This drill is a favorite with all my players every year. This drill teaches the runners to keep their hands up to prevent broken fingers, etc. when sliding to a base. The players that return to my team each year ask if we are going to do the sliding drill again this year.
Softball Sliding Drill
- Place a portable home plate at one end and approximately 30 feet away place a portable pitchers rubber.
- Five feet away from the home plate towards the pitchers rubber, a coach stands with his arm out at waist height.
- The team lines up behind the pitchers rubber an one at a time.
- The runners race towards home plate and must slide under the coach’s arm into home plate.
- The trick is, each runner has a water balloon that is to be held in both hands.
As you can only imagine, at the end of the drill, the remaining unbroken water balloons are used in a water balloon war.