Exercises to Increase Fast Pitch Softball Pitching Speed

Exercises to Increase Fast Pitch Softball Pitching Speed
By guest author: Marc Dagenais

Pitching speed is something you can never have too much of as a pitcher. It's true that pitching wins championships and you always want to throw with fire at your opposition. Softball pitching drills that increase speed are usually the fastball type of drills and in this article are several of those. So, if you want to become a flame thrower then work with these following drills and you will see that the amount of speed on your pitches is certainly becoming a lot higher.

Drill 1 - Arm-Speed Development

Purpose: To learn the feeling of arm speed and to develop acceleration through the arm circle.

Procedure: The pitcher works alone on her arm circle. The drill has two parts.

- The pitcher stands in a sideways pitching position with the stride leg forward and the pitching arm above the head at the top of the circle. She moves the arm around in a perfect circle as fast as she can to get the feel of high arm speed. She keeps the arm totally relaxed, as loose as a noodle.

- The pitcher then focuses on building acceleration through the circle. Still sideways, she begins with the pitching arm at waist level. The pitcher focuses on lifting the arm in a relaxed manner and increasing the speed of the arm by accelerating on the downswing with a whip-like action. The arm is extended (elbow relaxed) to create the biggest arc and lever possible. The longer the lever, the more force it can produce.

Drill 2 - No Stride

Purpose: To promote proper ball release and speed.

Procedure: The pitcher delivers a ball to a partner without using a forward stride. The partner can be another pitcher, so this is a good warm-up drill. The stride foot is even with the pivot foot. The pitcher pitches the ball using good hip rotation, a strong snap of the wrist, and a good follow-through, focusing on proper hip and arm mechanics. Pitchers should be aware of the danger of not rotating the hips and then throwing only with the arm.

Drill 3 - Speed Pitching

Purpose: To develop speed while throwing to a catcher.

Procedure: The pitcher works with a catcher, concentrating on exploding off the mound and attempting to throw each pitch a little harder.

Drill 4 - Wall Pitching

Purpose: To develop speed without worrying about accuracy

Procedure: The pitcher stands 10 to 15 feet from a wall and throws hard, focusing on mechanics and the feeling of throwing the ball hard. The repeated impact will soften a ball before long, so the pitcher should use the same ball. Don't use a rubber ball that lacks seams because the pitcher must be able to grip the ball properly. An advantage of this kind of practice is that pitchers can do it on their own at any time,

Marc Dagenais is a softball peak performance coach that provides softball tips, softball drills, and information on techniques for hitting, pitching, coaching, and training through his blog at http://www.softballperformance.com/blog

He also helps softball players and coaches improves their game by sharing with them the tips and strategies used by the world's best softball players and coaches to achieve extraordinary performances. You can sign-up to get his FREE Softball Tips at http://www.softballperformance.com/softball-tips.html. Go Sign-up Now!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marc_Dagenais

========================
Thanks to our sponsors:






SoftballrUs.com/FastpitchSoftballSupply.com is the ultimate online fastpitch softball online store. SoftballrUs.com has Batting Trainers,Pitching Training, Training Bats,Defensive Training Equipment,Coaching DVDs & Books, Softball Pitching Machines, Softball Complete Net & Frame Batting Cage Packages, Batting Cage Nets, Protective Practice Screens and Nets, and BatAction Hitting Machines, and much, much more. Visit Softballrus.com now!

Team Improvements Through the Use of Fastpitch Softball Drills

Team Improvements Through the Use of Fastpitch Softball Drills
By guest author: Troy A Phillips

The quality of your fastpitch softball drills is directly related to your teams ability to perform under a large diversity of in game situations. When coupled with repetition they can prepare your team for whatever challenge they face come game time.

All too often a new team is thrown into a game unprepared for the well oiled team of veterans. This has been known to place the whole group into a loosing mentality. They feel as if they are not as high a quality athletes as the winning team.

Nothing could be further from the truth in most cases. If they had only been given access to easy to implement fastpitch softball drills the feelings of inferiority could have been avoided.

Now I won't go so far as to tell you this is always the solution to the problem. The work ethic of the whole team has to be taken into consideration. This goes for the coaches and assistant, as well as the players.

In twenty plus years of coaching I have saw a lot of games lost because of coaching mistakes. I will not insult your intelligence by trying to convince you that I have never been the reason for a loss.

It is a good idea that all team staff be kept up to speed and on the same page.

This is extremely important when implementing fastpitch softball drills. Nothing spells confusion like a head coach saying one thing and an assistant telling the team something else. A quick team conference is usually a good idea before starting any type of whole team exercise.

Get to practice early and set up anything needed ahead of time. Set things up so that every player gets even time in each station. Any time a drill can be completed at a fast pace it can take some of conditioning's allotted practice time. Going into practice with a strict plan can mean the difference in getting everything needed completed and having to choose between being unprepared or running practice over. With the schedules for practice field time being an issue for almost all teams, unprepared is the usual result.

As you can see, a lot of different variables goes into running a well versed team. With proper communication, planning and the right resources, your team can be the ones that are smiling from ear to ear when it comes trophy time.

Speaking of resources, Make sure that all the information you use is set up and designed for fastpitch. All too often someone has took a standard baseball drill and changed he to she. Proper fastpitch softball drills are designed to work on specific parts of the game that are not related to any other sport.

This game is not a watered down version of baseball. Use game specific fastpitch softball drills and see your team improve dramatically ! That's all we deal with at http://www.bestfastpitchdrills.com/fastpitchsoftballdrills.

Troy Phillips

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Troy_A_Phillips

========================
Thanks to our sponsors:

www.BatAction.com



---BatAction Machine at CoachesBest.com
---BatActionMachine on Ebay.com
---BatAction Machine Video Clips
---BatAction Trainer - 15 Reasons Why You Must Own This Machine
---Message to Parents From Coach Nick
---If you are looking for BatAction Replacement Balls or Power Bands Click Here

Fastpitch Hitting - Swing Like "the Best in the World"

Fastpitch Hitting - Swing Like "the Best in the World"
By guest author: Joe M White

Many people who follow fastpitch softball consider Jessica Mendoza to be the best all-around player, and best overall hitter in the world over the past several years.

Mendoza can do it all at the plate. She is a great bunter, a very effective slap hitter, and hits away for a very high batting average and with terrific power. In fact, baseball fans can compare Mendoza side-by-side with most any major league baseball hall-of-famer, and see that they swing the way she does.

Although Mendoza isn't the first fastpitch player to adopt a Rotational swing, she does it at least as well as anyone who's ever played. More and more fastpitch players are turning to her method of hitting. Increasingly, Division 1 college coaches are converting their players to Rotational hitting (for example, Mike Candera, Head Coach at the University of Arizona, whose teams have won 6 College World Series National Championships, is teaching a peculiar variation of Rotational hitting).

While softball players can continue to have success using the Linear method of hitting, there are reasons for the shift to Rotational.

A Very Short History

Many in the fastpitch community are under the impression that Rotational is relatively new, and that Linear hitting has always been the norm. Actually, Rotational hitting was introduced to Major League Baseball by Shoeless Joe Jackson in the early 20th century, and after Babe Ruth copied Jackson's method, it became the swing of about 95% of Major Leaguers until the introduction of synthetic turf on many Major League fields from the 1960's to the 1990's.

Those early synthetic turf fields were nearly as hard as concrete. Major League batting coaches quickly realized that ground balls hit on it moved so fast, that many balls that were routine ground outs on natural fields were hits on 'turf. Many that would have been outfield singles bounced so hard they became doubles or even triples. So many began to teach Linear hitting to their weaker hitters. And in many cases it worked.

(Most of the Big Leaguers who hit over.300 in those years, and nearly all the RBI and Home Run leaders, continued to be Rotational hitters. As synthetic turf disappeared from the Major Leagues, so did Linear hitting. There are very few nowadays, and although many still use Linear terms to describe their swing, they actually use Rotational swings.)

The increasing use of Linear hitting in MLB coincided with the introduction of lightweight aluminum and composite bats. These bats were not only much lighter than wood -- and so could be swung much faster -- they also had more "pop." The ball came off the bat harder and faster, so grounders hit with metal or composite bats got past infielders more often than with the old wood bats.

While MLB rejected Non-wood bats, they were quickly adopted by youth baseball leagues, middle and high schools, and the NCAA. Along with the bats, coaches at all these levels began to teach Linear hitting. Boys and young men who might have struggled with heavy wood bats became good or even above average hitters by using aluminum/composite bats and Linear hitting.

During all this, fastpitch softball experienced a rebirth as a game for women and girls. Fastpitch softball was originally played with wood bats, and Rotational hitting was the dominant method for both women and men playing the game. In fact, relatively few women played fastpitch until the 1970's.

As young ladies took up the game, they used aluminum and composite bats, for the same reason their male counterparts were. Most of their coaches were men -- dads -- who were enthusiastically embracing the cutting-edge Linear hitting movement. So most ladies learned Linear hitting, which tends to create more grounders as we'll see.

Linear Versus Rotational

So what's the difference between Linear and Rotational hitting? Andy Collins has a pretty good definition of Linear hitting: "Linear hitting is a hitting style that has been used for many years in fast pitch softball and by many little league coaches, some high school, college, and even minor league baseball coaches who still prefer this method of hitting instruction.Read more.

===================

Thanks to our sponsors:

Check out these coaching articles at the Softball Coaching Digest:
SoftballCoachingDigest.com
• Articles from the Youth Softball Coaching Clinic Blog
• Articles from the Coaching Fastpitch Softball Pitchers Blog
• Articles from the Coaching Fastpitch Softball Hitters Blog
• Articles from the Tips for Fastpitch Softball Coaches Blog
• The Fastpitch Softball Training Equipment Blog