|
CoachMariettaBombers
25 Posts |
 Posted - 12/06/2014 : 12:40:52
|
The Mental Side of Baseball
Observationally, the vast majority of coaching efforts in Little League baseball involve rigorous training in the fundamentals of the game, hitting and fielding mechanics, appropriate positioning, etc. A recent trend is to begin incorporating skills and agility training into practices, and individualized hitting and pitching lessons is becoming the norm, not the exception. Most of us probably agree - we’re seeing an evolution and increased complexity in the way we teach the game of baseball to our ballplayers.
We understand why the investment in teaching good physical fundamentals is important. Let’s take a 16-year-old ballplayer who has natural ability throwing the baseball, but who has been throwing the ball with poor mechanics the entire time. It’s difficult to train him to throw differently. Think through this using very conservative numbers. Say that the ballplayer did not pick up a ball until age 6. From age 6 to 16, that ballplayer throws the baseball 50 times, three days a week, 25 weeks per year. By the time, we attempt an “intervention,” that child has thrown the baseball incorrectly 25,000 times. Now, this is an extremely conservative estimate, as competitive baseball requires far more repetition than this. Many of our kids are throwing the ball 50 times a day, 5 times a week, and 40 weeks per year, from age 6 to 16. So, whereas a conservative estimate is 25,000 poorly thrown balls, a more realistic estimate might be closer to 100,000. Changing any behavior that has been repeated 100,000 times without interruption is hard, regardless of what it is.
We have to remember that we’re not dealing with just physical mechanics, we’re talking about “rewiring the brain.” Sometimes we forget that throwing is not just an arm, a leg, and core body control. It’s about the brain that allows the upper and lower extremities to do the work. So, when we try to teach a kid to change his throwing motion, we are modifying the neural circuitry of the brain. That’s easier to do with some kids than others, but it’s rarely “easy,” and ballplayers will often revert back to old ways of doing things unless we work consciously to help them modify their behavior (and of course, they have to have the motivation to make the change).
So, we recognize the importance of teaching physical fundamentals, but what about this? Yogi Berra famously stated, “Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.” Clearly mathematics was not Yogi’s expertise, but he was accurate in his appraisal that baseball is, very much, a mental game. When you talk with successful ballplayers, many will tell you that the mental game is exceedingly difficult to master, but critically important. Part of what makes it difficult is the fact that we wait to train that side of the game until a ballplayer is older, and by that time, habits have already formed. If our kids are throwing baseballs in a problematic way, 25,000-100,000, how many times have our kids engaged in problematic thinking that contribute to or detract from their performance on the field? And how much work do we invest in teaching mental fundamentals?
These are questions that we cannot quantify with any accuracy, but they are important to consider. A clinical psychologist, last year I helped consult with an SEC football program, and the questions from the coaching staff were predictable. How is this guy put together mentally? How do we get this guy to behave differently? What’s the best way to motivate this player specifically? Which of these guys are at risk for behavior problems? All of these questions converge around central ideas that make sense to us on some level when we hang around athletics – that the thinking of a ballplayer (regardless of the specific sport) relates to certain behaviors, and there are certain contexts in which behaviors may be more (or less) likely to occur. Why did Mark Lemke hit .234 in the 1991 regular season and .417 in the World Series, and how probable is it that he would have had that capability without also being fundamentally mentally sound, at that time? What allows a star player in David Ortiz raise his 2013 regular season performance (.309 batting average) even higher (.688 with 2 home runs, 6 RBIs, and 8 walks) on the World Series stage? And don’t forget Carlos Beltran. We can think of the guys who underperform in clutch situations as well.
The point is this: mental make-up and mental fundamentals matter, and we need to start teaching these skills to our kids early. Helping our ballplayers learn “the mental side of the game” is a step towards teaching them something else about life. Failure after an at-bat is an opportunity to help them manage disappointment in life, and they are all going to fail at something. Most of our kids will max out in their effectiveness as baseball players at some point, and then they are going to make the transition to being effective and successful at something else (as a student, as an engineer, as a forklift operator, as a father, etc). For now, they’re playing baseball, and we can do certain things that help prepare them for success on the field. Why not also teach them skills that will help them to be more successful off the field? This is about seeing the big picture, and remembering that our job is to help optimize their behavioral potential in all areas of ilfe. That means helping them bolster their character, their ability to engage in healthy relationships, and their ability to bounce back from any number of disappointments they encounter. Baseball is just another teaching venue.
If you have ballplayers, or if you are a teams that is interested in learning more about how to implement these concepts and optimize performance, feel free to contact us at coaches@mariettabombers.org. Regardless, I hope this will at a minimum give you something that’s helpful to incorporate in your teaching of your ballplayers going forward.
Dr. Ryan Breshears is a licensed clinical psychologist and the Chief Behavioral Health Officer for WellStar Health System. He is also the head coach of the Marietta Bombers, an 8U Travel Team based out of Marietta, Georgia. For information on spring tryouts, check our website at www.mariettabombers.org.
|
Edited by - CoachMariettaBombers on 12/06/2014 14:54:48 |
|
Mental Side of Baseball
