Drills & Tools For Success [Video]

Whether your daughter is a beginner or a college-bound pitcher, she'll benefit from learning a pre-pitch routine. I call it the think/play box concept, which I borrowed from Annika Sorenstam's (regarded as one of the best female golfers in history) sports psychologist team, Pia Nilson and Lynn Marriott. They wrote a book called Every Shot Must Have a Purpose.

Shouldn't every pitch should have a purpose too?

While at the time I used it to improve my golf game, I thought it would apply perfectly to pitching. In a game, a pitcher can control her accuracy only as much as she's practiced before hand. On the other hand, performing her pre-pitch routine is controllable. Therefore she has a chance of succeeding at something every single game.

Watch the video below to learn how to execute the think/play box. To read the transcript instead, scroll down.

Today we're gonna go over accuracy and ways to get more command and also go over some fun drills you can do for each of the five fundamentals that you learned. This is important because this is what you can help the kids with during the game as opposed to giving mechanical corrections, which is not the best for a variety of reasons. 

When it’s your turn to come into the game and the other pitcher has left the infield, you draw your own little box in the dirt behind the mound. You stand inside of it. This is called the think box. While inside your box, you are going to think of three things; you are going to visualize a beautiful pitch going right into the glove, you are going to think about a fundamental or something mechanical, and the third thing you’re going to think about is what to do when you get the ball back if it's a grounder (you have to think of that ahead of time).You might also be thinking and feeling emotions, like nerves and anxiety. It is important that when the batter gets in the box you just take the ball, put it in your glove hands and walk up with confidence and like you’ve been taught. 

When you step on to the pitching mound with your feet planted and take the sign, you are in the play box now. Your only job is to get into the play box and play, there is no thinking. All you can do is take the sign and look at it, put your hand in your glove and pitch it. You don’t want to catch the ball and pitch it right away, it’s important to do your routine, going into your think box first, then your play box. You usually forget these steps when you’re getting nervous or not playing well in the game and feel rushed. Everything seems to spiral out of control, but in reality this is something you can control. 

Parents can help by writing down how many times out of all your pitches, you accomplish the think and play box routine.