Coaching Girls Softball: Techniques for Coaching Female Athletes

It’s obvious that men and women differ in many ways, but one of the bigger might be how coaches can coach women opposed to men and make them better athletes. Women have many factors to consider when training and practicing for a sport, especially a demanding sport such as softball.

Softball can be extremely competitive especially during tournaments and on traveling teams. To reach your peak, a healthy diet, good conditioning through winter months and a lot of practice are very important.

As the field positions vary, so do the different coaching techniques. The saying goes practice makes perfect, but what about a pitcher? It is not good for a pitcher to practice pitching many hours a week and then go pitch in a game. Every position in all the different sports requires different techniques and training.

Female players also have to watch for signs of overwork. Missing a menstrual cycle can be a sign of overwork and malnutrition. A missed menstrual cycle can also be a warning that Female Athlete Triad might be occurring.

Female Athlete Triad has three components that are extremely dangerous to the athlete.

1. Disordered eating - this ‘symptom’ can come in many forms, female athletes may limit their calorie or fat gram intake severely causing weakness or fatigue and could develop into more serious conditions such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa.2. Amenorrhea (missing a menstrual cycle) - this symptom is caused by severely limiting calorie intake and exercising taken to the extreme. Everything is good in moderation; this is also true for exercising and limiting calorie intake. Although a missed menstrual cycle doesn’t mean you have Female Athlete Triad, it is important to consult a doctor if you usually have regular menstrual cycles but then miss one. 3. Osteoporosis - this symptom is, as the others, a harmful condition by itself, but is made worse in combination with the previous two. Osteoporosis is a bone condition where your bones become very fragile and are prone to breakage.

All of the above symptoms can be avoided by keeping a healthy diet and not over exercising.
Here are five techniques that can help you, as a coach, when it comes to coaching women in general:

1. When picking positions for your team, let every player have a shot at all the desired positions. The pitcher might be a better catcher and the center fielder might be a better shortstop.

2. Remember that women can be fragile, so watch what you say. Many female teams greatly dislike being referred to as ‘guys,’ while some extremely dislike the phrase ‘you throw like a girl.’ You need to be totally unbiased when coaching, unless you yourself are female. Many women tend to connect more with a female coach, and don’t mind some harmless ‘poking fun.’

3. Believe it or not, many male coaches can get better participation and drive out of female players than females themselves. This can be attributed to a few things, one being that the male is seen as insensitive so they don’t let their players whine or cry when they fall. This is good and bad, this gives the girls a high threshold for ‘pain,’ meaning when they slide hard into third, they are more apt to jump up than limp off the field. It is also a possibility that when girls are complimented on their sport accomplishments, like throwing six strikes in a row, catching the fly in center field or rounding third and heading for home, it means more coming from a male than a female.

4. If you are a male coach it is important that you are sensitive to cramps, needing a bathroom break and impromptu migraines. You have to remember that none of these are the player’s fault, sometimes things just happen.

5. Have fun! As in any sport, there will come a day that everyone just needs to have a break and have some fun. You can play a pick-up game instead of running laps, share stories of the best feeling you had on the field instead of batting practice or you could cancel practice and have a ‘pizza’ party.

The key to coaching and parenting a female athlete is to listen to them. If they are physically saying your pushing too hard then pull back a little bit. Trust is the main component to remember when participating in sports. If the coach trusts the player then the player and parent will trust the coach.