Kid Hitters: Stop Swinging Softly

www.TheRisingFastball.com

A horrible habit for kid hitters - swinging softly - is being reinforced every day across America at our youth baseball fields. This horrible habit is forming because kids are smart. They've learned that the best way to get positive feedback and avoid shame and embarrassment when they are hitting is to "put the ball in play." And they've learned that the best way to put the ball in play is to shorten their swing, and "play pepper" with the ball. By swinging softly and making contact, they help their team win, make themselves (and their parents) feel good, and give themselves a chance to run the bases, score runs, and have fun. Sadly, this "swinging softly" epidemic is creating a generation of hitters who just don't swing the bat properly, and are hurting their chances of success in the future.

If you've watched a couple youth baseball games, you'll notice very quickly that the team who regularly puts the ball in play usually wins. This is simply because defense is hard, and most youth baseball teams have high amounts of mental mistakes on defense, low fielding percentages, and poor defensive range. Thus, teams win more often when they consistently make contact and put the ball in play. And with youth baseball becoming more competitive, more organized, and more result-oriented, kid hitters are naturally feeling the pressure to do the things it takes to help their team win.

Hitting is not only one of the hardest feats in sports, it's also perhaps the most nerve wracking. Everyone is watching you. Everyone is pulling for you. Everyone is relying on you. So the last thing you want to do is let them down. You learn very quickly that to make yourself, your teammates, your coaches, and your parents happy, you should put the ball in play and give your team a chance to score. Don't swing and miss. Don't strikeout. Put the ball in play, get on base, and make something happen. At whatever cost -  even if it means swinging softly and beating out a 12 hopper. And heck, by the time you score and reach the dugout, you're getting high fives and fist pumps and nobody remembers that you reached base by squibbing a ball past the pitcher's mound.

Look, it's not a bad thing that kid hitters are adapting to competition. They are developing new ways to win. They are honing skills (bat control, hand-eye coordination, plate discipline, etc.) that not only help their teams win now, but will help them earn playing time for years to come. The problem is that by focusing on helping their team and getting on base at any cost, kids are actually retarding their hitting development and hurting their chance for real success down the line.

The number one hitting skill kids must develop is how to swing the bat quickly, and ironically, youth baseball leagues are killing this skill. Dumbing down hitting with science proves the importance of bat speed; the better your bat speed, the better the ball will travel when hit. The dilemma comes from the fact that when kids swing quickly, they miss more pitches. And although it's good for the kid to swing quickly, it's not always good for their team.

Some will argue that the first thing you must teach to kids is bat control - not bat speed - because contact becomes before power. Although it's true that contact must happen to create power, kids should be focusing on developing bat speed (i.e. power) before bat control, because that is the harder skill to develop and the rarer skill to find. This is just like pitching or baserunning; developing arm speed and running speed is more important for kids than developing pitching control or baserunning smarts, because velocity and speed are harder to develop and harder to find.

Like arm speed and sprinting speed, increasing a youth player's bat speed is difficult because kids struggle with controlling their muscles and increasing the pace at which their bodies work. Thus to improve their fast-twitch muscles, kids must constantly practice going "full speed", and intentionally work on improving their arm speed, running speed, or bat speed. Unfortunately working on these skills not only takes a lot of time, but can actually cause kids to take a step back or two when in competition. Like a pitcher who starts throwing harder but loses control for a few outings, hitters who increase their bat speed may lose some of their bat control for a period of time.

But here's the fact of the matter... high school, college and professional coaches know it's a lot harder to improve a player's power at the plate than it is to teach them a little bat control. Coaches would rather have hitters who come to them swinging quickly and hitting with power. They can teach these players to back off a bit with two strikes, or on a hit and run, so that their contact rate increases. This is similar to power pitchers. Coaches (and scouts) would rather have power arms in their program, because they can more easily teach command and control. It's much more difficult to add hitting power and pitching velocity once kids become adults.

So start now and tell your sons, students, and players to stop swinging softly. And start teaching them to swing quickly. Use a radar gun to measure the exit speed of balls hit off their bat. Use a swing speed device to measure their bat speed. Use tee drills, soft-toss drills, and self-toss drills to force kids to increase their bat speed. Use creative ways to encourage swinging quickly and discourage the horrible habit of swinging softly. Record their bat speeds and reward their progress. Stop focusing on results (batting averages, on-base percentages, wins, runs scored, etc.) and start focusing on creating bat speed. Mechanics will come. Runs will come. Wins will come. And when kids stop swinging softly and start swinging quickly, success will most definitely come.

-- Ben Campopiano

Youth Pitching: Natural is Better

www.TheRisingFastball.com

Our main goal for young pitchers is to get them to let loose, attack the zone, and pitch the ball in a way that feels natural and comfortable to them. In order to help them do this, we must keep things extremely simple, ask them questions and repeat ideas over and over. We must also realize that every player’s body and arm works differently, so we can’t make “cookie-cutter” pitchers. In fact, we prefer unique deliveries and styles. Remember that for youth players, the name of the game is throwing fastballs for strikes. If we can get kids to repeat their motion and throw the ball freely for strikes, then we have succeeded. However, it’s even hard for advanced players to throw strikes consistently, so in order to practice this skill, we must work on the player's feel for picking up a target and throwing through that target without thinking about it every step of the way.

Young players want to please coaches and this can often get in the way of them doing what feels comfortable for them. We want them to take the things we demonstrate or suggest and adapt it for their body and arm. The more they feel comfortable with their mechanics, the more likely they will be able to repeat them and throw consistent strikes. Ask questions instead of making commands. Demonstrate mechanics and let them see the pitching motion instead of trying to explain everything verbally. Kids are usually visual learners so just commanding them to do something is rarely effective and can often be confusing and counterproductive.

Whether it's using a fork properly, riding a bike, or building a Lego castle, young kids learn by doing. So stop talking so much, let them learn to pitch by throwing and pitching. Let them experience successes, feel their failures and adjust their bodies and arms accordingly. Ask them questions and voice simple observations and reminders. Stop trying to make them a robot who looks exactly like someone you saw pitch ten days ago or ten years ago. Encourage their efforts and focus on the process of development, instead of worrying about every rep, every pitch, every ball or strike.

Finally, no young player is going to be a good pitcher if they don't love to throw the baseball. Let kids hurl baseballs over fences, into garbage cans, against walls, and towards targets. Allow them to let loose by using a radar gun to test their velocity and a plastic stand-in hitter to practice their control. Encourage young players to "let their arm go" and throw with reckless abandon. Encourage them to change their thought process from "controlling" the ball to "attacking" the zone. Challenge them to let their body naturally start and stop their arm instead of using their mind to mechanically rotate it through the throwing motion. Too many kids deliberately raise their arms, throw the ball, and stop their arm. They are trying to push the ball into the zone as if they are throwing a dart into a balloon. We want kids to pitch like they are trying to throw a tennis ball through their garage door. Freely. Loosely. And with total reckless abandon.

When kids throw without the fear of controlling it, pushing it, or aiming it, they will actually throw more strikes and feel more comfortable with their mechanics, delivery, and motion. Like a golfer who attacks the ball is more successful then a golfer who decelerates to the ball, pitchers are more successful when their arm is working in an attack mode. It may seem as though slowing their arm down and focusing more on each part of the throwing process would help command and control, but it doesn't. Letting the arm work without fearing negative results (hits, HBPs, walks, etc), will allow young players to not only throw harder, but pitch to their target more often than not. Test it out by talking less, demonstrating more, and encouraging a free and natural pitching motion.


-- Ben Campopiano

5 Easy Ways To Improve Your Sports Camp

www.TheRisingFastball.com

There's many ways to improve your sports camp. You can buy an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) for emergencies, install portable video camera for security, hire professional athletes to speak to the campers, and feed every kid a filet mignon at lunch. Or you can make some improvements that are a bit more easy to implement. Here's 5:

1. Make parents show photo ID

You can never be too careful when it comes to protecting your campers and keeping them safe and secure. With divorce rates and restraining orders through the roof, it's imperative that you're not letting your campers go home with just anybody they recognize. The fact is that not all parents are created equal and it's your responsibility to ensure campers go home with the right person.

In your registration, include a field for guardians to list a few other authorized adults to pick-up their child in the event that they cannot be there. Then, at pick-up time everyday, have each camper wait with their coach until a parent or authorized adult listed on the registration form shows their photo ID and signs the child out of camp. Trust me, it's worth the extra paperwork and ten minutes of time.

2. Add your camp to Yelp

Yelp is not just for restaurants anymore. By including your sports camp on Yelp, you are not just giving parents an easy way to learn about your camp, you are also giving them a chance to voice their feedback. You can even add a discount on Yelp and encourage parents to rate and review your camp so that other potential customers begin to get a better feel for how you do business.

While on the subject of online advertising, you may want to take a few hours each month to search for online directories, calendars, blogs and magazines, that enable you to freely post info about your camp and link to your website. This process can be time consuming, but it certainly can't hurt, and I've definitely had traffic driven to my site from some of these obscure online resources.

3. Use duct tape for name tags

One of the best practices your coaches and counselors can do is learn the camper's names. However, when there are a hundred kids running around with the same color shirt on, this can be difficult to do. So use name tags. And instead of using the stick-on tags you buy at Target, get yourself 10 different colors of duct tape (yes, they now make duct tape in different colors) and go to town.

Each day have your staff put the kid's name (or preferably a nickname - kids love nicknames), on the duct tape and have them slap it on their t-shirt. It will stay on their shirt through 110 degree heat, head first slides, and a run or two through the sprinklers. Plus, you can make the tag any size so the names are actually readable. Differentiate age groups or teams using the different colors of duct tape; this will allow you to better organize and track players. People - especially kids - love being called by their name, and using duct tape as name tags makes it fun, easy, and practical to do.

4. Give out trading cards like candy

When a large group of kids get together, it's not always easy to get them to pay attention. For that matter, sometimes it's hard to get a kid to pay attention if you and him are the only people left on earth. So use tangible rewards to encourage eye contact, listening, sitting still, and learning. We use baseball cards. They are cheap and easy to get, kids love collecting them, and they help us teach the game and improve our player's attention spans.

When directions are being given, we give a card or two to the campers who did an exceptional job "looking, listening, and learning" the entire time. When kids are asked to be silent, we reward the two or three kids who focused the fastest. Using cards as rewards has worked so well that we now pass them out like candy for kids who hustle, are good teammates, encourage others, eat fruits and vegetables, answer trivia questions, or show a positive attitude.

5. Send parents a nightly e-mail

Just like you want to know what is going on at your child's school, camp parents want to know what made their kids come home excited, exhausted, and dirty. And they can only get so much info from your website or their child's memory. So each night, e-mail parents a brief recap of camp, a preview for tomorrow, a reminder or two, and a picture from the day.

By e-mailing parents a recap/preview of camp every night, you are also giving yourself an opportunity to communicate with parents about other things. You can mention future camps, Yelp deals, website updates, staff improvements, etc. Basically, you are passing out free public relations in a way that parents love. It works. Do it. Trust me. Parents. Love. It.



-- Ben Campopiano