Maddog Hard At Work
Youth Baseball is competitive, so let’s talk a little about off-season youth baseball. It’s important to take a little rest, some well-deserved time off, but we are back at it, easing our way in (as much as a 10 yr old can “ease into anything). Lucky for us we live in the South and have plenty of nice days to get out to the field or even just play in the yard.
Our team typically won’t start up until late February, so that gives us several months to work on, tweak, condition and gear up for what usually is a rigorous Spring season. My son plays for a “majors-level” team, so when that 1st tournament comes around, he needs to be good to go.
To be ready for Spring baseball there are several things to take into consideration from cardio to fielding, to throwing, to hitting. Maddog (my son’s baseball nickname) also plays football and basketball, so cardio conditioning usually isn’t an issue. In addition to the cardio, Maddog takes weekly lessons for hitting, pitching, and catching. At home, he does basic strength training with pullups and pushups. We also have a pitching mound where he pitches a bucket of balls several times a week. To keep up his hitting/batting, he loves his SKLZ Hit-A-Way. When he’s not taking hacks at that, he loves soft toss or weighted balls. Of course in my non-professional mom opinion, you can’t beat the good old-fashioned hitting T and net.
On cold, windy, or rainy/snowy days, we practice a bit inside. One of Maddog’s favorite things to do is to get a tiny wood bat and ping pong balls. He loves for us to pitch these balls to him and he tries to hit them with the little bat. This is great for hand/eye coordination. For pitching, he will get his “towel trainer”, which looks like a kitchen towel with a balled-up part to simulate the baseball. He can practice his pitching motions using this inside so he doesn’t break any of Momma’s stuff. And believe it or not, some video games help him learn about situations that he can apply in real life.
As you can probably tell, off-season in our house doesn’t mean we take much of a break. The one thing I can say I’m grateful for is that all this is self-motivated. My son has the drive, desire, and devotion to compete at high levels. He wants to be the best he can be for himself and his team.
