The Batting Cage Blueprint: Why weekly hitting reps matter for young athletes

Stepping up to the plate with confidence doesn't happen by accident. Behind every successful young hitter stands hours of consistent, deliberate practice that most spectators never see.

This episode tackles a hard truth many parents need to hear: waiting for your child to show initiative before investing in their athletic development could be silently sabotaging their progress. We explore why consistent batting practice—especially those "boring" tee drills—forms the foundation of hitting success at every level of play. Even Major League stars take hundreds of tee swings weekly, recognizing what many young athletes (and their parents) miss: repetition builds the timing, rhythm, and muscle memory essential for performance when it counts.

We break down exactly what an effective weekly hitting regimen looks like, offering a practical blueprint any family can implement: three to four focused sessions weekly, each with specific purposes and progression points. Learn how just 10-20 minutes of intentional practice several times weekly dramatically outperforms longer, less frequent sessions. Discover the secret to making fundamentals fun by ending each practice with positive reinforcement activities that build both skills and enthusiasm.

The most important message might be directed at parents themselves. Rather than waiting for motivation to magically appear, successful athletic development requires structure and consistency first. By scheduling regular practice opportunities and treating them with the same importance as homework or team practice, parents give their children the gift of discipline—a skill that translates far beyond sports.

Ready to transform your approach to your child's athletic development? This episode provides the roadmap, practical tips for finding resources, and the motivation to start building better routines today. Your young athlete's confidence and performance depend on the habits you help establish now. Share this with other sports parents and join us in raising athletes who understand that greatness comes from embracing the fundamentals.

Order your copy of the PGM Athlete Performance Planner - www.PGMAthlete.com

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pgmathlete/

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@PGMAthlete

Chapters

• 0:18 Why Consistent Batting Practice Matters
• 1:46 Creating a Weekly Hitting Regimen
• 5:00 Parents: Structure Beats Waiting for Motivation
• 8:29 Long-Term Benefits of Consistent Practice
• 9:53 Finding Resources and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

It's not optional why consistent batting practice is essential for creating better athletes. Let's get into this really important topic for athletes, but honestly, this one's going to be right to parents. Welcome back to Raising Athletes. Raising Athletes, the things that causes all dads to go bald and moms to buy minivans. Empowering parents to help their kids succeed. Okay, there's no one around. So let me ask you an honest question how often does your athlete practice on their own, Not with their team for practice or before a game, but on their own? How often do they practice? Is the answer never or rarely? Well then, this episode is going to challenge you and them, and you need to listen up, especially if you want your child to get better and your child wants to improve as an athlete. Today we're talking about the importance of consistent reps in the cage, what a weekly routine should look like and why waiting for your kids to take initiative on their own could actually cost them their development. Now, why does consistency as far as hitting reps? Why does it matter? Well, here's the obvious right Number one hitting is a skill that depends on timing, rhythm and muscle memory Repetition. Under the right structure, it leads to greater confidence in games and also the players who separate themselves are the ones who are getting the extra reps consistently, not just during team practice. And here is the cold hard truth T-work, especially for kids it's boring and I get it, but it's also the thing that makes the difference in how they get better, and I get it, but it's also the thing that makes the difference in how they get better. The best players in the entire world major leaguers are still taking hundreds of reps off of a tee every single week. So if it's good enough for them, it's definitely good enough for your child. It's essential for barrel control, contact point awareness and mechanics. So if the only time your kid is hitting is at a team practice, then they're falling behind, and that's the cold hard truth. So what does a hitting regimen look like that your child should be going through on a weekly basis? Does it change? Based on age and current skill level? A hundred percent, and based on their age and current skill level? 100%, and based on their age and current skill level. You should develop a regimen that's catered towards them, but it all should be working towards scaling up and challenging them more and more as the weeks and the months progress.

Speaker 1: 2:40

But ultimately, you want to get your young athlete to a place where they're on their own practicing three or four days a week. Now I'm not suggesting that that should be an hour, two, three hours every single day. Just even 10 to 20 minutes a day, three days a week, will make a huge difference down the road. So on day one, an example could be you just take three rounds of 15 to 20 swings. That focuses on your swing path, posture and balance. You can simply just mirror your swing, literally have your child swing in front of a mirror so that they can see themselves and make sure that they're focusing on slow motion reps.

Speaker 1: 3:21

Day two this is where you can now bring in and incorporate front toss or timing drills. You want reaction drills, rhythm work and zone discipline. Game three this is perfect for game-like reps. This is where you can bring in a live arm or machine, and what I always encourage the athletes that I teach and the athletes that are on my teams is you want it in this situation, when you're in the cage, you wanna be able to practice competing in certain hitting counts, for example, an 0-2 count, a 3-1 count, bases, loaded situations. This readies the player to be able to handle those situations in a game, Instead of it being not intentional. Now you're practicing with intentionality and they will be ready for those situations when that situation presents itself in a game. You also want to end with fun. This is okay. I know some coaches are sticklers with this, but I say, instead of taking the entire cage work where you're dialing up the machine to as fast as it can go to see if you can hit it, or you're in hit track to see if you can, how many times you can hit it over the fence, I say spend 95% of your hitting intentionality right, being intentional about the situation, on what you're doing on the drills right, and I think, end with fun. You can end with power. You can end with spraying the field and doing a little competition to see how many balls you can hit to the right side, up the middle, to the left side, instead of just being sort of random with every single swing.

Speaker 1: 4:56

I think it's important for athletes to be intentional about every swing that they take when they are practicing Now because, like I said earlier, hitting off the tee especially for the young ones, it's really boring. Well then, set a goal in mind 10 minutes of being intentional and working through the drill and in the last five minutes we can have fun and we could do a little home run hitting contest to see how hard you hit your exit velo and all that other fun stuff. End of the fun thing this way they've got the positive dopamine hit right there and this way, when they come back to it, they're gonna remember that feeling and they're gonna develop that passion for practicing on the tee. So we're gonna to develop that passion for practicing on the tee. So we're going to turn something that was boring into something that could be a lot of fun.

Speaker 1: 5:39

Now day four. This could be like a light, a light focus day. Some people want to add a day of rest here. Either way, I'm okay with it, but regardless, here is where I would recommend doing like short tee work. You could do some band work. You could do some like quick 10 minute resets with like a slight form review if you've got someone with you. But in total for the entire week, we're looking at 90 to 120 minutes for the whole week. This is spread out over three or four days. You do this consistently. It will make a huge difference and will translate positively in game situations.

Speaker 1: 6:15

Now I gotta take a moment here and I got to talk directly to my parents, my friends here. We are friends in this entire journey of raising athletes. So I'm going to talk directly with you and there is a phrase that many of us have uttered to our kids and I want us to start moving away from it. I think it's interfering with potential progress that our kids can ultimately experience, and that is I'm waiting for my child to develop more interest before I'm willing to invest more time and effort in helping them to develop. I think this is putting our kids in a place where now they're behind the eight ball a little bit and we are assuming that our child is going to have the right motivation to do, like we said earlier, the boring stuff. We know and we can acknowledge they don't want to do the boring stuff. So it's up to us as parents and coaches, to make sure we're creating the routines, scheduling these opportunities for them so that over time then they can develop that passion. But waiting for the passion just to manifest itself without any type of interference is almost unfair to the child. So what I would like to recommend is us to move away from that phrase and really start focusing on what we can do to help create better routines for kids when they're younger, so that now, when they're older, they've got these routines, these foundational elements in place that will really be critical for their success. I would recommend that if you think that something is important and we know, as parents, things that are important for our kids well then don't wait for motivation.

Speaker 1: 7:58

Build structure Kids. We know this, I've said it so many times. Kids say things are boring, like tea work, and that's normal. But it's our job as parents to help guide them, not to entertain them all the time. So, schedule it Just like homework or practice. Remove the guesswork. Routine builds confidence. Confidence fuels performance, and it starts with us, the parents. So let's close with some of these long-term benefits of consistent cage work. What are some of these outcomes that we can expect our kids to see over time? Well, first, more confident at bats and games. Also, better mechanics under pressure that's a big one. Improved bat speed, power, contact rate and, ultimately, a greater love for the process, which then will lead to the child expressing the interest, on their own, to do more teamwork in the backyard. See, repetition creates comfort. Comfort breeds courage in the batter's box.

Speaker 1: 9:04

My recommendation to all parents is set the schedule. Start small and realistic and then scale up. Start at 10 to 20 minutes, maybe two or three times, and then scale up, adding days, two days, three days, four days. Keep a simple log or video record of the progress and don't expect perfection, but reward consistency. Development doesn't wait for motivation. It rewards discipline. So give your athlete the gift of a routine and the reps they need to compete. I really hope that this has motivated all of you to help our athletes become well, get to a place where they have a better chance of success.

Speaker 1: 9:49

There are a lot of opportunities even if you don't have, let's say, a net or a tee yourself or a batting cage. There are lots of local batting cages that you can get access to. For example, at R3 Athlete Performance in Holtzville, right here on Long Island, we have a facility and we have a membership. It's called Open Cage Memberships where twice a week, as long as you're a member, you get access to a cage for 30 minutes. It's only 50 bucks. That translates to $10 a week. Get access to this. Get these memberships for your kids so that then they will have that scheduled routine If they do it over the course of a period of time, several months, all of a sudden guess what?

Speaker 1: 10:27

Now you've helped to give the gift of discipline to your child, where now they're doing it on their own. So that earlier phrase, oh, I'm waiting for them to express interest. Well, how about we help our kids develop that passion and get into the routine of scheduling the boring stuff and turning the boring stuff into the fun stuff? Because they see the reward, they see the results. It's pretty exciting stuff. Anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Raising Athletes. We're in this together, right? So definitely share this with everyone that you know. That also is raising athletes. We'll see you next time, Take care.