what I thought about that.

I have to admit to an eye roll. Honestly, I don't understand how a coach with five or six pitchers  of varying ability and experience can prescribe a universal program for all of them. More to the point, unless he gets really lucky I doubt it's going to help any of them.

Since there are essentially two parts to the instruction, let's look at each of them separately, starting with the pitch count. For the sake of this discussion, we'll assume that fastballs will be thrown and that it's ok to do so. Whether a softball pitcher should ever use a fastball is a topic for another day.

Having a set number of each pitch creates a couple of problems, because it focuses on quantity over quality — or having a goal for the practice. A pitcher can easily throw 30 pitches and accomplish nothing. Just chucking the ball at a catcher or wall 30 times gives the illusion of practicing, but not the reality of it.

A pitcher who isn't focused on anything but hitting the number can easily be building bad habits. But let's say she is conscientious about working. Has she set a goal for that particular practice, such as hitting her spots or increasing her leg drive? If so, what happens if she reaches 30 pitches and hasn't accomplished her goal? Doesn't seem like it makes much sense to move, but the coach said 30 and move on so that's what you do.

On the other side, what if she throws three change ups and all work well for her? Should she continue throwing more anyway? Seems like a waste of time to me.

Yes, you can always work on perfecting things, but if you hit your goal in the first few pitches wouldn't it make sense to move on to something else? I will often tell students who successfully throw a particular pitch a few times that we're going to move on, because I can only screw her up from there. Seems to me the time would be better spent on something that requires more work than throwing 30 just for the sake of hitting a number.

Then there's the idea of get through it as quickly as you can. Gee, do you think that's going to breed sloppiness in the approach? Pitching is such an important part of the game. What could the pitcher possibly have to do that's more critical than getting quality practice time in?

Rushing through pitches can actually be counter-productive. As the season nears, the smarter approach is to work at game pace. It's easy for pitchers to get into a particular rhythm during practice — throw it, get it back, throw it right away again. Yet that's not how our sport works. There is a lot of time between pitches in most games. If you can't work successfully at the slower game pace, you're going to struggle on the field.

Finally, rushing through means there isn't a whole lot of thinking going on. Deep or deliberate practice requires thought. It should be more mentally taxing than physical. But if you're sprinting through your pitches, the odds are you won't be engaging your brain and getting better. You'll just be throwing to hit a number.

Again, the better approach is to set goals, and then do whatever it takes to reach those goals. If that means throwing 5 pitches, or 50, so be it. If it means taking an hour instead of a half hour, so be it. As a coach, know what you want your pitchers to be when they're on the field, and then set goals for them that will help them be there.

Players, if you're given those types of instructions smile, nod, say ok, and then set your goals on your own. (Remember it's your career, and your butt on the line if you struggle in games.) You know what you want and need to do. Make sure your practice time is spent getting you there.

Anyway, that's the way I see it.

photo credit: pitcher