Winter practices and training

[Longlivefastpitch03]

Looking for thoughts on winter practices. What is too much and too little? I know some coaches who go to the extreme on both sides!

 

[crystlemc]

DD 's team has optional hitting once per week and a team practice once or twice a month. However, we have girls who live several hours away and are 16u, so the girls are expected to work regularly at home. At this age, and at the higher levels, it is a lot less instructional and a lot more refinement. I think, if you are a team with local kids, kids who need more instruction, and play a mostly local schedule, once or twice a week is fine. Any more than that is overkill, especially if your players are taking private instruction.

 

[chixdad]

DD's team practices at least once a week, and many of them get together one other time during the week to work on things, a big advantage to being with a club that has access to a nice building. She has friends on other teams that haven't done anything since Christmas, that would drive her crazy. I think the girls need to be together once in a while, for bonding if nothing else.

 

[bigdaddyo1972]

DD's team practices at least once a week, and many of them get together one other time during the week to work on things, a big advantage to being with a club that has access to a nice building. She has friends on other teams that haven't done anything since Christmas, that would drive her crazy. I think the girls need to be together once in a while, for bonding if nothing else.

We just stopped our winter pratices so the girls can work out with their schools teams without any scheduling conflicks we were doing two nights a week. chixdad speaking of bonding? Ours is a new team some of these girls have know each other for awhile cause they played Rec. ball together but some of our new girls don't know them every well outside of softball. We have a fun day for the girls once a month laser tag, go carts, movie night at coaches house ect....

 

[fastjay]

we practice twice per week year round except for taking august off. we take major holidays off if they fall on a practice day. if it's during tournament season in the summer, we go once per week.

 

[fastjay]

we practice twice per week year round except for taking august off. we take major holidays off if they fall on a practice day. if it's during tournament season in the summer, we go once per week. we're 13U.

 

[classicpride]

Starting to be more and more girls dropping out at 13U, 14U, 15U. When I ask them why - "it's too much", "It goes year round", "We never get any time off" And these are good players some of which who play no other sports.

I have always worked them hard in the summer as in every weekend and then mildly in the fall with mostly Sunday friendlies and given them the winter off to work on their own and we have been very successful over the years at a fairly high level.

 

[longball00]

Our team practices 2-3 times a month. With everyone being from all over, that is good. We have a group that lives close to each other that meets once a week for an hour to work on their own, plus hitting/pitching with their own instructors. Come spring/summer, everyone works on their own and meet up on weekends to play. It works very well for us.

 

[initfor51]

We practice once a week. It's not about over kill of too many practices, but what you do during the practices. Indoor especially can get really boring for them. I have been introducing one new drill a week to them. We go over the ones from the past and then introduce a new one. It makes us laugh when we stumble and they work together to figure out how to do it and watch each other.Indoor practices is all about bonding. Every one of my girls goes to a different school.

We now only have two weeks left until I have to give them up to the high school teams so now they get to choose which ones out of the 15 that they want to work on.

If you keep teaching and doing the same drills every week-then they will get muscle memory bored. Continue introducing things that you don't may not fair very well, but something they they want to work on. We also mix in scrimmages. We keep it light and fun and do teachable moments right away.

 

[wow]

Different ages different stuff.. Older 14U and up who play varsity, its limited to when they are not doing high school stuff. Summer is 3X per week plus turnys. Fall is usually a fall league with 2X a week practice. Winter ball is with HS then spring with HS. Younger ages are 2-3X per week after Jan 1 until Aug. Off Aug, fall turney and fall ball until end of Oct then off Nov and Dec. We do a ton of tee work, soft toss, and fielding one on one at home.

Everyone's got a different plan.

 

[BulldawgsDirector]

At 18U, we did 8 practices since fall- 4 indoor, 4 outdoor and an indoor 1 day tournament. At this age group it is as much about gelling and team bonding as anything. Basically 1-2 times per month before they are cut loose for HS season. They can be easily burnt out at this age but we just keep them sharp and teach some things. The real practices start as they are eliminated from OHSAA tournaments. Then we will get 7 good hard practices in before summer tourney time. I really like fall ball at the younger ages, not so much at 18U. I think from my experience our pace keeps them engaged and energized for summer. Year round is too much, 6 months off is not enough IMHO.