Practice Planning: Foundational Guide for Coaches

Why Practice Planning Matters

A well-structured practice plan transforms chaos into progress. It ensures every athlete gets reps, every skill is developed, and your time is maximized. Great plans create buy-in, reduce confusion, and set the tone for your team’s culture. But that is just the beginning, a well-structured practice plan will start to harmonize your team and create more of what most coaches refer to as “Muscle Memory”. This is where real learning and progress starts to take place. Think small bursts of activity that are repeated daily (or as close to daily as you can get) and then you move on to the next skill. Always finish the practice with an activity that promotes competition, brings all the skills you worked on during practice into the game, and then finishes with a mental recap of the day's lessons.

I understand that we are all limited by time, we may only have our athletes for an hour, or two hours a day, or maybe a few days a week, that’s ok. Plan your practice accordingly around the time you have. Make sure you take the time to give your athletes something to do at home, when they are not with you. Emphasize that some practice every day makes 10x progress in their development over a few practice sessions with you. (The Mirror drill is a great one they can do anywhere)

Core Elements of a Winning Practice

Clear Objectives: Define what you want to accomplish (e.g., improve outfield relays, build hitting confidence). This is for you and your coaching staff. Make sure you have a clear objective that you are all working toward. Also, don’t change this every practice. If you hit on twice a week, for six consecutive weeks, those objectives will be the same. If you field once a week, for 12 consecutive weeks those objectives will be the same. This is a hard concept to wrap your brain around in this fast paced, win now world, but trust me, this will make all the difference in developing your athletes.

Time Blocks: Segment practice (Mental prep, warm-up, skill work, competition, cool-down) and stick to the clock. This is important, I like to get a parent involved here or a volunteer/manager. I give them a stop watch and control of the practice music. Make sure they have a copy of your practice plan to know how long they need to be setting their timer for and when to sound warnings and get players ready to transfer.

Progressions: Start simple, layer complexity—especially for pitching, throwing, and fielding. This does not mean that you start simple at the beginning of the day and get more complex throughout the practice, it’s more like, get more complex as they master the simple parts. You may be 2-4 practices in before you start seeing that your athletes are ready to add difficulty.

Stations: Small groups, multiple stations, maximize reps, minimize standing around. This is all about keeping the learning going and taking advantage of every second you have with your athletes. 30 productive minutes will out perform an hour and a half with a lot of standing around any day.

Accountability: Assign roles (who leads warm-up? Who tracks attendance?) This should not be you, the captains should be responsible for these tasks. Have them assign penalties for the team when guidelines are not being followed. Pro tip: I don’t usually pick these athletes, they let themselves be known. And no, it’s not the one who “says” he/she is the leader, it’s those who show up and become leaders as your team develops. You will know who they are if you keep your eye out.

Sample Practice Flow

Dynamic Warm-Up (10 min): Movement prep, arm care, team talk. It is important to note that this is not “waste” time. This is part of practice. Getting your athletes warmed up, and mentally prepared for practice will multiply your returns 10x. (I let the athletes know this is a safe space, they need to keep it positive and uplifting for themselves and their teammates.) I know that sarcasm is easy, and funny on the surface, but if you only knew what it did to athletes who aren’t very confident, there is no way you would allow it on the field. There is a reason they call it “the tool of fools”.

Throwing Progression (10 min): Short-to-long toss, position-specific throws, focus on mechanics. Pro top: you can get more arm strength with shorter distance by teaching your athletes to throw a football. It helps with the wrist snap, the strength and follow through. The football is not as forgiving as the baseball/softball. Make sure the feedback they are looking for is a tight spiral going to their partner in the air. Each day extend the distance as far as they can throw it. This can be equivalent to 20 minutes of long toss, with less stress on the arm.

Defensive Work (20 min):

Infield: Ground ball progression, double plays, quick release drills. Focus on footwork, Minimizing movements, think as close to one continuous motion as possible.

Outfield: Drop step, fly ball tracking, relays. You can do this in small groups, and use volunteers to toss the ball for short drills, but it is important that the person you have hitting fly balls can control the balls angle and height, that way you can give your athletes experience close to what they will see in the game.

Catching: Blocking, receiving, quick transfers. Catchers are the backbone of your pitching staff, and the anchor that can and will change the outcome of most of your games. Don’t leave this as an afterthought. Catchers need to work on receiving, blocking, footwork, and arm strength every single practice.

Hitting (20 min):

Tee/soft toss progression, live BP, situational hitting. You can do this with stations. All of these are happening at the same time. Have someone monitoring these stations if possible. Be careful that real instruction is either being guided by you, or left to you. A well meaning parent who does not know the game as well as you can be as harmful as they can be helpful. If you absolutely don’t have the right help. Train the athletes properly, keep it simple, short and precise. Then put them in partners at the stations. One will hit, and the other will give the feedback. Pro tip: Tell them exactly what feedback they should be giving before they start giving it.

Competition/Game Speed (15 min): Small-sided games, pressure situations.

This is so important, this is what keeps it fun. And it will keep your athletes engaged and motivated the whole time. If they know that the day always ends in a friendly competition, they will work hard to get there. The best part, they won’t even notice how hard they are working.

Cool-Down & Team Review (5 min): Stretch, highlight wins, set goals for next session.

This is a great time to pick one thing you focused on during this practice session. Discuss it, and allow the athletes to give you their feedback. You know it, make sure they are learning it, and embracing it.

Tips for Each Skill Area

Pitching: Focus on routines, tempo, and mental reps. Build in bullpen work and flat-ground sessions. Everything is about consistency, if you are consistent in your practice routine, they will throw strikes consistently.

Hitting: Use video feedback. Mix in approach talks and confidence-building drills. Minimize instruction during drill times. Limit your feedback to one, two or three things. This can be transferred and causes your athletes to maintain an intense focus over longer periods of time.

Fielding: Emphasize footwork and communication. Rotate positions for versatility. Make sure they are choosing something to focus on during each exercise, one thing, not multiple things. If you train them to focus singly throughout your practice, you will see this skill translate into every part of their game.

Throwing: Prioritize arm care and accuracy before adding velocity. Let them know that velocity comes automatically. When you do the right things consistently, over a period of time, velocity will show up, it always does. Remind them that you can’t win games with velocity alone, but you can win games with the ability to throw the ball where you want to throw it, when you want to throw it there.

Outfield: Use live reads, communication drills, and relay timing. I really love teaching my athletes the “No Fly Zone”. This is anything in the outfield grass, is caught. When we are practicing, we are covering the “No Fly Zone”. If the ball goes in the air, we catch it, period. When your goal in practice is set at this high of a standard, watch what happens in a game. No more of those balls hitting the ground two feet in front of your outfielder.

Catching: Prioritize blocking, quick feet, and vocal leadership. I love to train my catchers, not just in their skills on the field, but on how to command the field and control the flow of the game. A well trained catcher can change the outcome of close games in your favor. If I have a team that is not winning close games, the first place I look is at my catcher. They also are usually the vocal leaders that the team actually listens to (not everyone who is vocal is a leader).

Final Thought

Your plan is your culture in action. It’s important that you plan by starting with the end in mind. Where are you trying to get your team to at the end of the season, the end of the quarter, the end of the month, the end of the week, and finally, the end of the practice. Also, be careful not to try and fix everything in one practice. I see too many new coaches make a list over the weekend of EVERYTHING their team needs to work on, and then try to fix it all in the first 5 minutes of practice. Pick one thing on offense, one thing on defense, and that is your focus for at least 6-7 practices. Then move on to the next thing. Don’t worry, often working on the “one thing” usually helps the rest of their game improve automatically. Share your plan before practice, this allows your athletes to be in line with, and share in the team goal. Get feedback every practice, and adjust based on what your team needs most as they grow together.

Good Luck coach, and post your comments, questions and feedback in the comments below! Can’t wait to see how your season goes, and your athletes grow!

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