subject: How Softball Coaches Help Players Improve Their Skills [print this page] Want to know what separates elite softball players from the rest of the pack? It all boils down to the type of skills they have. The better softball skills a player has, the better his or her chances of making it to the elite level.
But not everybody is given the natural ability to run fast, hit the ball hard, and pitch the ball at lightning speeds. So it also helps to have a good softball coach to work with players. A good coach provides the right amount of motivation and guidance to players to help them take their game to the next level.
Softball coaching beyond motivation and guidance
It doesnt end with the motivation and guidance, however. A good softball coach should also know what drills to teach their players during training sessions. Softball drills help develop the skills that softball players need to play the game well. Typical drills focus on the most essential softball skills including batting, running, pitching and catching.
How often these softball drills are performed improve a players chance of success in competitive softball. The reason for this is that the more often players do these drills, the more the skills become second nature to them. And when this happens, their reactions become quicker, the decision-making skills more solid, and their performance more reliable. These things of course make for a player deserving to play at the elite level.
Ensuring the success of softball drills
What players and coaches should remember, though, is that learning these softball drills is a two-way street. Players and coaches should work together well in order to ensure the success the training program.
It begins with the scheduling. The coaches and players should strictly adhere to the training schedule they agreed upon. This ensures that everything goes smoothly according to plan. Aside from that, having a schedule makes things easy to keep track, especially on how a player progresses. The schedule also sets expectations on what both the coach and player should be doing at a certain point in the schedule.
There should also be a particular training plan that the coaches and players must adhere to. Having a training plan makes all the drills and exercises focused on a particular, or several aspects of a players game.
The coach should also remember to keep the drills softball-specific. The reason for this is that only softball-specific training ensures the effectiveness of these drills. All other types of training would only waste both the time of the player and the coach, just as a marathoner would practice for a 42k run by swimming several laps everyday.
All in all, the role of a softball coach can never be discounted when it comes to helping softball players take their game to the next level. A good softball coach will help a player do just that by teaching the player the proper set of softball drills. On top of that, nothing beats softball-specific drills when it comes to helping a player improve his or her game. And again, only a good softball coach can deliver that.
