Finding Your Green Light: The Mental Game of Hitting

Kermit the frog said, “It’s not easy being green.” But on St. Patrick’s Day, there’s no better color to be! Everyone gets to be Irish for a day… Especially if you’re living in the great city of Chicago where St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated very seriously! So to all of our Irish Practice Pro Peeps, even if you’re only Irish for today, happy St. Patrick’s Day!

In keeping with our theme of Green… Let’s talk about the green lights of batting. Recently, in our “combo pitching and batting LIVE” classes, we talked about mental performance, which significantly impacts our physical game. Elite athletes know how to regulate their emotions. They do this by recognizing adversity when it happens -both the thoughts and the physical responses to those thoughts- which they are able to process and redirect to the Green.

So what does it mean to be “in the Green” as an athlete?

When you as a competitor are in the “green zone,” it means that you are feeling really loose, confident, and are hungry to play. This is the mental state that every athlete strives to be in and thrives when in it. However, there is not even one athlete in the world who lives in the green 100% of the time. Adversity will strike regardless of what level you are playing at… which is part of the reason we are drawn to athletics. In fact, we as competitors are trying to create adversity for the “other guy/gal” and be better than our opponents. We are also running a race with ourselves, trying to be a little bit better every day. Nevertheless, when we have a day where we are not our best selves, or when our opponent is getting the best of us, our mental state often slips from “green” to “yellow.”

As we all know in the traffic light world, yellow means to “proceed with caution.” And the yellow light only stays yellow for a couple of seconds. Quickly, it will turn to red. This is the same with our mental state as an athlete. Unchecked, we will move to the disastrous “red light” state of thinking, which is nearly impossible to come back from in the same game. So as athletes, we want to recognize quickly when we have moved from green to yellow. Recognition that we have slipped into our less confident, more nervous selves is half the battle. Once we realize that we are in the yellow, we can utilize our practiced training to get back into the Green!

Want to see how it works with a real example? Read on!

Let’s consider a situation that we all may experience at some point. This is a more common scenario where we as a hitter may move from a green light mindset to a yellow light mentality:

Imagine an umpire has an extra big zone on the outside half of the plate- extending well beyond the borders you have been taught to swing at with your pitch selection training. He or she is calling strikes for the opposing pitcher into the river to the inside line of the opposing batter’s box. Unfortunately, we don’t get to control the umpire. We can only control our response to this situation. In this scenario, it is common for our brains to say “uh-oh… that is a pitch that I’ve been trained not to swing at; it’s a ball, but today it is being called a strike; I can’t reach that or hit it well.” Great! We’ve done the first part right: recognition! Now what?

Adapt.

We, as trained athletes, can move closer to the plate so that our bat can reach the umpire’s outside strike zone.

Release.

In addition to adjusting our body position, we need to release our frustrations with a physical action. This can be done in a variety of ways: un-velcroing our batting gloves and re-velcroing them, leaning down to untie and retie our shoelaces, tapping the bat on each cleat a few times, bending down to rub the dirt and then clap it off our hands, etc.

Breathe.

After we acknowledge that we are frustrated by implementing our release, we take a slow and calculated deep breath in, hold for a few seconds at the top of our breath before slowly exhaling. Hold for a few seconds after the exhale at the bottom of our breath and then boom! We have reset ourselves physiologically. Oxidation to the brain via deep breaths is the fastest and most effective way to calm your mind and relax your body in stressful situations.

Reset.

Next, I recommend putting a green sticker on your bat, somewhere between the grip and the barrel. Hold your bat in front of your eyes. Stare at the green dot for a few seconds and say a confident thought to yourself like “I’ve got this” or “See it and drive it” or “Watch out. Here I come.”

Play ball.

Step back up to the plate, put your toes on the innermost part of the white line of the box (so that you can cover the outside pitch), and voilà! You are confident, adjusted, and back “in the Green,” ready to compete again with a calm, confident, and focused state of mind.

So today on St. Patrick’s Day, here’s to being “in the Green” and knowing how to get back to the green even when St. Patrick’s Day is over! Talk to you again next week! Happy Hitting!