Let’s take a look at my practice plan from part 1:

5:00 – Stretching and Calisthenics

5:10 – Throwing progression

5:20 – Long Toss

5:30 – etc., continuing on until 6 or 6:30

Today I will focus on the first item, “Stretching and Calisthenics”. I have 10 minutes for this in my plan. How do I make good use of this time? To answer that maybe I should first figure out what I am trying to accomplish. Three benefits come to mind: getting warmed up to practice without injury, conditioning, and discipline. While I won’t discount the benefits of conditioning and discipline, over time I largely focus on getting warmed up quickly.

You may have creative ways to get more out of your warmups than I, but I’ve found that my warmups can generally be put into two categories. Category 1 is indeed stretching and calisthenics. I have found if I let the girls or new assistants run this portion of practice, it will generally end up looking like the beginning of a PE period at school. There will be a lot of “1-2-3-4-SIXTEEN, 1-2-3-4-SEVENTEEN” type of stuff going on, and static stretches. Category 2 is when my girls run through a quick set of dynamic stretches (movements). I don’t forget to include stretches for the shoulder, which is very important in softball.

Over the years I’ve formed some opinions about these two types of warmups, while trying not to be an absolutist. Having girls run this portion of practice encourages leadership, and routines with a PE or boot camp flavor encourage discipline. Conditioning is important too. But there are numerous potential problems. It seems like dynamic stretches are recommended over static stretches for warming up (but apparently elementary schools didn’t get the memo). These types of routines have invariably lasted much longer than planned, and I almost always have to cut girls off as they are shouting out to teammates to commence repetition number 25.

Keeping in mind that you have a very limited amount of practice time, you may want to consider a quicker more dynamic warmup routine. You can still devote more time in the occasional practice where you do longer routines, but stretching can stretch into a monstrosity, leaving you behind schedule for what you really wanted to get to, softball. Consider building some conditioning benefits into your drills, maybe doing little competitions that involve running. Don’t forget the importance of a light run and a few minutes of stretching at the end of a tough practice, either.

This is the first in a multi-part series on running effective practices that are more efficient in terms of time usage and getting results. I could have included a part 0 that strongly recommends you have a plan for your practices. That is a good prerequisite, having a plan. So let me start with a plan that seems pretty innocuous:

5:00 – Stretching and Calisthenics

5:10 – Throwing progression

5:20 – Long Toss

5:30 – etc., continuing on until 6 or 6:30

What could possibly be wrong with this plan? Plenty, actually. I will delve a bit more into this plan in future posts. For now I want to focus on one simple fact: My plan requires that everyone be at practice on time. In the frenetic culture of Silicon Valley, that’s a pretty big requirement. What if everyone doesn’t show up on time? What if players trickle in?

Well, if I think that my warmup and throwing is important, then I will most likely attempt to have assistants or parents take the late players and do shortened warmups in small groups. Sound familiar? This is frustrating and not optimal. Often this leads to starting late, as it builds in the desire to wait for just a few more kids to show up. Frustration and even anger can start to set in, which can have negative effects on your practice and reduce the enjoyment for the team as well as yourself. Players are now scattered into groups, and you’ve often lost the help of your assistants when you start other drills with the main group. And again, often your entire timeline has been thrown off and you have less time to get through what you wanted to cover.

So what is the remedy? A draconian crackdown on tardiness? You may try that, but it may be a losing battle. In fact it may not even be possible if a player or two have ongoing conflicts and get there as best they can, but have to be late some times.

As an alternative my suggestion is start your practices with drills or games that don’t depend on everyone being there or that require players’ arms to be fully warmed up. Maybe at the end of your practice plan you were thinking of playing bubble-ball or whiffle ball. Consider moving a fun activity like that to the beginning.

Showing up on time then becomes it’s own reward. Also consider how easy late arrivals can be added to your first planned activity. Now players can get reps in immediately and the frustration of waiting for players to arrive is gone. Once everyone is there you can do the sorts of things where everyone should be present.