Maximize Your Child's Success During Off-Season Training: Set goals and EARN PLAYING TIME!
So, your kid made the team, congratulations, youth travel sports are now more competitive than ever. But look out because off-season training has started or is right around the corner. So now what?
The off-season training period is obviously critical and can make or break your young athlete's opportunities on the field during the season. What can you do as a parent to help ensure that your child is maximizing their ability to have success during training and, ultimately, in game opportunities?
Let me start off by saying that you are in luck! Considering the fact that most families just jump into training aimlessly, even reading this article should be considered an edge.
As you will see below, communication and organization (data) will serve as the backbone for maximizing your child's success.
Communication:
With your child
What do they feel are their strengths and weaknesses today?
What are their goals during this off-season training period, in-season this year, with their mentality, and as a teammate?
With your partner/ spouse
Stay on the same page with your expectations, goals, demands, and workloads for your child.
Shared involvement in your child's development.
With your coach- summer & high school
Stay on the same page with their summer & high school coach regarding team expectations, schedules, and workloads.
Ask for their input into your child's off-season training strategy.
Ask them about the role that they foresee for your child; include your child's strengths weaknesses, and upside into the conversation.
What should they be doing for strength and conditioning? When is it age appropriate? Most ages can do something to impact their physical profile.
What are their training and trainer recommendations for private lessons and drill work?
With your child's organization
What training equipment is provided by the organization and what do they suggest you purchase to enhance your child's development?
What type of budget should you set for your child's supplemental off-season training (private lessons)?
Organization:
Once you have a goal-oriented plan in place, its time to get to work. But what about progress? How do we ensure that we are on the right track? Hopefully, your son's organization and coach track and use some form of data. If they don't, that's okay, you can do it on your own. I don't mean to come off like a data snob, however there are far too many resources in this arena today to at least try to use some of it at all ages.
Start with the basics: track gains in number of successful pushups and pullups (or inverse rows); measure and track velocity and speed (throwing, foot-speed, etc), throwing distances, and vertical & broad jump. Where is your child at the on-set of training and where do they stand prior to the start of their season? Besting their own data and their teammate's numbers creates a competitive fire and chemistry that compounds and yields tremendous value in-season, not to mention, the benefit of becoming bigger, faster and stronger in the process.
If you find your child in a situation where their data isn't being tracked and put to use, do it on your own and have your child take ownership over it. Their school planner, a calendar, or, simply, a notebook can be effectively utilized to record, track, and improve upon progress. An example of a tracking tool that you might consider applying is the "Pitcher's Bible".
With communication and data driven organization as the best practices, you and your child will have more confidence in their training and development plan. The progress that you see will be undeniable. Will any of this guarantee playing time for your child and a 20-year MLB career? Nothing is guaranteed, but only time will tell how far they can go. They may indeed become the best of all time at their craft someday. But for now, they will build a foundation of habits and character traits that should help them find success and personal fulfillment in the game of baseball, along with other paths they take in their life.
-Coach Sus