Moving Up? How to Prepare

Fall ball is a popular time for many organizations to allow their second-year 10U and 12U players to get a taste of 12U and 14U, where they’ll be playing in the spring and summer. Even if you’re sticking with your age group this fall, the move up in the spring will be inevitable. Both age groups involve significant transitions for windmill pitchers: 10U pitchers moving to 12U will be moving back to 40 feet and throwing a larger ball. 12U pitchers moving to 14U will be transitioning to 43 feet. Today we’re going to talk about physical preparation and pitching drills that you can do to make the transition easier.

Physical Preparation for Advancing Pitchers

Female pitchers entering their 12U and 14U seasons have a few physical challenges to contend with. There’s the increase in difficulty of the pitching itself, with the longer pitching distances and/or the 12-inch ball. There’s also the natural development a girl goes through as she enters adolescence. One one hand, yes, a girl will grow, and with that growth will come a bit more strength, but on the other hand her joints will loosen. Extra strengthening is needed to keep the body in the right condition for performing increasingly dynamic and advanced athletic activities. Click here to read about the physiology of growing girls in greater detail.

Strength and conditioning is important for every athlete at every level, but the 12 to 14U stretch for a softball pitcher is an exceptionally important time to begin taking strength training seriously. A good training program will give you a leg up on your competition by making the distance and ball transitions easier. You’re also investing in your future by laying a good foundation to avoid injury and keep progressing as a pitcher.

If you need to start a strength program, take a look at Joe’s post on how to start a workout program. It provides a basic workout with sample exercises to get you going. You can also try his softball-specific total body workout.

For additional exercises, all fantastic, check out this list of Joe’s articles.

Pitching Drills for Increased Pitching Distance

Best drill: progressive long toss. It’s best to stand on the pitching rubber and have your catcher move back, but if that’s not possible in the space you have available, that’s OK. Start with the catcher about 5 feet further than pitching distance and pitch normally. Throw 5-10 pitches there, and have the catcher move back another 5 feet. Repeat, and have the catcher move again. After the third increment, have the catcher move back behind the plate and just pitch normally. You may begin your long toss drills with the catcher standing, but eventually challenge yourself by having her squat and trying to throw strikes at the farther distances.

Other good pitching drills:

• Walk-throughs: starting at about your maximum long toss distance, walk into your pitch. If you’re right-handed, start with your right foot and take 4 steps: right, left, right (load), stride. If you’re a lefty, it’s the opposite.
• Power drives: standing at normal distance on the pitching rubber, place the ball on the ground in front of you. Bending from your knees, pick the ball up with both hands. Without standing up first, use the energy in your bent legs to propel yourself explosively forward into your pitching motion. Click here to see it in action.

Tips for Moving from the 11″ to the 12″ Softball

Some girls with larger hands might have no trouble moving to the larger ball. For the majority, here are some things you can try:

• Practice throwing the 12-inch ball overhand first. Do progressive long toss with your overhand throw, just like you would with pitching. Have someone watch you to make sure you’re using correct throwing mechanics. Make sure you’re holding the seams in your fingertips and getting good spin on your throw. It would be ideal if you could master throwing the larger ball overhand really well with good spin before you even try to pitch it; that’s why it’s so important that you begin your preparation before the mandatory move up in the spring.
• Spend a lot of time working on arm isolation pitching drills. Get a really good feel for the grip and spin before re-introducing the other aspects of your motion.
• If you’re throwing movement pitches and you have trouble spinning the larger ball, keep practicing arm isolation drills for your movement pitches using the smaller ball (don’t throw it full distance; you want your body to get used to the weight of the larger ball). I know you can’t use the small ball in games anymore, but you don’t want to ingrain poor grip and spin in your muscle memory practicing your movement pitches with a ball you can’t quite handle yet. Progress to the larger ball and don’t abandon the smaller ball completely until your results with the two balls are the same.