Off-Season Softball Training Plan: 12 Weeks, by Position and Age

This is a 12-week plan for a softball team that just finished its season. It is written for the coach who has to hand it out and then find out in January whether anyone did it. Three days a week, 30 to 45 minutes a session, split by position group, tiered for 12U, 14U, and 16U and up. The calendar is below; print it or send the link.

If you also run a baseball team, the baseball version of this plan is coming and will be linked here.

How the plan is built

Twelve weeks in three blocks:

• Recover, weeks 1 to 3. Low volume, short throwing, no conditioning to speak of. Arms and attention both need this. The goal is that every player is moving three times a week and nothing hurts.
• Build, weeks 4 to 9. Throwing distance and volume climb slowly. Hitting sessions get structured. Position work starts. Conditioning goes in, bodyweight and bands first.
• Sharpen, weeks 10 to 12. Volume comes down, intent goes up. Game-speed reps, situational work, and the transition into pre-season practice.

Every session is 30 to 45 minutes and follows the same shape: a five-minute warm-up, one skill block, one position block, and, from week 4, a conditioning block. Short and frequent beats long and rare for this age group. A 90-minute session on Saturday that half the roster skips is worth less than three 35-minute sessions most of them finish.

What changes by age tier

A note on throwing volume. Fastpitch does not have a widely adopted, published pitch-count or throw-count standard the way baseball does, and baseball guidelines do not transfer to a windmill motion or a 43-foot circle. The ranges in this plan are deliberately conservative. If a player reports arm pain, the answer is fewer throws and a conversation with her parents, not a modified progression.

Week-by-week calendar

Three sessions per week. Day 1 and Day 3 are skill days, Day 2 is a position-plus-conditioning day. Rest days are not optional; they are on the calendar for a reason.

Throw counts are per session and include warm-up throws. Swing counts are quality swings, not total contact; a player who takes 50 lazy swings did not do the session.

Position-specific work

The position block starts in week 4 and runs 10 to 15 minutes. Split the roster into these groups and give each a short card.

Pitchers

Recover block is walks and arm circles, nothing off a mound. From week 4, spin work: two or three spins, 15 to 20 reps each, close distance, no radar gun. Workload climbs one step per week and comes back down in Sharpen. The goal by week 12 is a pitcher who can throw a full bullpen at game intent without soreness the next day. This plan does not promise velocity and neither should you; the promise is that she arrives at tryouts with her arm in shape and her spins where she left them.

Catchers

Receiving from week 4: a partner front-tossing to the glove side, 30 to 40 catches. Blocking from week 6: 15 to 20 reps, on a mat, tennis or soft balls first. Throwing to second is a rep count in Build and a timed drill only in Sharpen, and the time is for her own reference, not a number you post. Catchers take the most abuse in the off-season from bad volume; keep their throwing counts at the low end of the range.

Infield

Footwork and glove work with a partner or a wall: forehand, backhand, short hop, 40 to 60 reps. Add the throw in Build. Sharpen is double-play feeds and situational reps with a live runner if you can get two players together.

Outfield

Drop steps and first-step reads off a partner's toss, then routes. Long toss is the outfield's conditioning; 14U and up get one long-toss day in Build and two in the last three Build weeks. Communication reps in Sharpen if players can pair up.

Slappers and short game

Slap and drag footwork off a tee, then front toss, 30 to 40 reps in the hitting block instead of a full swing set two days a week. In Sharpen, live reps with a defense reacting so it becomes a real weapon and not a drill.

Conditioning that fits softball

Softball is rotational power, short sprints, and a lot of single-leg positions. The conditioning block reflects that and needs no gym.

• Rotational power. Medicine-ball throws against a wall or with a partner, both sides. Bodyweight versions: standing rotations, half-kneeling chops with a band.
• Sprint work. Ten to twenty-yard sprints from a base-stealing stance, walk-back recovery. Six to ten reps. Change-of-direction shuttles in Sharpen.
• Single-leg strength. Split squats, step-ups onto a stair, single-leg hip bridges. Two to three sets of eight to twelve.
• Trunk. Dead bugs, side planks, bird dogs. Short holds, clean form.

For 12U, cut this block in half and make it a game where you can. For 16U and up, external load is fine only if a qualified strength coach is programming it; nothing in this plan requires it. This is workload management for a youth roster, not a strength program, and it is not medical advice.

How to keep players training in the off-season

Here is the part the other pages on this topic leave out. The plan is not the hard part. In four weeks, without something watching, roughly half the roster will have done nothing, and you will find out in January. Four things move that number.

1. Keep sessions short. A 35-minute session gets done on a school night. A 90-minute one waits for a weekend that never comes.
2. Set a team check-in cadence. One message a week, same day, same time. Not a lecture. "Week 5. Long toss goes in this week. Who is on it?"
3. Build the rest day in. A plan that assumes seven days gets abandoned on day eight. Four rest days a week is the plan, not a failure of it.
4. Make completion visible. This is the one that actually works, and the one that is hardest to do with a group text and a PDF.

That fourth one is what Next Athletix does for a coach. You create the team, assign the plan, and each athlete logs her sessions in the app. Your dashboard shows who did the work this week, who is on a streak, and who has gone quiet. Athletes see their teammates' consistency too, which does most of the motivating for you. Getting the roster on takes one practice: show the team QR code on your phone, everyone scans it, and they are on the plan before they leave the field.

Be honest with parents about what this is. The app assigns and tracks the work; it does not replace you, and it is not a recruiting service. A free athlete account gets one sample session a week; the full plan runs on the Training plan, which is per athlete with a 7-day free trial. Pricing is here and a coach account costs nothing.

Rest and recovery weeks

Every week in this plan has four rest days, and the Recover block exists so nobody starts the off-season with a tired arm from the last tournament. Recovery is training. A player who takes the rest days and completes three sessions a week for twelve weeks is far ahead of one who trains six days for three weeks and disappears. Keep it that way: if a player is doubling sessions to catch up, stop her.

Download the plan

The calendar above is the plan. Print this page, or send players the link; there is no email gate and nothing to sign up for to read it. If you want the plan assigned and tracked, that is what the coach account is for.