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Coach and Player Training

Coach and Player Training Events Schedule

SR. BASEBALL (CONNIE MACK) INDOOR WINTER TRAINING 
Indoor training for all players 13-18 years old is open for business!!  Training is run by the coaches at Intensity and assisted by Doylestown coaches, it has been designed to improve player skills in hitting, pitching, catching, fielding, and fitness/agility. Additionally, age/skill sessions will also be run to focus on teamwork. Training begins January 8th and runs through March. 
• The training is “pay as you go” $20 per session, this is a 50% discount for DAA! 
• You need to register at: www.intensitysportstraining.com and click on “Clinics & Camps – select Doylestown Connie Mack January – February – March 

If you have questions, please contact Tim O’Connor at timo@lemproductsinc.com 

Coach and Player Training

Presented here is a collection of video links to help get your team up and going for the baseball season.  Majority of the links are 2 minutes or less and are meant to provide some quick ideas for effective drills to run during practice.

Practice Tips

  • Take advantage of your volunteers (parents and assistant coaches) and run several drills in parallel with smaller groups.
  • Limit each drill to 5 - 10 minutes as needed.
  • Start practice with some base running drills. This not only gets the kids loose, but makes them better base runners. Practice running through first and running around the bases. Teach good fundamentals like touching the inside corner of the bases and rounding the corners.
  • Make the throwing warm-up repeatable and structured (see throwing drills below). Incorporate fun competitions into practice drills.  Who can catch the most fly balls, most completed throws to 1st base, etc.
  • Find a fun rewarding way to end practice each time. Consider breaking the team into two teams and running a 20 min coach pitch scrimmage.  Mix it up instead of coach pitch hitting team gets one swing at a ball on the tee or soft toss from the side.
  • Use tennis balls for players that are not comfortable catching the ball.  It is much easier to teach proper technique when the kids are not afraid to get hit by a ball.

Throwing

Breaking throwing down by isolating parts of the body is a good way to strengthen proper throwing form.  These videos are good examples of incremental use of the body to develop good throwing mechanics.


Fielding

The most important elements to enforce when running fielding drills include: glove out in front of the body, forming a triangle with the feet, lateral movement to keep in front of the ball, and body motion towards the throwing target. 


First Base Drills


Throwing to First Base


Pitcher Covers First


Relay


Underhand Flip


Hitting

Too many swing thoughts and descriptive words will simply confuse young batters.  What we want to enforce is a good starting posture, simple load - bat pointing to catcher, small timing step towards pitcher and strong swing that begins with an explosive hip turn.  Start by encouraging a hard swing and work from there.  Best to avoid traditional sayings like - swing level, back elbow up, etc.  Tee work is a great way to improve a swing but it must be supervised to ensure bad habits are not forming.  Kids love to swing up at a tee thinking that is how to hit a home run.


Pitching

Pitching should be an extension of the good throwing mechanics introduced above.  Pitch from the stretch is a better place to start with the kids. Less starting motion enables them to focus on the pitching / throwing mechanics.  Enforce the use of the rubber to push the body forward to help generate good motion towards the plate.  Most important, focus on the follow-thru of the throw.  Many young pitchers like to release the ball high and limit their follow-through so they can watch the ball.