Helping baseball players develop skills faster by focusing on specific fundamentals

Many coaches' approach to baseball practice is frenetic. They cram hitting, catching, pitching and fitness into every baseball session, dedicating at most a sliver of time to each. While using stations can be an effective way to develop athletes' skills when the exercises do not complement or elaborate on each other, the message can be lost in the noise.

To help your players develop and retain skills, the best way to run practices is to focus on a particular technique at a time. Rotate the activities among whole practices rather than trying to get a bit of them all into each.  A focused practice will be much more likely to teach your players a skill, and provide them with additional time to practice the new skill.  Be sure to always stay focused on the fundamentals of the game and keep it interested.

This is a lot like looking at the big picture, which during a season coaches do all the time - one loss, or even a losing streak, does not mean a failed year, after all.  The important thing is that you develope young players into kids that enjoy playing baseball.  To often coaches will overwork their players in attempt to win, but instead the kids lose interest and get burned out.  Keep the drills fun and moving and your kids will enjoy learning the game.

If your league, for example, trains three days a week, you can drill hitting one day, catching/throwing the next, and fitness the third. Every coach knows there are hundreds of youth baseball drills for each baseball skill out there, so change up the players' activities. If they are struggling in a particular area, incorporate a quick recap or use it as a warm up during a follow-up session. The next week, repeat until they've mastered it.

In this way, you are building on skills through practices and over time, by forcing the athletes to recall what they learned a week ago. As they improve, you can either incorporate more difficult activities or new techniques entirely.

Your players will put it all together during games and fit the puzzle pieces themselves, providing an organic incorporation that can be a huge benefit. Rather than having a rote mentality about when to use certain skills, these athletes can develop an instinct about the sport.

If you're going to work on the intricacies of your teams' swings, make sure you have the right baseball equipment, like batting tees, plenty of baseballs and at least one L-screen.