Today, we’re going to talk about some indoor drills that are perfect for those softball practices where the weather isn’t nice enough for an outdoor practice.
Three-Person Intensity Drill
Divide your team into groups of three. There will be a hitter, a fielder, and a catcher. What the intensity drill works on is fielding, throwing, catching, hitting, concentration, and conditioning.
The hitter hits 10 balls to the fielder, who throws to the catcher.
The purpose of that drill is to get a lot of balls in in a small space.
Doubles Drill
This allows you to set up a full infield. Infielders get a lot of balls in a short amount of time, working on throwing at different bases. It works on concentration because the fielders have to realize who they’re throwing back to. This provides an opportunity for an awful lot of repetitions, fielding, throwing all bases, really focusing. What we do in the gym is we put our outfielders in infield positions to allow them to get the repetitions as well.
We have a hitter and a catcher down each foul line. Our hitter is going to hit to the right side of the infield. Our hitter down the first base line hits to the fielder that’s fielding on the left side of the infield. We work these at the same time. Each fielder is going to field five balls, throw to the designated base, and then we change the sequence.
Our first sequence, our hitter down the third base line is going to hit to our second baseman, who’s going to throw to first base. Our hitter down the first base line is going to hit to the shortstop, who’s going to throw to third.
As coaches, you can make up these sequences. Just make sure that you’re not hitting to both infielders on the same side of the infield at the same time. Another example: our hitter down the first base line’s going to hit to the third baseman. She’s going to throw across the diamond to first. Our hitter down the third base line’s going to hit to our second baseman. She’s going to throw to second.
One more example of a rotation you can do is our hitter down the first base line is going to hit to the shortstop, who’s throwing to first. Our hitter down the third base line is hitting to the second baseman, who’s throwing to third.
You can also have all of your infielders coming home. You can have your corners fielding bunts and throwing back to first and third. There are all kinds of different varieties you can do with this one drill.
Relay Drill
In my opinion, this is one of the most difficult things to practice in a small space. Relay from the outfielders to the middle infielders to the catchers. We set our outfielders up in one corner of the gym, our middle infielders across the gym, and our catchers in a far corner of the gym. And we really focus on having to find our targets after turning and facing them.
We start our outfielders out in one corner of the gym. On a go command, your outfielder is going to turn around, pick up the ball as if it were at the fence, turn around, find her middle infielder who’s a relay person, yell, “Right here, right here,” and hit the relay. She’s then going to turn around and toss the ball. We usually have pitchers do the tossing. Our pitcher is going to toss the ball to our outfielder as if she’s getting a relay throw and then she, in turn, is going to turn around and throw a good ball to our catcher.
These three drills are ideal for getting a good softball practice in when you’re dealing with colder temperatures.
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