4 ms·

This is a pretty solid rule. I've taken a similar approach with my kids, but they're not really old enough to report back any results. I didn't round down to 1

by NDizzle 12y ago

This is a pretty solid rule. I've taken a similar approach with my kids, but they're not really old enough to report back any results. I didn't round down to 1k hours or look at 10k seriously. I've been trying to teach them that it's important to take the journey to get actually good at something. You pick up a lot of things on the way to becoming proficient. I let my oldest pick something to get good at this year. She went with fast pitch softball. (she's 8) She's threw about a thousand pitches the first month with me having her get out there. Since then (I thought that was too much) she's been the one to get me out there to catch her and that number has settled on about 500 a month. With how many pitches you get in a normal little league (farm league softball) game, she basically pitched about 5 years worth of seasons over summer. It'll be fun to watch this next season. I don't think anyone will expect a 4' 50 pound girl to throw as hard as she does.

tannerj 12y ago
I don't know about softball, but I played baseball from the time I was 4 until I was 19 and the biggest change in youth baseball has been monitoring pitch counts for youth pitchers. If I remember correctly, Softball pitchers usually have trouble with their knees while baseball pitchers have arm trouble. I still have arm trouble and I had parents who put my safety first and did the best they could to take care of my arm. Please do some research on the topic to make sure your daughter doesn't hurt herself. I only speak up because I saw it happen over and over again growing up. Youth sports are awesome, I got to travel all over the country playing, but I still have issues almost 10 years after quitting.
- NDizzle 12y ago
  Yeah, I cut back significantly after talking to a cousin of mine who played college ball. At first I was a bit frustrated because she was really interested in pitching, as was roughly half of her team. So when you play 3 games a week for a 4 month season, if you spread it around (like you should at a young age - give everyone a chance) you have each kid throwing about 2 innings a week. (6 inning games, ~8 kids who want to pitch on a 14 player team) What's your thoughts on the right amount? Maybe a game a week and really concentrate on form and technique? (No fancy pitches, just straight with accuracy.)
  - whiddershins 12y ago
    In general, much of sports injuries have to do with improper recovery cycles. So, although most skills-based practice (such as music) benefit from daily practice due to the way the brain adapts, this has to be somehow balanced against the body's need for recovery. So practicing language is great every day or several times a day, while power lifting starts with 4 recovery days per week and more recovery tends to be added as the person nears their genetic potential. How to apply this precisely to martial arts and sports which have such intense mental and physical training/adaptation requirements, and adjusting for age and other individual considerations is way beyond what I can speak knowledgably about. I would recommend Thomas Kurtz's "The Science of Sports Training" but I found most of it impractical and incomprehensible. But what I think is the most important takeaway from his work is: - recovery is everything - sometimes a different, light activity, speeds recovery more than full rest - so athletes' workloads should by cycled, they shouldn't do the same thing day after day, and it should also vary by season - but really, recovery is everything, never underestimate how important recovery is
  - tannerj 12y ago
    It's difficult for me to say. After I wrote the first comment, I remembered hearing long ago that the reason softball pitchers typically don't have arm trouble is that the under handed motion is a natural motion, while overhanded is very unnatural. With baseball you typically don't want to do anything that causes extra tension on the elbow (i.e. curve balls) at a young age. So, I only threw fastballs and change-ups until I was in middle school. You actually can cause a lot of ball movement with altering grip pressure. (but that's off topic.) I'd recommend talking to an orthopedic specialist if you have access. I had a bad case of tendonitis in my early teens and I remember seeing an otho doctor who had dealt with a lot of sports injuries. Also, reach out to a local college coach and ask. As always, be careful with advice off the internet, people are idiots. I know that from middle school on, we had very structured "bullpens" that would increase in pitch count as we got closer to the season starting up and that helped a lot. Unfortunately, it's been a long time and my memory is fuzzy. I also know that it's not one-to-one with softball. I found this pdf for Babe Ruth pitching rules[0]. If nothing else, I wouldn't exceed what they say. [0]http://files.leagueathletics.com/Text/Documents/5200/27001.pdf http://files.leagueathletics.com/Text/Documents/5200/27001.p...
- streptomycin 12y ago
  Maybe not related to your softball injury point, but women in general are far more at risk for knee injuries than men. It's even more problematic in sports like soccer and basketball. And I empathize with your arm problems. I'm still feeling the nagging effects of my Little League shoulder injury, which happened in a game where my coach showed up late and I didn't have as much time as normal to warm up before it started...
PhantomGremlin 12y ago
My daughter is now 16 and moving away from playing softball. But she has played since she was about 8 years old. So this is recent history for me. Thankfully she didn't pitch, but I got to watch everything, including pitchers (parents of pitchers are usually Prima Donnas), for many years. There's "little league" and there's serious softball. The pinnacle of little league is winding up in the Little League Softball World Series, played in suburban Portland Oregon. [1] My daughter was able to play in the preliminary rounds because we're local and one local team always gets to go as the "host". It's for 12 year olds, after that age little league pretty much disappears. But Little League softball teams are usually weak because the competition is weak. They never will get to the World Series unless the kids also play by what goes by a variety of terms. We call it "ASA" here, but "NSA" is also popular in other areas. It's also called "club" softball. ASA and NSA are sanctioning bodies that provide umpires to tournaments that are held practically year round. As opposed to little league, which is organized by town, ASA teams can draw from an entire metro area or even from across the state. Anybody who wants to can organize a team. Pay an entry fee and your team can play in a tournament. And teams play and play and play. There are competing tournaments every weekend for much of the spring and summer. After a short break, "fall ball" starts up for preparation for the next spring. Even 10 y/o and 12 y/o girls travel out of state to go to tournaments. And once you're in a tournament, the play can be very tiresome. Usually they are double-elimination brackets. Lose an early game and you may need to play 4 games on Saturday and 4 more on Sunday in order to win the tournament. That's right. Weekend tournaments would routinely have 6 or 8 games (as long as you kept winning, of course). A team might have 2 good pitchers. And a light weekend schedule would be 6 games. So a girl could expect to pitch 3 full games in two days. Probably more than that if the other pitcher(s) aren't pitching well that day. After little league, the natural progression is high school softball. But every good high school player is also on an ASA team. During grade school there are ASA tournaments all spring, but not usually during high school. Instead, when the high school year ends, ASA begins in earnest. The serious ASA teams travel around the country to "exposure" tournaments, hoping that the kids will will be noticed by college coaches. Just this year my daughter traveled around Oregon and to Colorado, Washington, and California. Why do parents do it? Some (like me) do it because the girls are having fun. It also occupies the girls' time (keeps them out of trouble!). Teams stay together for years, and the girls become good friends. Other parents are delusional about their child's abilities. They think their precious will get a "full ride" to a "D1" school. But I read recently that only 3% of the girls playing "18 gold" (the top) will get scholarships to D1 schools. Other girls might be offered partial scholarships to smaller schools. Is that worth it? Not to me, because even at smaller schools the sport will require an immense amount of time. Do you want your kids' focus in college to be softball? Not me. IMO that doesn't make sense for 99% of the girls. YMMV. [1] http://www.alpenrose.com/little-league-world-series/ http://www.alpenrose.com/little-league-world-series/

by NDizzle 12y ago

tannerj 12y ago

I don't know about softball, but I played baseball from the time I was 4 until I was 19 and the biggest change in youth baseball has been monitoring pitch counts for youth pitchers. If I remember correctly, Softball pitchers usually have trouble with their knees while baseball pitchers have arm trouble. I still have arm trouble and I had parents who put my safety first and did the best they could to take care of my arm. Please do some research on the topic to make sure your daughter doesn't hurt herself. I only speak up because I saw it happen over and over again growing up. Youth sports are awesome, I got to travel all over the country playing, but I still have issues almost 10 years after quitting.

NDizzle 12y ago
Yeah, I cut back significantly after talking to a cousin of mine who played college ball. At first I was a bit frustrated because she was really interested in pitching, as was roughly half of her team. So when you play 3 games a week for a 4 month season, if you spread it around (like you should at a young age - give everyone a chance) you have each kid throwing about 2 innings a week. (6 inning games, ~8 kids who want to pitch on a 14 player team) What's your thoughts on the right amount? Maybe a game a week and really concentrate on form and technique? (No fancy pitches, just straight with accuracy.)
- whiddershins 12y ago
  In general, much of sports injuries have to do with improper recovery cycles. So, although most skills-based practice (such as music) benefit from daily practice due to the way the brain adapts, this has to be somehow balanced against the body's need for recovery. So practicing language is great every day or several times a day, while power lifting starts with 4 recovery days per week and more recovery tends to be added as the person nears their genetic potential. How to apply this precisely to martial arts and sports which have such intense mental and physical training/adaptation requirements, and adjusting for age and other individual considerations is way beyond what I can speak knowledgably about. I would recommend Thomas Kurtz's "The Science of Sports Training" but I found most of it impractical and incomprehensible. But what I think is the most important takeaway from his work is: - recovery is everything - sometimes a different, light activity, speeds recovery more than full rest - so athletes' workloads should by cycled, they shouldn't do the same thing day after day, and it should also vary by season - but really, recovery is everything, never underestimate how important recovery is
- tannerj 12y ago
  It's difficult for me to say. After I wrote the first comment, I remembered hearing long ago that the reason softball pitchers typically don't have arm trouble is that the under handed motion is a natural motion, while overhanded is very unnatural. With baseball you typically don't want to do anything that causes extra tension on the elbow (i.e. curve balls) at a young age. So, I only threw fastballs and change-ups until I was in middle school. You actually can cause a lot of ball movement with altering grip pressure. (but that's off topic.) I'd recommend talking to an orthopedic specialist if you have access. I had a bad case of tendonitis in my early teens and I remember seeing an otho doctor who had dealt with a lot of sports injuries. Also, reach out to a local college coach and ask. As always, be careful with advice off the internet, people are idiots. I know that from middle school on, we had very structured "bullpens" that would increase in pitch count as we got closer to the season starting up and that helped a lot. Unfortunately, it's been a long time and my memory is fuzzy. I also know that it's not one-to-one with softball. I found this pdf for Babe Ruth pitching rules[0]. If nothing else, I wouldn't exceed what they say. [0]http://files.leagueathletics.com/Text/Documents/5200/27001.pdf http://files.leagueathletics.com/Text/Documents/5200/27001.p...
streptomycin 12y ago
Maybe not related to your softball injury point, but women in general are far more at risk for knee injuries than men. It's even more problematic in sports like soccer and basketball. And I empathize with your arm problems. I'm still feeling the nagging effects of my Little League shoulder injury, which happened in a game where my coach showed up late and I didn't have as much time as normal to warm up before it started...

PhantomGremlin 12y ago

My daughter is now 16 and moving away from playing softball. But she has played since she was about 8 years old. So this is recent history for me. Thankfully she didn't pitch, but I got to watch everything, including pitchers (parents of pitchers are usually Prima Donnas), for many years. There's "little league" and there's serious softball. The pinnacle of little league is winding up in the Little League Softball World Series, played in suburban Portland Oregon. [1] My daughter was able to play in the preliminary rounds because we're local and one local team always gets to go as the "host". It's for 12 year olds, after that age little league pretty much disappears. But Little League softball teams are usually weak because the competition is weak. They never will get to the World Series unless the kids also play by what goes by a variety of terms. We call it "ASA" here, but "NSA" is also popular in other areas. It's also called "club" softball. ASA and NSA are sanctioning bodies that provide umpires to tournaments that are held practically year round. As opposed to little league, which is organized by town, ASA teams can draw from an entire metro area or even from across the state. Anybody who wants to can organize a team. Pay an entry fee and your team can play in a tournament. And teams play and play and play. There are competing tournaments every weekend for much of the spring and summer. After a short break, "fall ball" starts up for preparation for the next spring. Even 10 y/o and 12 y/o girls travel out of state to go to tournaments. And once you're in a tournament, the play can be very tiresome. Usually they are double-elimination brackets. Lose an early game and you may need to play 4 games on Saturday and 4 more on Sunday in order to win the tournament. That's right. Weekend tournaments would routinely have 6 or 8 games (as long as you kept winning, of course). A team might have 2 good pitchers. And a light weekend schedule would be 6 games. So a girl could expect to pitch 3 full games in two days. Probably more than that if the other pitcher(s) aren't pitching well that day. After little league, the natural progression is high school softball. But every good high school player is also on an ASA team. During grade school there are ASA tournaments all spring, but not usually during high school. Instead, when the high school year ends, ASA begins in earnest. The serious ASA teams travel around the country to "exposure" tournaments, hoping that the kids will will be noticed by college coaches. Just this year my daughter traveled around Oregon and to Colorado, Washington, and California. Why do parents do it? Some (like me) do it because the girls are having fun. It also occupies the girls' time (keeps them out of trouble!). Teams stay together for years, and the girls become good friends. Other parents are delusional about their child's abilities. They think their precious will get a "full ride" to a "D1" school. But I read recently that only 3% of the girls playing "18 gold" (the top) will get scholarships to D1 schools. Other girls might be offered partial scholarships to smaller schools. Is that worth it? Not to me, because even at smaller schools the sport will require an immense amount of time. Do you want your kids' focus in college to be softball? Not me. IMO that doesn't make sense for 99% of the girls. YMMV. [1] http://www.alpenrose.com/little-league-world-series/ http://www.alpenrose.com/little-league-world-series/