Dealing with Concussions: A Guide for Coaches and Parents

This wasn’t exactly my original plan for article #2 in my coaching series, but with Colin Kaepernick leading the 49ers to the Superbowl in Alex Smith’s place, I’m reminded that we all need to talk about concussions—in fact, I don’t think we can really talk about concussion safety enough.

For any of you who don’t follow football, Alex Smith began this season as the 49ers starting quarterback, and was doing pretty darn well before suffering a concussion mid-season. He wasn’t out of commission for long, but Colin Kaepernick did so well in his place that Smith lost his job, for no reason other than that he got hurt. I could rant on and on about concussions in professional football and how having to worry about losing your job if you have one is not a good situation…but we’ll keep this about coaching and parenting young athletes.

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Coaching Objectives: What Kind of Environment Are You Fostering?

I’m going to take a little break from the technical pitching info and spend a few weeks talking about what is probably the most important aspect of fastpitch softball: coaching. I know a lot of our readers are probably coaches, and parents who are not necessarily trained coaches but are volunteering their time to give their children the opportunity to play softball. Hopefully the information I provide in this series of articles will help you spruce up your coaching skills and move you toward achieving the common goal we all have: positively affecting the lives of young athletes and creating a playing environment that helps them grow not just as players, but as people also.

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How the Hips Compare in Pitching and Hitting

One of our students recently asked us a great question: why is it that in pitching we emphasize the hips moving in a linear fashion and the hand getting through first, but in hitting the hips rotate through and the hands lag behind? Watch today’s video for an explanation.

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Does Lifting Weights Make Girls Bulky?

One of the main concerns young females have about starting a lifting program is that they will get “bulky”. To be clear, lifting weights does not make you bulky. However, I know it’s going to take a lot more than me saying it to convince hundreds of female readers that it’s true. Maybe a message from Miss America 2013 will help?

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Repetitive Use Injury Prevention and Treatment

As a softball player, you’re always at some risk for injury by sudden accident—getting hit by a pitch or a hit ball, sliding awkwardly, colliding with another player, etc.—and there usually isn’t anything you can do to prevent this type of injury. It’s just part of the game. However, as you probably know, that isn’t the only way you can get hurt. Repetitive use injuries, or sudden injuries that result from an inherent weakness in the body, affect a tremendous number of athletes across all sports. Today we’re going to discuss how they happen, how to avoid them, and how to deal with them if you get one.

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Critical Exercises for Female Athletes

Females tend to be more flexible than males which makes stability training an specific consideration for female strength and conditioning programs. In these videos, I explain and demonstrate stability exercises for a critical area of the body: the hips.

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Fastpitch Power Facebook Contest Winner!

Thank you to everyone who started following us on Facebook! We managed to exceed our goal of 100 followers by the holidays and we’re now at 115!

I compiled all the contest entrants’ names into a list and chose the winner by putting it through a randomizer at Random.org. The winner is…

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