Baseball Speed & Base Running Practice Plan for 13 to 15 Year Olds

Splits logged like lifts, jumps built against real pitcher looks, and arrivals under control. The big field pays the runner who trains all three.

A-skips, B-skips if known, lateral shuffles, build-ups to ninety percent. Three low first-five-steps starts. Two stick-landing broad jumps. The nervous system gets invited before it gets billed.

Six ten-yard starts at max intent, low and punchy, full rests, uphill if the yard offers one (the hill coaches lean and drive better than words). Then two flying twenties: jog into a mark, then full speed past it, feeling the difference between accelerating and cruising. Everything rests fully; the last rep must match the first.

Three timed run-throughs with real rests, best logged and dated. Right-handed and left-handed batter starts both get a turn if switch-thinking; otherwise game-side only. The monthly trend line of this one number is the speed program's report card.

The big-field upgrade: the partner cycles a LIBRARY of looks from the stretch: quick pitch, long hold, pickoff, slide-step, high leg kick. Runner holds a balanced lead and answers each correctly (jump, hold, dive back, adjusted jump), ten mixed reps, jumps graded in steps. Then the timing conversation out loud: which looks are GO looks, which are wait looks, and what the first committed move looked like on each.

Four full timed steal reps off mimed looks (lead, jump, crossover, sprint, controlled arrival). Then the craft extras of the age, two reps each: the delayed steal (walking secondary, GO as the imaginary catcher lobs back), and the first-to-third read off a mimed base hit call. All logged. Steal times minus standing-sprint times still equals the jump; the gap keeps shrinking or the block repeats next week.

Sprint at the bag from twenty yards and arrive UNDER CONTROL three ways, three reps each: the pop-up stop on the bag (chopped steps, hips down, balanced on arrival), the overrun-and-return (through, brake, back), and the round-and-hold (banana approach, held at the bag, ready to advance). Sliding stays a supervised team-practice skill; control is the backyard version, and it prevents both outs and ankles.

Walk a lap while the log gets its numbers: home-to-first, steal time, jump grades, flying-twenty feel notes. Circle the month's best of each. Two minutes of easy striding to flush, done. Speed logged is speed owned; speed remembered is a rumor.

What to watch today: rest discipline. Teenagers turn sprint work into conditioning the moment nobody guards the rest intervals, and conditioned sprinting is slow sprinting rehearsed. If the last start of the day is visibly slower than the first, the volume was wrong; cut it next session and watch the times drop anyway.