# 5 Practice Boredom Part 1
Posted on Mon, Apr 06, 2009
Practice is the place to build your advantage over the competition. The better your practice is, the more of an advantage you will have. So, practicing a lot should do it, right? Not necessarily! Many long term pitchers have lackluster, boring practices that succeed only in burning up time. In fact, practice pushes more athletics away from pitching than any other factor. Additionally, most young pitchers have a family member catch them. Sooner or later a disagreement will occur. If this happens often enough the whole family is effected. When we worked on pitching, practice was 5 days a week and there were weekend games. A typical practice including warm up and warm down, along with travel to and from the practice site cost about 2 hours each day. I live in So Cal so weather allowed me to practice outside most of the time. The only real break would be if we had rain. When that happened we would go to a batting cage and buy an hour there. That made the workout about a half an hour shorter. Overall that is about 600 hours (including game time) a year, about 30,000 practice pitches annually. Here are comments for pitchers of all levels to consider starting with rookies.
BEGINNING ROOKIE PITCHERS: If you think you may want to pitch, start at least 4 months before your season begins. The most important part of beginning as a pitcher is to ask yourself HONESTLY if you want to invest time into the position. Ask those that know you if they think you have the temperament. Think about the local organization for the sport; is it active enough to be worth your investment in time and energy. Are you OK medically; asthma, allergy's, endurance, size and vision need to be within workable guidelines. If all is fine then it is time to find a good pitching coach and take a beginner's lesson. Practice 3 days a week for about a 1/2 hour, working on motion and accuracy only. Do it in a private, well lighted area if possible and be sure to use the ball you will be throwing if you continue as a pitcher. Once you have the motion to a point where you don't have to think about it, take your next lesson. Continue on the 3 day schedule, a 1/2 hour each time plus warm up and warm down. Take another lesson and repeat the practice schedule. After one month it's time to decide if this MIGHT be for you. Ask your pitching coach to give you an honest and realistic evaluation. Do they think you are talented enough to make pitching a career? If they say yes, ask your self the same question listed in the beginning again. Also ask your family if they are willing to help you with your commitment. If you decide to continue you have graduated into the novice pitcher class. Things will begin to change now. Check with us next week fore the next installment for practices. If you have any comments put them here and we will respond.