To continue with our [tag]coaching tips for little league baseball[/tag], this is the first of two [tag]running drills[/tag]. It is called Mountains. To do this [tag]drill[/tag], there need to be lines drawn on the ground, such as those on a basketball court, or landmarks outside for athletes to follow. These distances should be relatively regular in intervals, and there should be no more than 5 of them. 
Athletes should start at a designated starting point behind the first line. When you tell them to, athletes should sprint from the starting line to the first line. From the first line they should sprint back to the starting line. Now that athletes are back at the starting line, they should sprint to the second line, touch it, and sprint back to the start. They should continue these movements, sprinting to the next line each time. Basically, athletes run from start to line 1, back to start, to line 2, back to start, to line 3, back to start, and so on. This drill should be done without stopping, so that athletes work their muscles and do not give themselves a chance to recover between each “mountain.”
Mountains should be run a maximum of two times, with rest time in between. This is a fairly tiring [tag]baseball[/tag] drill, so you may want to wait until the end of a normal practice to lead your athletes in this. If you choose to do it at the beginning of a practice, avoid too many other running drills to avoid fatigue. As a coach, watch that your athletes do not lose their form as they progress through the mountains. It is common for athletes to begin to hunch over, use their arms too much, and slow significantly during the last 2 mountains. Encourage them to maintain their form and posture, even if they run slower.
A good drill for Mountains is to have athletes run the bases as mountains, starting at home and progressing through the bases. Because this is a much longer distance than normal Mountain drills would be, do not expect your athletes to be able to do more than one set of these Mountains.