With spring comes the start of softball season. However, by March teams have been conditioning for a few months to get ready. Months of practice can start to feel a bit monotonous. Players are itching to get on the field and play. But practice and conditioning doesn’t end once the season begins. Spice up practice with a couple fun softball drills that will continue to improve players’ skills. From basics to more complex exercises, these effective drills will get players moving and having fun.

Hitting Drill: Colored Balls

This drill is awesome for improving a player’s hitting and concentration. Have a coach or pitcher soft toss two balls of different colors at varying heights. Once the balls are in the air, the thrower will call out the color of the ball that the batter has to hit. If the hitters are getting good at playing with two balls, increase the challenge by adding a third. Split up the team into small groups of three or four and have each group do this at once to eliminate downtime at practice. Just make sure there are enough balls for everyone.

Fielding Drill: King of the Hill

Created by Coach Pete Sprenkle, this next softball drill is an entertaining exercise that helps players work on their fielding techniques and reflexes. This is best played in a wide open space because the team will be dived into two groups, both needing quite a lot of room. One coach will go with each group. Leave the gloves on the sidelines for this drill. Players should be using two hands to field the ball.

For the setup, have the players stand in a line. Leave about six feet or so between each player. The coach will stand far away facing the line of players. When everyone is ready, the coach will begin hitting ground balls to the fielders. For the coach, keep in mind that you should be doing your best to hit balls towards every player.

If the player fields the ball cleanly, that player will remain in her spot in line. Any time a fielder makes an error, she will move to the left of the line and the next person up will take her place. The goal of the fielders is to remain at the right most spot in line. That player will be crowned “King”, or “Queen of the Hill” in this case.

Here’s a diagram to help illustrate how the game is played:

Fielding Drill: Know Your Spot

This is another great conditioning drill that allows players to work on fielding. It also helps with instincts and simulating a game atmosphere for players to practice where they should move during plays.

This exercise is best for the infielders and pitchers. Have each player stand in the area of the field they normally would. The coach will then instruct a hypothetical play. For example, “ground ball to third for a double play.” Or, “low ball behind first base.” Being able to see where the players naturally run to during specific plays gives the coach a lot of information to work with.

Once players begin getting the feel for this softball drill and moving to correct locations, coaches can add live ground balls and runners to increase the intensity.

Fielding/Hitting/Footwork Drill: Fungo Forceback

Another useful practice drill designed by Pete Sprenkle, this one takes a little bit of extra work from the coaches or instructors. Those leading the exercise need to be able to effectively hit balls, fungo style. Here’s a quick video that offers tips and information about it.

Bring the team to a soccer or football field and divide them into two groups. Try and use a field that already has football goal posts or soccer goals. Otherwise, coaches will have to create goals roughly 20 to 30 feet wide before starting the drill. Using gloves or any kind of equipment will do. The object of the game is to hit the ball in or over the opposing team’s goal.

The two teams will take turns on offense and defense. Each team should come up with a batting order for when they are on offense. For the team on offense to move up the field, the defense must either drop the ball or fail to field it cleanly. The hitting team then moves up to where the ball was mishandled. Whenever the team that has the ball is closer than 30 feet to the opposing goal, they must move back to 30 feet out. Ideally, the offense should be hitting ground balls and fungos. Any pop fly that is caught by the defense allows them to advance from the spot of the catch and add three steps.

The defense can switch to offense when a defensive player fields the ball cleanly, or the offense hits the ball out of bounds. If the ball is out of bounds, the offensive team turns the ball over wherever it landed out of bounds.

This softball drill improves way more than just fielding (even though that’s the primary skill used). Hitting, alertness, and running are all utilized as well.

Throwing/Running Drill: 3, 2, 1 Run

The last drill is an excellent one to make the team work up a sweat. For this exercise, the team will be divided into two. Space out three balls starting from 3rd base, about five to seven feet apart. The third ball should be about halfway between 3rd base and home plate. The first team will line up behind 3rd base. The second team at home plate.

When the coach says “Go”, the first player on the team behind 3rd will race towards the first ball and throw it to a teammate at 2nd. That player will continue running towards and throwing the other two balls. The goal is to deliver three accurate balls to the person at 2nd. While that is happening, the player at home will begin sprinting from home to 2nd. If the player throwing the balls throws three on target balls to the 2nd baseman before the runner touches 2nd, the throwing team wins. If the runner gets to 2nd first, the running team wins.

After everyone goes, have teams switch places.