Softball hitting drills for improvement of skills

Every coach tries to sharpen players’ skills so that they enjoy drills and improve their performance everyday.

But many coaches overlook bringing variety into drills to avoid players getting bored with same softball hitting drill again and again.

It is human nature that what you practice repeatedly becomes your habit. Coaches are no exception. Most softball coaches stick to same softball hitting drills in their daily practice. It affects players adversely and fails to bring out best in each player.

Variety in softball hitting is essential to motivate players and provide stimulus to players. Motivated players only can give best performance and improve their skills to greater heights.

Players must spice up their practice by learning fresh and some unique softball hitting drills from their coaches. Here are some types of drills to improve skills.

Pepper Game drill: This drill helps in developing short and quick swing and bat control. The hitter has to stand 22 feet away from 3 fielders who stand 2 feet away form each other. The hitter then hits the ball sharply giving single or double hop from fielders using short and quick downward stroke.

Coloured ball soft toss drill: The coach tosses two balls of different colours and shouts after releasing the ball which one to hit. This drill helps player in developing concentration keeping weight back.

Hitting fungoes: This drill is very useful for improving weight shift, downward swing, hand action and follow through. The hitter has to concentrate on hitting top half of the ball using short, downward swing.

Apart from drills, player must learn better softball pitches. For the beginners these softball pitches could be fastball pitch, curveball pitch and changeup pitch.

Fastball pitch requires lot of practice and the speed can be picked up with proper timing of leg kick, snapping of arm and stepping forward off the mound.

For curveball pitch you need to practice various techniques of gripping the ball and releasing it from hand with bending of wrist. Curveball pitch also requires different follow through directions of pitching arm.

The changeup pitch is thrown in a way to appear like a fastball but arrives much slower to the plate. Its low speed and deceptive delivery are intended to confuse the batter's timing.

In order to throw a ball at the intended spot, you need to grip it properly. You can learn different grips with the help of softball videos.

Seam fastball grip: In this grip, fingers are placed along top seam of the ball. Pitchers also use two seam fastball grip, but four seem provides more downward movement.

Curveball grip: Pitchers put a bend in thumb on a seam and create more spin. Hand is kept underneath the ball to create four seam sideways rotations.

Other grips include, knuckle curve, four seam rise ball, spinner rise ball and drop ball grip.

For learning different softball pitching grips and pitches, softball videos are quite useful. These videos demonstrate different pitches, hitting and explain how to grip softball for being more effective.

Softball videos are also useful for recruiting with coaches. You can show your skills and some best highlights to coaches on video to sell your talent.