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The Myth Of Talent
by Dave
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Talent is described by various dictionaries as something innate, naturally within a person, present at birth. We often view an outstanding athlete or performer and proclaim that they are "gifted." We marvel at the "genetic make-up" of those few talented individuals who stand out from the crowd. But is this not condescension of the highest order? Is this not an excuse for the rest of us, less gifted schlubs who try our hardest but can never hope to rise to these levels?
I recall my first visit to the local softball fields where a couple 8 and 9 year old kids dominated play. Someone told me this or that kid was a gifted athlete. A few talked about how good the local high school teams would be when those couple kids eventually attended the school. I remember coaching an all-star team and hearing one of the coaches marvel at the play of a girl who did things "you just can't teach." For almost my entire life I have heard such absolute tripe spoken by people I once believed were reasonably smart.
Experience is the best teacher and I have to tell you that in my experience these "gifted athletes," who did things "you can't teach," almost invariably fell by the wayside within two to three years. Yes, there is such a thing as natural ability in many pursuits. But if that natural ability is not nurtured and harnessed, it usually disappears down some dead end street. And those with less "gifts" can often rise above their apparent limitations and achieve great things despite the head start given to their peers.
I think it is easiest for me to identify baseball players who are "naturally gifted" mostly because I spend more time watching professional baseball than I do watching those with "natural gifts" in other pursuits. I watch more softball than I do baseball but because the highest levels of baseball are piped into my home every evening, I see more world class baseball than I do softball. Obviously, though, there are parallels.
If I wanted to list the most gifted baseball players on the planet, I suppose I'd have to include Ichiro Suzuki, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodríguez, John Smoltz, Albert Pujols, Chone Figgins, and a few others. Yet, while these folks undeniably have some great gifts, they all are characterized by an incredible work ethic.
Ichiro's father began training his son to be a professional baseball player almost at birth. Sure, he has good hand eye coordination and speed but those attributes were harnessed early and nurtured like a rare orchid. It is impossible to say for certain whether Ichiro would have been such a huge star in Japan or been such a lock to make the Baseball Hall of Fame had his "talents" not been identified and magnified by a father who determined his son would be a baseball start at birth. But I think it is clear to anyone with any amount of experience that the piles of baseball throwaways are filled with extremely talented individuals who just couldn't make it to the big time. Similarly, Jeter, Rodríguez, Smoltz, Pujols, and Figgins are known to work about as hard as anyone on the planet to bring their games up. A-Rod, for one, has this unbelievable agility, speed and strength workout he performs just about every day. He does these things not just to get to the top of his game but because he knows quite well what brought him to this point.
When I think of naturally gifted baseball players, another name pops into my head. That's because the particular individual I think of is probably the least gifted player I have ever seen in the Major Leagues. That would be David Eckstein of the St. Louis Cardinals. You can dispute his natural talents but there are some unavoidable facts. He was 2 for 10 in his first year of college ball - not exactly the sort of stats we expect from the gifted ones. He was no first round draft pick either. In fact, he was taken in the 17th round in 1997. That makes him about the 600th best baseball player in his last year of college baseball. That makes him about as likely to make it to the bigs as you or me.
Eckstein stands at 5 foot 7 inches (allegedly!), weighs a little more than my 13 year old daughter, when he has weights in his pockets and is otherwise soaking wet, has what would best be described as a minus arm, and isn't apparently strong enough to hit the ball out of the infield. Yet his career stats do not lie. At 32 years of age, he has been a starting shortstop (where we usually find the most "gifted athletes") for 7 straight seasons. His career batting average stands at .286 and it has been steadily rising this past couple of years. He hit .309 this year with 23 doubles. In a career spanning almost one thousand games, he has made less than 100 errors for a career fielding percentage of .978. That's comparable to Jeter, José Reyes, Orlando Cabrera, and most of the other "gifted" shortstops in MLB.
When I was a wee lad, there were any number of kids who were identified as "naturally gifted" athletes. I recall one in particular from my kindergarten days. He was about half the size of the rest of us but, man, was he quick. He was also far more coordinated than the rest of us. He beat everyone in my class in foot races by seconds no matter how short the race. As we moved onto the ball field for 8U, 10U, etc. baseball, his coordination made him a better hitter, pitcher and fielder than the rest of us. He was an impact player at 10. Yet, as we aged, he couldn't hit the ball as hard or far as other players. As the rest of us grew stronger and perfected our throwing mechanics, his arm became average and then minus. He was always a good ball player but his "gifted" status waned. A few kids developed incredible physical attributes as we aged yet the one player who stands out among that particular crowd was a kid of average height, strength and coordination who almost always seemed to be playing sports. Far more important than his "natural talents" were his will to compete and the drive to succeed. He honed his skills daily and, before long, the approach overcame any physical shortcomings or lack of talent he had.
Moving back to those early days as a parent of kids playing their first years of softball, I am thinking of a number of kids who were identified as gifted when they were 8, 9, or 10 years old. That girl who "moved in ways you cannot teach" was on one of my kid's teams a few years ago. She wasn't on the team with my kid of the same age but rather a team which included my younger. My younger kid is almost twpo full years younger than this girl. The coach lamented that he had trouble inding a spot for this kid in the field. She apparently missed everything hit to her. He stuck her behind the plate because she is, after all, such a natural athlete and nobody else was willing to catch my under aged daughter because she "threw too hard." After an inning behind the plate, she begged to be moved anywhere else. I can;t say that I blamed her. She missed about half the called strikes. When she was unlucky enough to catch the ball, it hurt her hand. So somebody else was identified to be catcher and this girl played about half or less of each game because there was nowhere to hide her in the field. They had wanted to get her into the batting order but after a while that notion faded because she couldn;t hit worth beans.
Another girl who was a "truly gifted athlete" came to my 12U travel tryouts. I took her out of hand because I had this relationship with her parents and they wanted her to play for me. That relationship has soured and they wouldn't put her on my team if it was the last available place today but I'm getting ahead of myself. The gifted athlete, I was told by her parents and some others, is a shortstop. They also told me, "she is a very good general infielder so she should be able to play anywhere." I took that at face value and then we began to practice. She was not partiocularly quiock and her mechanics were not very good. She didn't charge grounders no matter how softly hit. Her arm was weak and her throwing method was improper. I tried to work these things out but the kid was not very coachable. I found her speed and fielding instincts more suitable for the outfield so that;s where I put her. After our first tournament, the parents called me to discuss why I hadn't played her more in the infield. Tha conversation took hours! At a later tournament, I decided to prove my point more directly. Our shortstop was off on vacation so I put this kid at short for the whole tournament. In 4 games, I thinbk she made 16 errors which cost us dearly. After that I think I would have had a mutiny if I ever put her out at short again. And the parents never brought up the subject again.
Several months later, when our team had disbanded and everyone was doing the tryout thing, I saw her at a good team's workout. She was taking balls at short again. But there were two or three other girls doing likewise. And all of the others had obviously been working at their craft. The gifted athlete was shown up by every other shortstop at the tryout. She was asked to join the team based on some things she did at the plate at tryouts (she batted maybe .150 for our entire season) but the only way she'll be playing short for them is if the other girls do not join the team. So much for the gifted natural athlete who is not coachable and chooses not to work hard because she is confident in her gifts.
Next I move on to visit the childhood of another person. This girl almost died from spinal meningitis before she even went to school. She couldn't walk for a year afterwards. She lost most of her vision, most of her sense of balance, and all of her hearing to the disease. She didn't speak for several years. Her parents put her into sports for some sort of recreation. They were not interested in raising a star softball player. &nbs[p; Their aspirations were limited to some day in the future when she might be able to walk like other children. I have great difficulty coming up with an individual against whom the deck has been stacked so severely.
Natural talent? I don't think so. Yet this girl is presently off at a Division I college on a full softball ride. The college team historically is in the top 10 or 20 teams in the nation. The coach has been an Olympic coach in years past. This girl earned her slot as one of the nation's premiere pitchers and that spot had little to do with "natural talent." Everthing she has accomplished in her life has to do with overcoming incredible obstacles. Nothing has been given her except for loving, caring parents who wanted her to push beyond the obvious barriers. This kid learned the value of hard work while trying to overcome an inability to walk. The lessons carried, much later, into pitching instruction and practice. She became a world class pitcher not because of natural gifts unless you count the infirmities she suffered through as gifts.
Well, I guess I better rap this up. The point I want you to walk away with is talent is a myth for armchair athletes and an excuse for those of us who think we don't have any. It is easy to shrug off hard work when there doesn't seem to be an achievable goal. For those who persevere despite setbacks, shortcomings, and an apparent lack of talent, success is the most common result. Ask yourself not whether you, your kid, or the team you are coaching has talent. Ask instead what it is about the game of softball which requires inborn talent. I think you'll see that there is nothing about this sport which lends itself particularly well to the skills human beings can be born with. This is a sport which instead requires and rewards a solid work ethic.
Permanent Link: The Myth Of Talent
 
Training Your Pitcher
by Dave
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Whenever you train for an activity as demanding as windmill pitching, there are a couple of truths about which you should be mindful. For example, some of these are: 1) mechanics are king; 2) you always want to over prepare for the real situation; 3) you want practices to as closely resemble game conditions as possible; 4) the athlete will usually seek the level of exertion which is suited to the total, overall task; and 5) improvement usually comes in leaps not in tiny consistent steps. These truths must color the way we design the individual workout as well as the overall plan of workouts or practices will result in less benefit than we had hoped for.
I don't think there is anyone who would give me an argument that mechanics are absolutely the most important element of pitching. Mechanics are responsible for speed. Given a specific level of physical capability, the only way to increase speed is to use more optimal mechanics. Mechanics are an integral element of control and command. If a pitcher begins missing her mark, usually that is traceable to some sort of breakdown in her pitching mechanics. Ultimately mechanics are the key to better ball movement. Better mechanics are the source of better spin and, therefore, more and more controlled movement. You may be able to generate better speed occassionally by over-exerting. You may be able to occassionally throw a needed strike by abandoning basic mechanics as when a pitcher bends her able and places the ball rather than throwing it. You may get more spin occassionally by altering your mechanics. But in the long run, proper mechanics will give you more speed, better control and better ball movement.
The rigors of an intense practice can cause an athlete to use whatever mechanics make it easier to get through the workout. Early on, proper mechanics are easy to follow as the pitcher is not physically stressed. But as she begins to get more tired, as she sweats hard and the acid builds up in muscles, certain bad habits can emerge as her body naturally tries to seek out an apparently more efficient way in which to complete the workout. This has to be avoided at all costs because the last thing you want to result from a workout is broken mechanics. It will cost you more time and effort to break out of bad habits than it will to establish and maintain them from the get go. Bad mechanics lead to everything from failure to progress to actual injury. The 10U superstar pitcher with poor mechanics will find her speed not moving up along with her peers. A constant use of improper mechanics will lead to shoulder, arm and possibly knee or other injuries from repetitive motion and stress. These sorts of habits are what lead to most non-traumatic sports surgeries. Baseball pitchers generally see a more immediate feedback from improper mechanics because the throwing motion causes more immediate stress to the joints. But softball windmillers need to be just as mindful since they tend to throw longer and more often than their baseball counterparts.
Also, it occurs to me that when a pitcher loses control and begins "walking the world," most often the only way for her to get back in the groove is to get her mechanics back in order. Recently I observed a very good pitcher who lost her control at a national tournament. Ultimately the coach had to pull her for the remainder of the tournament because she just "could not get the ball over." There were wispers that perhaps she just couldn't handle the stress of a national tournament. But this was a big tough, both physically and mentally, kid. She usually thrived in stressful tournament conditions. I just could not imagine her breaking down due to stress. As soon as she went back to her pitching coach, the problem was clearly diagnosed. She was not paying attention to her feet. She was stepping in the wrong place and as soon as that was fixed, she was ready for action again.
Little things can mean a whole lot in this sport especially when we talk about hitters and pitchers. The slightest mechanical breakdown can bring a kid down and completely submerge her confidence. When a windmiller practices, she wants to imrpove her strength and endurance but we need to always remember that mechanics are king. There is no point in practicing if mechanics are put in second or third place behind strength and endurance.
Assuming you have your head in the right place, you have put mechanics first, the next item about which you need to be mindful is you want to over-prepare for the task at hand. If a pitcher wants to be able to do a complete 7 inning game, she needs to prepare to do that by pitching longer than 7 innings.
I was once amazed to discover a pitcher whose practice sessions were generally about half of a game in duration. She began fine enough but as fatigue set in, she did what anyone would do. She began adjusting her mechanics to make it easier to complete the task. As soon as she reached the level of pitches she had prepared for, perhaps a little before that, she began throwing differently. Her control went out the window and the speed dropped. She got through the game but that was primarily driven by the quality (or lack thereof) of the opponent. After several games like this, you could see her mechanics beginning to almost completely break down. It was a sure-fire path to catastrophe.
I am aware that marathon runners cannot prepare to run their distance by running say 30 miles every time out. That is one example, perhaps, where an athlete cannot over-prepare and experience success. But marathons are unique. And whatever a four or five game tournament day feels like, it most certainly is not a marathon. Pitching and playing ball are more like a series of sprints than they are a long-distance run. Sprinters, of course, over-prepare for their races.
The typical quarter mile runner will train by performing a series of quarter mile runs with timed intervals. Then he or she might do a set of longer distances. Perhaps a set of short sprints for explosiveness will be worked in. And the other advanced training techniques will find their way into the workout. But it is important to note that such a runner does not simply limber up, stretch out, run a quarter mile and hit the showers. That's obvious to anyone. But the same principles apply to pitching. You need to figure out how many pitches you need to simulate a warm-up and game, or whatever number of innings you want to pitch is. Then you need to design the practice sessions to address that.
Let's assume that you: 1) throw about 50 pitches (including various drills) in a warm-up; 2) usually throw 15 pitches an inning; and 3) want to be prepared to pitch a complete game of 7 innings. When you practice, you need to start with the notion that the workout should be at least 50 + 7 times 15 or 155 pitches in length. The best approach is to take this 155 pitch example and prepare for real games by doing more than that.
There are a mutitude of reasons a pitcher should over-prepare for the real situation. One important and obvious reason is conditioning. If the pitcher can maintain her peak speed and accuracy through 200 pitches, it stands to reason she should have no trouble maintaining them through 155.
Another important reason a pitcher should over-prepare is what we commonly refer to as mental toughness. Physical toughness often breaks down when we are physically taxed. The super-tough individual who is filled with all sorts of bravado when well rested often experiences a complete breakdown when pushed "to the limits of endurance." We can see many examples of this in many settings. I suppose I see it most often towards the end of a particularly long stretch of tournament games. For example, when I took a team to their first championship final, the team was completely taxed and unable to perform because they had never played that much before. The most they had ever played was 5 games on a cool weekend and that was only once. Having to go 6 games on a very hot weekend turned good ballplayers into an almost completely incompetent team by game 6. The result was a poor showing which belied their true ability.
This brings me to the issue of game situations. It is almost impossible to emulate real game conditions in any sort of practice. There are stresses which come with batting in the last inning when down by a run and the bases loaded with two outs that cannot be simulated. There are other game conditions which must be experienced in games. With pitchers this is more so. For one thing, pitchers usually throw without real batters being present. For another, most pitching sessions are conducted indoors with a moderate temperature, in sneakers, on a smooth mat, etc. There is a need to perform this kind of practice because pitchers need to work on mechanics without other distractions. You can't learn new pitches with real batters trying to hit the ball off you. Indoor facilities are usually more readily available and convenient, especially through the winter months. Indoors usually equates to controlled environment including temperature and lighting - no softball facilities I know of put the temperature to 95 degrees in February in order to simulate real conditions. You can't wear your spikes indoors and most indoor facilities do not have dirt pitching areas.
Whenever possible, what you want to do is put on your spikes and trek out to a real field with all its bumps and holes during the heat of the mid-summer day. That;s not to say you won't benefit from all that time you spend indoors with your pitching instructor but you do need to do some preparation in more realistic conditions or suffer the consequences of an unforseen breakdown brought on by fatigue.
What any pitcher needs to develop is the ability to self-correct mechanical issues during real live situations while physically and mentally fatigued. This can only happen for most individuals once they have already done it. Pitchers and other athletes do a better and better job of self-correcting as they experience more and more actual game situations in which self-correction is needed. We often speak of the need of pitchers to pitch in real games in order to improve. This is an acknowledgement of the exact point I am trying to make. You can practice all you want in a clean, cool, smooth, and friendly environment but as soon as you get out on a hot, bumpy field with nasty hitters who want to win the game coming up against you, things may change quite a bit.
The best analogies I can think of to demonstrate this phenomenon involve public speaking and / or anything else you have to do in front of a crowd. You can practice the speech you have to make to the church group all you want in front of the mirror or to your family. Yet once you get up there and start to speak in front of the real deal, you won't know what to expect. All of a sudden, the blood rushes to your head. You lose your place and can't remember what you said five seconds ago. Everything has changed. You are almost completely uncapable of saying something about which you are expert and which you have said several times every day for the past three weeks while practicing.
I have been told many times by people who earn their living speaking in public that the only way to learn to control yourself when speaking is to do it a lot. I believe the same is true of pitching and all sorts of other athletic endeavors. But we're talking about practice here. The point is practice must as closely resemble the real deal as it possibly can as often as it possibly can.
Another point about this is, if we are talking about pitchers who may have already pitched more than 100 games, is it really necessary for them to worry about game-like situations when they practice. The answer is yes because the more advanced the athlete is, the easier it is for her to develop two personas, one for games and another for practices. We want her to get the most out of practices and the development of a practice persona or a practice approach to practice, the less she'll get out of her non-game throwing sessions. This leads me into my next overall point which is "the athlete will usually seek the level of exertion which is suited to the total, overall task."
There are indicuals out there, I think, who are able to drive themselves more than the rest of us. Maybe that is what differentiates the world class athlete from the rest of us but I doubt it. The reason I doubt this theory is because there are tons of examples of top athletes whose work ethics are challeneged by their teammates, friends, and sports journalists. Not every champion works like a demon. Most have to find motivation to drive themselves in their workouts. Part of the human condition is to seek out less effort for the desired level of return. Because of this natural tendency to find the right level of effort, athletes who engage on a training program need to be pushed to higher and higher levels of physical stress.
Prize fighters often train by themselves. It is an individual sport so they do not have the benefit of a bunch of teammates pushing them as they work their way through some of the best workouts in sport. What they do to address this shortcoming is they hire trainers whose job it is not only to design the progressively harder workouts but also to push the fighter through them. Whole teams are often assembled to keep the fighter motivated. If such teams are not assembled, the fighter looks at his list of "chores" and adjusts his level to complete it. We often refer to such an approach as "dogging it" but it is as natural a phenomenon as any.
Even if an athlete is maybe able to push herself to a level higher than most of us would ever do, she still is not pushing herself as hard as she might. The best swimmers and track stars often train with other athletes in their caliber because they need some sort of competition to push themselves even harder. That doesn't work with pitching because the nature of it is so different than the other sports. But the pitcher needs to be pushed as much as any other atholete to drive herself through workouts.
One of the best ways to motivate a pitcher is through the use of goals. A complete set of goals for anyone should consist of short, medium and long-term goals which are attainable yet require the athlete to reach a bit. Let's say you've got an 11 year old who is currently throwing 40 mph, has decent control, and is working on a change-up. To put a dose of reality into the equation, let's say it is early October and the ultimate goals have to do with the next spring tournament season. The short-term goal might be to reach 150 pitches by December so she'll be able to pitch whole games next season. Medium range goals might be to get the speed to 45, the control 25% better, and the change-up to be a reliable pitch. You can craft whatever metrics you like but the point is, you ought to have something fairly objective which you can measure and present to the young pitcher to show her that her hard work is indeed paying off.
Longer term goals should not be ignored because presumably, even the medium range ones will be attained and then the motivation will quickly evaporate. Say you set your goals on reaching 45 mph, what are you going to do for the rest of the winter if something happens which makes you attain that level in December? That brings up another issue which is that the complete goal set needs to be somewhat flexible. You really do not want to set your goals to high because there is nothing which breaks down motivation as much as the realization that you will never do what it is you set out to do. Similarly, the goals should not be set to low because once the goals are acheived, there's no reason to continue working hard. If the pitcher reaches one of her important goals, another needs to be identified quickly. And that new goal should fit into the structure of the longer-term goals.
Within this goal directed approach to motivation, success can be a decent motivator but failure handled properly can be an even better one. I say "can be" because sometimes it doesn't work that way. It really depends on the age, maturity and personality of the athlete in question. There are no easy answers or guidelines I can give you here. In my personal experience, I have two kids who are apparently very similar. Yet one goes to sleep once a goal has been achieved while the other moves immediately to setting a new goal. The first one is satisfied far too easily. The second probably has personal private goals which she is too embarrassed to tell me about. She may be harboring an eventual bid to try out for TEAM USA and yet recognize that I migyht not believe that is attainable. So she doesn;t share the goal with me and instead sets new, higher goals every time she achieves one of the lower ones. The other kid maybe just wants to do enough to stand out in the short-term. I really can't say what drives these two. But as the key motivator, I have to at least try to push both of them. I need to make sure they always have goals right in front of their face, around the corner and over the big hill looming off in the distance.
These two kids react to success and failure differently. The one who seems to have longer-term aspirations reacts more positively to defeat. She takes it in stride, resets her short-term goals and goes about her business. The less mnotivated one reacts somewhat less positively to failure. Yet she uses success as a majopr driver. More often than not, a very successful outing causes her to want to practice more frequently. A bad outing makes her react by wanting to quit - why practice, what's the use, I'm not very good.
Interstingly, both kids need defeat to motivate them but the amounnt and intensity of defeat have to be managed in order to get them to work at peak effort. As I said, there are no easy answers on this point but you must have goals, you must work to be motivated, and you have to learn to manage defeat and success while adjusting your goals accordingly.
This brings me to my final point concerning approaches to training the pitcher. That point is improvements usually comes in leaps, not in little consistent steps. I think that's true of almost any human endeavor. You study, study, study for the big exam and test yourself over and over. You fail consistently for hours on end. Then, all of a sudden, the stuff begins to stick in your puny little head. Once it begins to stick, learning is easy and you complete your study effort quickly thereafter. The same is true of a young kid learning to ride a bicycle. It is usually 3 feet, fall; 4 feet, fall; 3 feet, fall; 6 feet fall; then ride until the sun sets on the teenage years.
Human beings learn by trying and failing until they attain success. The success at the activity lasts on and on. This is as true for the windmill pitcher as it is for anyone on the fields or sidelines. We've all seen the kid who works like a demon on her hitting but fails every time for games and games, perhaps season after season, until one day she gets a clean, sharp hit. After that initial success, watch out. She'll become the best hitter on the team, the league, or in the universe before long. We've also seen the infielder who struggles to get balls to her right or left. She consistently works drills on this exact problem for weeks on end until one day something clicks and all of a sudden she just gets it. That phenomenon is easy to see in beginners of any sort of activity. It is less easy to discern in more advanced players but it happens nonetheless.
I recall my early days as a swimmer. I swam 100 yards in a pretty slow minute and 13 seconds the first time I raced. I worked hard in practice and the next race saw my time drop to somewhere around a minute 7. That's a six second improvement! There were a couple minor setbacks and then I started to approach 1 minute flat, a seven second jump! When I reached that level I plateaued and stayed there for too long. It became difficult to work hard at practice because payback seemed as if it would never materialize. Then, all of a sudden, one day I burst through the minute mark and found myself around 59 and one tenths seconds. Shortly thereafter, I apporached 58 seconds and hit another plateau. Other advances and plateaus would fill my swimming future and each time I plateaued, I thought maybe this was it, I had reached my limit. In truth, that never happened to me. What I did experience was imcreasingly smaller improvements which occurred suddenly after weeks and weeks of work. As I got better, paybacks were smaller and less frequent but occurred after a lot of effort.
I expect the same is true of world class athletes because, for example, world record holder Michael Phelps continues to set new standards for himself and the rest of the swimming world this year despite having set his first record many years ago. I imagine over the past several years he plateaued and then improved, plateaued then improved. It should have been difficult for him to continue to work since at any time he might have reached a plateau over which he never will triumph. After all, being the fastest person in the world at a particular event is hard to beat. Yet somehow he has worked hard enough to go even faster than that.
I think it is important for pitchers to be aware of the fact that two months of working as hard as you possibly can may not yield a single measurable improvement. Then all of a sudden, a uick jump forward with speed or some other goal is attained and it knocks everyone's socks off. Pitchers of whatever level can often see marked improvements which appear to be the result of a few practices and then not see any benefit to the succeeding 100 workouts. It is difficult to keep oneself motivated in that plateau stretch. Yet, if one is able to maintain the motivation and continue to work hard, the benefits will most likely be there eventually. The ability to embark on a practice plan while not seeing immediate improvement is, I believe, the ultimate mark of the real champion. The best athletes I have known over the years are those who continue to drive themselves despite no obvious benefit.
So, to sum up this little diatribe, pitchers should always concentrate of mechanics, mechanics, mechanics. They should over prepare so the game is actually easier than the practice. In order to accomplish this, real game conditions should be simulated whenever possible. Those relate to being on the field, in cleats, facing real batters, in the midday heat as much as possible. Pitchers and their helpers must drive the pitcher to work harder than she would otherwise, if left to her own natural devices. Goals are an excellent means of motivating the athlete and must be short, medium, and long-term. While in training, the pitcher must be mindful of the fact that improvement will not occur in a smooth, orderly fashion. Sometimes there is no immediate payback for hard work. Yet at these times, the most important improvements are often underway provided that she continues to work hard. Keep these facts of trainign in mind as you proceed along a path of improvement and remember them when you bump into hard times. The measure of the champion has more to do with learning to deal with adversity than it does with success.Labels: pitching
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