Often a girl will come to a lesson who is struggling to regain her form and we start asking questions. Turns out that she pitched four games in a day in order to try to win a tournament. Because the softball motion is different from baseball there is a belief that there is no harm physically. This may be true in some ways, but pitching too many games causes several problems.

As a kid begins to tire, physically and mentally, she loses her focus and the form suffers. Fatigue causes legs to begin lose explosiveness, the scaps start to sag, the core no longer supports the effort, and soon she is pitching with the arms. At that point, the shoulder and other parts of the body are at risk.

Some people think more is better, so they feel 150-pitches will be better than 100 pitches in practice. Yes, some kids may be ready for that many pitches, but most will lose focus and throw a lot of bad pitches. What have they learned? Basically how to throw badly. If you see your pitcher losing focus, it is time to change the practice, or to stop, before she develops bad habits.

Last year I had a serious talk with a parent, stating that the daughter was simply playing too much. Too many people think a pitcher will get better with a lot of games, so these folks are playing every single weekend. I always ask how much they have practiced the previous week. They were tired on Monday due to travelling back from a tournament. Tuesday they pitched for an hour. Wednesday they had another commitment. Thursday they practiced a half-hour so they could get ready to travel on Friday. Tell me how a kid can be sharp for the next tournament with 90-minutes of practice all week. You need to practice at least two hours for each hour you spend in a game in order to have a chance to be sharp. How can you do that if you play every weekend?

So many of my kids will look fantastic at the start of summer, but you hardly recognize them by fall. You need to stay home some weekends. That is when you both have time to actually work on pitches, to take the time to get things right, and focus on new skills. With my pitchers, we have some rules. For every minute you spend pitching at full distance, you need to spend one minute on drills, whether it be spins, distance pitching, tarp work, speed drills, etc. And, I always say that the only reason we pitch at regular distance is to see what drills we need to do next…to evaluate our progress, and plan that next step. And, then I say the only reason we pitch in games is to see how well we have prepared. Games are feedback to help in making any needed changes in our daily workouts. However, if you do not have time for well-planned daily workouts, to correct form problems due to conditions encountered in games, how did you benefit from the things you learned in games?

Don’t get me wrong. I love games. We have a blast. But, if I am not careful, I can get so caught up in the entertainment value that I forget that my first priority is to help my daughter be the best she can be. Sometimes that means staying home and doing what is right for her. Remember, she doesn’t have a vast amount of experience in setting goals and working toward them. She needs an adult to take the responsibility and guide her.