Youth Baseball Mental Training

By Miles A Noland

The game of baseball cannot begin without the action of one position.

In basketball there is a lot of focus on the point guard. In football there is a lot of focus on the quarterback.

These are important positions, but there is no position that is more important than a pitcher in baseball.

There is so much responsibility that involves a pitcher. From throwing different pitches, knowing the various hitters, fielding their position, pickoff moves, to controlling the running game, to dealing with adversity, mental focus, and dealing with fatigue, a pitcher has a lot to deal with.

If one of these important parts of pitching is missing, you do not have a complete pitcher. Missing one of these components negatively affects all of the other components.

Most pitchers are not advanced to be good in all of these areas, however, when you realize what areas a pitcher is weak in you can begin to attack it and improve.

The mental game in pitching is so important, oftentimes more important than the physical part.
Andy Pettitte, great guy who I hung out with in the Dominican

You must teach your pitchers to think one pitch at a time. It is very easy to think about the past or future, and this inhibits your ability to be best the possible in the present
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Cues such as get to the top of the baseball, or take a deep breath and focus on executing the pitch, create movement at release are great for creating the right type of focus.

Attempting to throw harder in times of struggle or getting mad at infielders or the umpire are typical things that make a pitchers struggle even worse.

Teach your pitchers how to coach themselves and watch them develop right under your eyes.
P.S. One pitch at a time, one pitch at a time. Oftentimes a mound visit is very effective in calming a pitcher down. Tell him to step off the mound and focus on dominating the things he can control.

What can he control?

1. His focus
2. Executing each pitch
3. Attacking the strike zone
4. Taking deep breaths
5. His body language
Things he can't control?
1. Where the ball is hit
2. What the umpire calls
3. If his fielders catch the ball
4. The mound conditions
5. Bad luck

Get your pitchers to focus on the controllables and they will deal with failure and adverse conditions much better.

Coach it up,
Miles

http://www.iybca.org/gift

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Baseball Psychology - 5 Things To Improve Your Mental Approach

By Bill Bathe

In the game of baseball, you need to understand the psychology that is involved in order to take your game to the next level. Here are 5 things that will assist you and help prepare you to rise above the competition.

Pre-game routine- have you ever wondered how to prepare for a baseball game besides just taking batting practice and infield? If you really want to take it to the next level, you need to have a pre-game routine. It all starts hours before you even show up to the ballpark. When I played in the major leagues, my routine started at home after getting up for the day. And as the day progressed, I slowly started to slip into my mental preparation or pre-game routine. The closer it got to going to the ballpark, the more I concentrated and visualized who I would be facing. You should have an idea of what you are going to be dealing with and you slowly prepare for it as the day goes on.

Understanding the opposition- This goes along with the pre-game routine. As you are concentrating more and more, you are focusing on the opposition. Are they throwing a hard throwing pitcher that day? Or is the pitcher someone who likes to throw a lot of off-speed pitches?
This means you need to be focusing on taking the ball the other way. This would start in your pre-game routine of visualizing, then carry onto the field when you start taking batting practice. Understanding the opponent will help you immensely in your preparation.

Mental preparation, putting it all together. You woke up today and you know that you are facing a hard throwing opponent. You are focusing your attention on what you need to do to be successful against him. You start visualizing being short to the ball (short swing) and you start visualizing how you are going to practice before the game. You see yourself being a little quicker to the ball and shorter to the ball. In other words, you are mentally preparing for the game the right way!

Visualization- one of the key elements to baseball psychology and success. I cannot say enough about visualizing your success. Have you ever seen yourself being successful at something? How did it feel? Have you ever heard of someone describing a big hit they had? You will often hear them say it was like they already saw it happening as it was happening. This is visualization. You see yourself hitting someone in a key situation before it happens and you are instilling success! Learn to visualize. All the great players use visualization to see the end result.

Understand the "whys". What I mean is you need to comprehend what is happening when you are playing. I will give you an example. You take a swing at a pitch that was right down the middle and you foul it straight back to the backstop. The crowd is yelling load at the mighty swing. You are excited and you think to yourself that I just missed that pitch. You know what? Here is the difference between a 350 hitter and a 250 hitter. The 350 hitter will understand the why. The great hitters after just fouling off the pitch, will step out of the batters box and figure out why they missed it and make the correction right on the spot. They will visualize themselves hitting that same pitch again only not missing it this time. They will take a practice swing with the right mindset this time, step back in the batters box and absolutely rip the next pitch if they throw it again. Did you see the difference and what happened? They understand the whys involved. And so can you.

These are five good examples of how you can improve your game immensely and take it to the next level. Baseball psychology plays a big role in your development on the field but is one the least things addressed. If you apply these five examples you will undoubtedly improve your game and prepare yourself for success.
 

Bill Bathe - former major league ballplayer who played for the Oakland A's and S.F. Giants and played in the 1989 world series. To learn more about baseball psychology, visit Baseball Psychology or to learn more about the mental approach, visit The Mental Approach
 

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Mental Training and Goal Setting

By Nate Barnett

Each year I work with teams of youth baseball players in teaching them the values of the mental game of baseball. Just as there are skills needed to develop the physical side of the sport, there are skills necessary to build the mental side of the game as well. Unfortunately, teaching the mental game is a bit more difficult to teach because the results aren't necessary visible as quickly. Let me assure you however, if you have goals of playing baseball at the collegiate level or above, you will need a sold mental game if you are going to excel.

One of the first things I teach kids is set proper goals. This usually sounds a bit dry and boring, but it's important that a game plan is created in order to form a path to follow as an athlete. There are three important steps involved in setting goals that are functional. Broad goals, process goals, and action habits. Let me explain those below.

If we are talking about a season to season focus, broad goals are essentially what you want to accomplish by the end of the season. These should be something you can measure like batting average, fielding percentage, stolen bases, etc.

Process goals are the middle level of goal setting. There are the things you need to solve or improve upon in order to accomplish your broad goals. They should be specific as far as the things you are going to do daily, but they should be areas in your game that need immediate improvement. So let's say you have a season goal of hitting .400. A process goal would be to improve on your ability to hit off speed pitches. Or, it could be that you need to work on what pitches you choose to swing at.

The last part of this goal setting process is your daily action habits. These are the day to day things that you will do to get better at accomplishing your process goals. Using the example from above, if you process goal is to get better at hitting off speed pitches, your daily action habit might be to spend 15 minutes in the batting cage working on hitting a curveball. Whatever you choose to make it, it should be something that has a time frame attached to it.

Nate Barnett is owner of BMI Baseball designed to improve the mental game of baseball in athletes. Come download a free ebook on dealing with failure and the mental game of baseball.
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Teaching Baseball Mental Techniques

By Robert Bulka

Physical Vs Mental Skills

Ask any baseball fan what it takes to succeed as a baseball player and they usually talk about bat speed, arm strength, foot speed and power. You very rarely ever hear them mention the mental skills required to excel in the game. The important mental techniques include focus, concentration, confidence and composure. That is why it is important to start teaching baseball mental techniques early in a player's development.

Why is having the mental tools so important to making it in the game? All you have to do is look at the minor league farm clubs to see that the vast majority of players there have the physical skills needed to make it to the next level but don't have the cognitive skills to take them there.
How do you go about teaching baseball mental techniques?

There are some tips for developing the mental skills needed to make it to that elite level: teach visualization, use the 10 second rule and overcoming failure.

Visualization Since baseball is a game of adversity and failure is ever present, using visualization techniques help to clear the mind of negative thoughts, avoid distractions and provides a mental road map for the task at hand. Visualization is a very good baseball mental technique.

10 Second Rule

Many young bright baseball stars lack the maturity to control their emotions and it takes them off their game. The 10 second rule is designed to help control the reactive emotional outburst of dissatisfaction. The tip is to count to 10 before you react or speak after a tense situation. This is a great tip when teaching baseball mental techniques.

Overcoming Failure

As I stated before, baseball is a game of constant failure. If you get a hit thirty percent of the time you are considered an above average hitter. If you're a pitcher you are constantly dealing with walks, hits, home runs, past balls and errors committed by your teammates.

Conclusion

Teaching baseball mental techniques is an absolute necessity if you want to make it to the big leagues.

Robert Bulka is a former college baseball pitcher and current coach in the New York Metropolitan area. For more great tips for teaching kids how to play baseball go to http://TeachKidsBaseball.com

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Preparing Your Team Mentally For The Big Game

An all star or travel team’s mental state is a major contributing factor of whether or not they reach their goals. Whether the opponent is weak or strong if your team believes they can win they will be up for the game. Coaches sometimes mistakenly try to pump their team up for a big game. I believe players (and coaches) should treat each game the same. Provided that you prepared them physically through solid practice… If they believe they are good enough to be successful that is all the game prep they need.

When coaches tell players that they have to “play the best game they can in order to win” that’s when teams usually get into trouble. When players try to push it past what they are able to do… that’s when you start to see the mistakes. Good teams lose because most players don’t react well to pressure from parents and coaches. Kids will “check out” when you put it in their minds that they have to perform flawlessly to succeed... that they have to play the best game possible.

So what to do? Keep it light but focused. Reinforce that they are a good team. Tell that player who’s struggling at the plate that “you know he’s trying hard… relax, have fun and the hits will come”. If you’ve practiced and prepared your team for the big game then they are ready. After that the two “C’s” are the most important factors to success.. Concentration & Confidence. So before the big game lighten things up with a fun team activity and think of creative ways to bring out the two “C’s”. Then rest assured you are giving them the best prep you can.

Coach Bob

http://youthbaseballblog.blogspot.com/