High School Softball Tryout Prep: The 4-Week Plan

Everything in this plan builds toward day two of tryouts, when you are tired and the coach is watching what you do about it. If you pitch, your pitching work stays with your pitching coach; this is everything else.

---

One knee at ten feet, wrist flips, fifteen throws. Twenty feet standing, fifteen more. Forty, sixty, eighty feet, twelve each, easy arc, no max effort. Stop at eighty. Throwing volume builds over four weeks, and a cold arm that throws hard in week one is a sore arm on day two of tryouts.

Foul pole to foul pole along the fence, jog the width of the field back, six rounds. Time each one. Coaches run a conditioning test on day one to see who falls apart, and the kid who ran poles for four weeks does not. Write the times down. You will beat them next week.

Forty swings, tee at the front hip, all back up the middle. Front foot lands soft and closed, hands stay inside the ball, barrel stays through contact. This week is about one swing that repeats, so that when the legs go in week three, the swing does not go with them.

---

Ladder to one hundred feet, then fifteen throws from sixty with a crow hop at a target, your partner’s chest or a chalk square. Count the ones that hit. Then ten throws from outfield distance to a base, one hop on purpose. A one-hop throw that is on line beats a rainbow every time.

Duration: 15 min · Equipment: Bat, bucket, partner tossing from behind a screen or the side

Thirty-five pitches. First twenty: hit it where it is pitched, take the balls and say "ball." Next fifteen: two strikes, choke up a finger, shorten the swing, put it in play. Then ten bunts, and if you are fast and hit from the left side, ten drag bunts or slaps with your feet starting on the release. High school coaches value the kid who can move a runner and beat out a bunt.

Twenty ground balls off the wall or from a partner: right, left, field; right, left, throw. Then fifteen pop-ups, every one called three times before the catch. On every rep, say the count and the outs out loud before the ball comes. Quiet fields are where coaches notice who talks.

---

Two rounds of poles, then immediately fifteen throws at the target from sixty feet. Rest ninety seconds. Repeat three times. Your throws will want to sail by the third set. Fix it with your feet and your follow-through, not by aiming. This is the closest thing to day two of tryouts you can build alone.

Six timed sprints from a swing through the front edge of first. Then, if you are a slapper or a bunter, six from the slap or the bunt with your feet moving on the release. Then three from the right side of the plate after a full swing. Coaches time this at almost every tryout.

Leave on the release, hop step, land balanced, read: dirt, go; clean, back. Fifteen reps. Then five reps reading a fly ball from second: halfway, then tag or go. Base-running reads are the fastest way to look like a varsity player at a JV tryout.

---

Three rounds only, full rest between, best times of the month. Then stop. The conditioning is in the bank.

Twenty-five swings off the tee, up the middle, front foot soft. Not fifty attempts. Twenty-five good ones. End the session on a good swing every day this week.

The two days before tryouts, walk through the throwing lines, the ground ball footwork, and the situations at your position at half speed in the yard. Say where the ball goes with a runner on first and one out. You are making sure nothing at tryouts is new. Then sleep.

---

Run the plan, then after the first tryout day tell us how the legs held up, how the arm felt on the throw to first, and which station the coach spent the most time on. That is where the next plan starts.