Today, we’re going to talk about a variety of youth baseball drills that are perfect for conditioning your players to be the best they can be.
Pick-Ups
This is a great drill for helping your reaction time regardless of position. Your player will plop down on the ground right in front of you, the coach, with his head facing toward you.
When you yell, “Go,” your player will scramble to his feet as fast as he, as if he were coming out of a roll, with the ball coming over his head.
The better the player, the older he is, the more agile he is, the harder you want to work him.
As your players get better at it, they can move to the right, to the left. Eight or 10 repetitions would be great on this.
One Foot One Hole
There are a hundred different drills you can do with a running grid. The first one we’re going to do is one foot in one hole in a running format.
Remind your players that the first thing they want to do is pick their focal point.
They should avoid making contact with the grid whenever possible. With this drill, they’re focusing on having one foot in one hole at a time.
Two Feet One Hole
The second drill will be two feet, one hole. We’re going to touch down twice in one grid and then we’ll move on to the next. We’ve really got to get our knees up in order to do this or we’re going to miss hitting in the grid.
1 – 3 – 5 – Out
This time we’re going to take one step, and we’re going to elongate a little bit. We’re going to hit the one hole, the three hole, the five hole, and out.
So we’re going to lengthen our stride out just a little bit, staying on the right side of the grid.
Alternating Sides
Our next exercise is going to allow us to use both sides of the grid.
We’re going to touch down in the first grid with our right foot, then we’re going to hit the next grip with our left. We want to stay close to the center line.
You don’t want to get sloppy here and start straggling all over the running grid. Stay always close to the center line.
Duck Waddle
We’re going to do this one in a walking form. We’re going to take our right foot and step on the left side of the grid, and then we’re going to go left foot up, step on the right side.
We want to stay real close to the center line, and keep the knees up. We don’t have to pump the arms on this one.
The natural tendency is for people to swing out away from the center line. We don’t want to do that.
This requires some coordination, a little bit of agility.
Bunny Hop
With this youth baseball drill, we’ll go on the right side of the grid. What we’re working on here is a little bit of lift with the legs, but a whole lot of lift with the arms.
Have your players go one hole at a time with the bunny hop.
Lifting the arms helps us drive as we then take that into a running format, where the arms are used to being able to lift and give you a little bit extra help.
Next, you can take the bunny hop and go in diagonals with it.
One thing you want to try to remember is, whenever you do this, try to find a soft surface that you can hit on. A gym floor works well; it’s got a little bit of give. You don’t want to do this on concrete.
If you think your players will get a lot out of these youth baseball drills, here’s another one for you to check out!