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Fundamentally Flawed
by Dave
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
There is a common mistake many of us make whether we are players, parents or coaches. I call it results-oriented mechanics. It is an easy mistake to make because it is based on positive feedback we get in real games. I've made this mistake as a player, parent and coach. What it boils down to is using improper mechanics because they "feel" better and because they get the desired results. The cost may not be results today but rather results in the future.
Everything we do in sports of all kinds is work on fundamental skills. From the time we first step onto the soccer field, basketball court, softball diamond or any other athletic field, there is a right way and a wrong way to perform certain skills. When girls are first starting their softball careers, coaches take aggressive steps to "correct" errors and instill proper mechanics. I'll leave the discussion about when coaches don't know the proper mechanics for another time. For now, we'll ignore any coaching shortcomings. As girls get older, mechanics are often given less attention because the focus of many coaches, rec, travel ball, etc., is to win games. If a girl gets the desired results, coaches don't usually spend all that much time correcting even obvious errors.
To demonstrate what I'm talking about, let me craft an example from personal experiences. There once was a very young shortstop who was athletically far superior to the others on her teams. She always got a hit, usually an extra-base hit. She fielded anything that came close to her and threw the runner out most of the time. For a while she pitched and because of her strength, she often struck out most of her opponents. She was the rec team or young travel team star player. Her parents basked in the glow of the compliments other parents heaped upon her playing abilities. Everyone knew she was the best player on the team, a natural, and was happy she was on their team rather than the opposent's. Nobody ever corrected this girl after she was about 8. In player drafts, teams would fight over her. At travel tryouts, multiple teams made offers for her to join up. She was a 10U star!
At age 11, she moved up to 12U ball and other girls started catching up to her. Still she was a very good player, if not quite dominant any longer. But you could see the places where her game was breaking down. Her body posture was not particularly great when she fielded balls. Her throwing arm, while still stronger than most, was beginning to drop down to a three quarters or sidearm motion. Her swing had many holes in it. But because she "got results," most coaches wouldn't try to correct her. They were too busy working on the weaker players' skills. Even if a coach did try to correct a fundamental mistake, the girl's parents would get edgy and annoyed. They might go so far as to pull the kid from a team and move to another to avoid the coach who deigned to correct their "star." The girl herself developed a bit of a superior attitude because she knew that she was probably the best on the team and her parents had told her that her coach "doesn't know anything."
The parents never bothered to get the girl any sort of instruction because they believed results speak for themselves. Let those other girls, the ones who can't hit, can't field, and can't throw, waste their money on lessons. Our kid is the best on the team anyways. The natural players will rise to the top. She's a gifted athlete and that's not going to change.
When this girl turned 13, she tried out for a new travel team, a better one than she had ever played for. The girl and her parents were surprised when the team's coaches never called to invite her to the team. They instead joined a lesser team and wrote off the experience with the better team as just one of those things. They felt the coaches of the team were arrogant anyways. They didn't like it when the head coach tried to "change her swing" or told her to get her butt down lower when fielding grounders. They were sort of happy the team never called back.
When the girl tried out for middle school ball, she made the team as a 7th grader. She wouldn't play shortstop but she might play second or get some time in the outfield. After some errors in the field and several swinging strike-outs, she was relegated to the bench. Another girl, one who had played on this girl's team for years, took her place. She wasn't the greatest ballplayer ever to take the field but she did things with far superior fundamental technique than the "star" did.
During her first 14U travel ball season, things started to really fall apart. She continued making errors in the field, couldn't hit worth a darn, and started making throwing errors. Her parents chalked up the breakdwn in the girl's playing ability to physical changes from puberty. Eventually she was moved off of short and into another position. She dropped from third in the batting order to 7th. She didn't get many hits after that. She continued to have trouble in the field.
The girl did better the next year in middle school and travel ball but she never regained her dominant player status. She never again played shortstop. The other girl had supplanted her in that role on both the school and travel teams. The "star" was now a middle of the pack player when she was at her very best. At times, she demostrated such poor ability that she thought about quitting the game. She was better at other sports and softball was becoming a negative experience for her.
When she entered ninth grade, the girl tried out for the high school team. Her parents had hoped years ago that she might make varsity as a freshman. That didn't happen. She wasn't cut but she was placed on the freshman team, played average, and after a time saw somewhat limited action. Th eparents went to the first half dozen games or so and were surprised to see the same girls they had been watching for years starting ahead of their daughter. Whenever oine of these girls made an error, the parents thought to themselves our little star would have made that play. Too bad the coach doesn't see her real abilities. Sometimes, after a game, one of the parents would comment to the daughter that it was too bad they had so and so out at short or third or wherever since she obviously can;t play the position as well as you can. After a time, the girl asked her parents to stop coming to games since, she said, they were making her nervous.
When the girl was in tenth grade, she was on the JV team but didn't see much action. She no longer wanted to play travel ball and got her parents consent to quit it. When she was a junior, she started enjoying the game again. Her classmate who had taken her slot at short was up on varsity so the girl saw her chance, worked really hard, and won the starting JV slot. She played OK and even got a few hits against the inferior pitching. Finally, when she reached twelfth grade, she was placed on the varsity team, though she did not expect to see much action.
In the middle of the varsity season, the girl who was the starting shortstop suffered a bad knee injury. This girl's parents were convinced she would finally get her shot to start a varsity game at short. They encouraged her to make the most of the opportunity and "show everyone" that she was the better polayer all along. At the next game, the parents showed up fully expecting the girl to start at short. That didn't happen. Instead the coach pulled a girl off the freshman team and she was perhaps the best ballplayer the parents had ever seen. She was graceful and fast. Her mechanics were vrtually flawless. The girl batted fifth and drove in several runs with what the father thought was the best swing he had ever seen. It finally occurred to the father that fundamentals do matter, even in a girl's game.
Does this scenario sound at all familiar to you? I have seen pieces of it dozens of times. Often the young girl who makes all the plays and gets all her team's hits at 10U grows into problems later on. Not all such girls have these kinds of problems. Many of them work quite hard and develop proper mechanics. Those who have natural talent and who work like demons are usually the best players in the long run. But those with natural ability who never get correct guidance and never develop the solid fundamentals seldom remain dominant players. The result can be devestating for a young girl accustomed to star status.
So my lesson for the day is whether you (your kid) are the absolute best or worst kid on the 6U, 8U, or 10U team, work fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. Don't allow flaws to become habit even if they don't hurt results in the short run. As a girl move up, the other girls are getting better. Good pitchers will begin to see the holes in your swing and start taking advantage of them to get you out. Mechanical throwing errors will manifest themselves more as your arm gets stronger. Fielding becomes much more difficult when the girls start pounding the balls harder and harder. This is a fundamentals game. Ignore them at your own peril.
The part of a player's game which often gets insufficient attention, or more precisely, is allowed to atrophy most is the swing. If a girl gets hits, folks don't bother her much. She goes to her travel team's twice or thrice weekly practices and does a bunch of ground ball and throwing drills. Then she steps in for her 25 or 50 swings at machine pitched balls. That's just not enough to establish and maintain a quality swing.
The best approach to gaining a better swing is to learn what it should be and then establish the motor memory necessary to always swing properly. he first thing you need to do is learn what a proper swing looks like and how to produce it step by step. Go to a coach or purchase books or videos. It isn't my purpose in this piece to list out the books, videos, etc. you should use so I'm not going to do that. I'm also not going to get into linear vs. rotational here. Decide for yourself what style of hitting you want to use.
I do like anything produced by Charley Lau, Jr. And that will tell you I generally favor a linear approach with modifications. Charley's father was a major league battingcoach and one of the first practitioners of a scientific approach. His site is located here: LauHitting.comif you need some guidance. The bottom line is get yourself some solid hitting mechanics advice in whatever form you can.
If you can, find a place in the basement or garage and put up a blanket or net into which you can hit balls from a tee. Set a schedule under which you will take swings 4 times each week. When you have these sessions, take at least 50 to 100 swings, more if you like. Because you can't see yourself hitting the ball over the fence or past the outfielders, concentrate on just taking a propermechnical swing and hitting the ball true. If somebody with knowledge can watch you swing, tell them what you are working on and have them play coach for you. This may not be a perfect scenario but it beats nothing.
What we are after here is developing good swing mechanics and making sure they are set in stone. Even the top level players perform the ritual of taking hundreds of swings at the tee in order to perfect their swings. You can take the same approach. But if you do this half heartedly, don't focus on mechanics, take just 20 swings per session, or do it once a week, don't expect to get results like the pros.
The same approach to hitting should be used for other aspects of your game. That;s true whether the player in question is a little kid, a travel player in 14U,. a high school starter, or even a college player. This is a sport of fundamentals which rewards repetitious work. If you are working on your infielding skills, learn the proper posture and motions, then practice regularly for extended periods. Make sure somebody can keep your mechanics honest and then listen to them when they correct you.
I suppose what I just wrote is a long winded way of answering the age old question "how do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The answer,of course, is "practice,practice, practice." I'm a firm believer in this for almost all pursuits in life. But I doubt I've ever seen a pursuit or game in which it is more important than fastpitch softball. Well, perhaps it is even more important in golf. I can't stand golf. And, yes, I am terrible at it.Labels: batting practice, coaching, hitting mechanics, parenting, practice, Training
 
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