How to Effectively Practice

It is easy to go about each practice as if we were just going through the motions. I mean let's face it, it is easy to put on a front and not give a full effort in practice when its the same thing over and over again or maybe some drills that aren't exactly the most exciting thing in the world. But do players really know how to practice? In other words, how to continually grow to achieve the level of competition they want to be able to perform at.

As a baseball player, you can't procrastinate and put off working on fundamentals and then expect to show up to a game and have a 4-4 performance. In another sense, would a farmer wait until the Fall to begin planting and harvesting the crops? There is much preparation that goes into getting the soil fertile and allowing the natural progression and development of the crops to take place. It is not something you can expect to occur if you just put it off until the last possible minute.

So what is the right way to practice? Well to start, you must practice at game speed at ALL times. I realize this is easier said than done, but what makes the great players "great" is because in every situation whether it be hitting off a Tee or taking 200 ground balls at shortstop, they take EACH and EVERY swing or ground ball as if it were a game situation. You can not afford to take one play off!

Additionally, if you watch a practice and more specifically a player working on his own... you're likely to see them working and gravitating towards their strengths. If a guy likes to pull the ball, you'll typically see him taking batting practice swinging out of his shoes and pulling the ball. You see, psychologically people don't like to expose their weaknesses. We tend to gravitate towards what our strengths are and just do that over and over again. But why? How is that making you better? Baseball is a very humbling game and it WILL inevitably find a way to expose your weaknesses. The guy who has troubles going to his backhand side to field a groundball and refuses to work on it in practice is also the same guy who makes the game ending error on that same play in a championship game.

So what I'm saying is, practice is designed to work on the areas of the game that need improvement. I encourage you to work on those things which you have NOT perfected and knowingly need work on. If you need to work on going to the opposite field when hitting, then work on it! How else will you get better? If you have trouble locating a fastball in the bottom part of the strike zone, then work at it!! Don't just accept doing a drill without a purpose. EVERYTHING MUST BE DONE WITH A PURPOSE. Not one drill or one repetition can be taken off. Practice things the right way; at game speed, and practice those aspects of the game that need improvement and not those in which you just resort back to your comfort zone and work on the areas of the game you're strongest in. Imagine if you developed all areas of your game, what kind of ball player you'd be. That is the beautiful thing about baseball is that you can never rest on your laurels and you have NEVER perfected something completely... there is always room for improvement no matter how good you are since baseball is a game of constant development and constantly making adjustments.