I interviewed a very special guest today, our very own, Haley Hestekin to talk about her experiences and softball. For those of you who do not know, Haley is our marketing assistant here and figured it would be a good idea to interview her and have her talk a little bit about her career as a collegiate athlete, the physical nature of what she does, how physical preparation and rehab has helped her, and get her take on the mental side of things. 

She is at a little bit different stage of her life now, but still in the softball world helping out. In talking with her, she has been giving some really rock solid advice based on her experiences with the athletes that she works with, and I think it will be great to hear her take and get some of this information out to the public.

Before getting started, you can listen or what this interview by listening to our latest podcast or watching on YouTube:

Podcast: The Mental & Physical Preparation For Sport Featuring Collegiate Pitcher: Haley Hestekin

Let’s hear what Haley has to say:

Tell Us About Yourself

Eric: “We will start with everybody’s favorite question: tell us a little bit more about yourself.”

Haley: “I’ve always been from the area. Was in Oshkosh until about 7th grade, then moved to Kaukauna. Played softball there and won a state championship my senior year…whoot whoot! I was lucky enough to continue my career at UW-Madison. I played all 4 years there and have about 400 innings under my belt as a collegiate pitcher. I just graduated this past May and moved back to the area because I am the biggest homebody. I secured a position as a Marketing Assistant here which has been awesome and I love it. I also give back to the community at 360U as a Lead Pitching Instructor. Cant get softball out of my veins.”

Eric: “Awesome! Just a little plug for Haley, she is doing an awesome job as our Marketing Assistant here. It will be interesting to see her edit her own guest appearance on this blog. I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with. “

What Drew You Into Softball So Much?

Eric: “Obviously a lot of history with sports & athletics. I am excited to talk more about that! I am always interested especially with having kids of my own, when did you know that softball was really going to be your jam? The thing you were going to go after with a vengeance? What drew you into it so much?” 

Haley: “It’s so funny that you ask that question because I hated softball when I first started. My mom signed me up for coach pitch and told me that I was going to do this. I did not want to and did not like it. I was the kid picking dandelions in the outfield or doing my hair. I could not wait for recreational softball to be done.

The last game of the season there was a pitcher on my team (besides the coach) and a pitcher on the the other team (besides the coach) who could actually pitch. They let these girls pitch and I was just mesmerized. I thought this was the coolest thing. I got up to the batters box, whiffed three times, went back to the dugout, and was happy as could be because I just thought it was so cool.

After the game I got in the car and said, “Mom, I am going to do that!” She looked at me in the rearview mirror, and that really confused her. She thought we were going to be done and now was wondering what was going on.

From there, I was literally begging her to go outside and pitch. I would wake up first thing in the morning, still in my nightgown, 8 years old, and I would throw into the fence. The fence started to curl at the bottom because I had thrown so many softballs into it. Ultimately, I just fell in love with pitching.

I just kept begging my parents to pitch. So they signed me up to play for a travel team, back then it was the Oshkosh Raiders…which I don’t think they exist anymore. 

One day I looked at my Mom and Dad and said, “I am going to get a division I scholarship.” They humored me…but I was 8. You could only imagine the thoughts going through their head, yet alone any parent’s head. 

If there is one thing to know about me, it is that I am persistent and will work for anything I set my mind to. That was something I set my mind to. I was lucky enough and the opportunities fell in my lap. My parents were so supportive along the way and gave me the opportunity to achieve this life-long goal of mine. “

Eric: “So the thrill of having the ball in your hand and being able to dictate what was happening from the mound…being the center of attention…all that good stuff, huh?”

Haley: *laughs* “I guess when you put it that way.”

Eric: “No, that’s awesome. That’s really cool. “

Was There a Point in Time When You Needed More Help on the Physical Training & Body Enhancement Side of Things?

Eric: “Switching gears a little bit, but as you went through you had this goal and you were persistent…You also had a pretty good idea of what you wanted to do moving forward, but do you think there was a time when you started to realize that my persistence/efforts/practice is not enough and I need more help on the physical training and body enhancement side of things to improve your sports performance?”

Haley: “Yeah, absolutely! When you start pitching when you’re young, you’re not going to start lifting weights until you’re at least in middle school. Once I got to that point, I was curious what strength training could do. I wanted to be the best that I could be so in high school generally was working out. I knew it was important. I wanted to be strong. I could throw harder if I was stronger. I thought it was great and also still thought I was going to grow as well. Both my parents are 6 foot, and I am 5’ 7”.  Like I said I thought I was going to grow more and I did not, unfortunately. I honestly was kind of banking on that to give me a little more power as I would have a longer circumference going around but that didn’t happen…it’s alright. 

I wish I would have trained a little bit more specific. I went to the gym, but really didn’t know what I was doing. Just knew lifting weights was supposed to help my performance. I had no plan. I didn’t have a trainer. I was just going for it. When I think about an area where I could have been better as an athlete, it could have been that. I didn’t realize that until I was in college. I was super fortunate to be in a position where what I was doing was enough. I must’ve been doing something halfway decent on my own. 

Collegiate athletics pushes you further than you ever thought you could and my sophomore year I kind of took a step back and asked myself: What could I be doing better? There’s always going to be somebody who is going to be on your tail. There is always going to be somebody who wants your same position. Unfortunately as a pitcher, you cannot do it all. You cannot physically pitch every single game. It was always about how I could continue to have that one-up. Physical training was something that could get me there. 

Specifically, I realized I could do all the training in the world…we worked out 20/30/40 hours a week…but if I didn’t eat right or fuel my body right, I wasn’t going to see any results. I changed the way that I ate and changed the way that I fueled my body so that I was able to get the most out of my workouts. 

I also thought about what physical aspects I could get stronger at. As a pitcher, one that is super important is your core. I was always the person that went to the gym and was there for an hour and a half. I would do my strength training and go on the elliptical, and then would say, “oh, I’m tired I don’t want to do core.” That’s what everybody does, that’s the common story, right? I would skip out on it.

I look back and see all the pictures of myself pitching and my core is completely unengaged. The unengaged core was all power that I could have been getting into my pitch leading to throwing 1-2 mph harder. I know that doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you are in it, 1-2 mph is a swing and miss or a ground ball rather than a base hit.”

Eric: “That’s really interesting. I think the physically training is kind of like a lot of things in life. Once you solve one problem, you realize there is another problem. You noticed the need for physical training, realized physical training was good but you needed nutrition. I would take it a step further for a lot of people. Once you get to that level it is great, but you then realize how important recovery is. I’ve gotten really deep into the power of sleep, recovery, and mental health to calm down the nervous system after all this stimulus and activity. It is almost just as important as the physical training because without that balance all can go for not. That is something that I would add to it. 

I do see a fair number of our junior athletes going from practice right after school, dinner, go hit, an individual practice, a different sport, get home at 9, and homework until 12. This is the story that I am hearing week in and week out. I can almost guarantee there is not enough sleep or recovery happening in those situations as well. That’s just another side for any of the parents or junior athletes that are listening. I would start to place sleep and recovery at the same level as physical training and performance training.”

Haley: “I think that is a really great point. The thing is, it’s not convenient. Even when you talk about you go home, I’d go back to my dorm, and what do they have there? A burger and curly fries & wing Wednesday. It sounded so good and they had a nice little ice cream parlor…great, right? So that’s what I did. I swiped my meal card and got the food. It’s convenient. It’s easy. 

None of this stuff is easy. That’s what I think a lot of people have to remember. It is going to take time. You are going to have to invest in it. 

The one thing I was really good about though, was making sure I was in bed by 9:30 every night. A lot of my teammates said, “what? Don’t you have homework?” And I would tell them I am going to run around crazy all day and not have a spare minute, but I am going to make sure that I go to bed at 9:30. I think that allowed me to have the energy I did. Like you said, you just HAVE to get sleep. Especially if you are training that hard, it has to be at least 8 hours…or at least for me that’s what it was. You need to know how many hours you need. It is a little bit different for everybody but I think the research says 7-8 hours, right?”

Eric: “It is all going to be dependent on your activity level. It is scary to think if you did have a 2-3 hour training session a day and a night of poor sleep before that, your sleep demands are a lot higher than what people actually give themselves. It is funny, because everyone wants a cheat card/easy button and it’s hard but I would make the argument that sleep is the closest thing to your cheat button. It will let you get away with a bad meal here or missing out on a training there, if you can get proper sleep…it is going to help boost your performance and your recovery probably more than anything else. “

What is One Thing You Wish You Knew Earlier?

Eric: “So that is kind of is the physical side of things and we will circle back to that, but you’ve been through a long and successful career…I don’t know if I’ve talked to you much about this in our time together, but I am interested to hear if you look back, what is one thing that you wish you knew earlier? If you would’ve known it at that time, it could have catapulted you performance wise, but also just on happiness/enjoyment/satisfaction level?”

Haley: “This is super important to talk about. You can talk about all the things that can make you better but if you aren’t happy or your mental health is taking a toll, it is going to be really really hard to do all those other things. For me, the biggest thing I wish I would have realized earlier in my career is that your sport (for me was softball) is something that you do, it’s not who you are. 

By this I mean, I used to have awful performance anxiety. Unfortunately it literally affected everything I did. I would not sleep the night before and honestly became dependent on melatonin to be able to sleep. Otherwise, I would not sleep and would be up all night. I would not be able to concentrate on school work because I would be thinking about the really good batter that has 20 homeruns that I have to face and it is only 20 games into the season so she is averaging 1 homerun a game and leading the team in RBI’s. I now have to pitch to her. 

I would go down this rabbit hole of, “oh my gosh, I need to do well. If I don’t do well, I am going to let everyone down. I am going to have zero friends. I am a failure at life.” I associated my identity in sport with who I am as a person. That is extremely unhealthy. I would quite literally ride those highs and lows. If I did great, I thought I was awesome, was doing great at life, and was going to get a great job out of college. Is any of that associated with softball? Absolutely not….but I thought it was. Again, extremely unhealthy but I let my entire identity be determined by softball. 

For those of you who don’t know much about softball, it is a game of failure. This makes it even more of a toxic relationship. For softball, a great batting average is .300. This means you are failing 7/10 times. Now, I didn’t hit but I was a pitcher and the strike zone has gotten smaller and smaller. The technology of the bats have gotten better and better. It’s kind of ridiculous how good the bats are. You can just touch the ball and it goes. I have honestly given up check-swing homeruns.

Quite frankly, I spent many many nights calling home to my parents believing that I sucked at my sport and believing everyone else thought I sucked at my sport (just a little blurb that your mental health matters). It wasn’t until my senior year of college that I finally figured out that my sport was something that I do, not who I am. Maybe it was because I was so close to being done, but it wasn’t until then that I was truly able to separate my softball life from my personal life. 

When I was at softball practice, I would give it 110% and be the hard worker that I am. When I go home, I am a student, I am a daughter, I am a christian, I am a coffee-lover…and I was going to focus on those things. I made a conscious effort to separate my softball and personal life, because otherwise they would get really intertwined and it was super unhealthy. 

I knew I was always going to have my loving family, friends, and be a great student. My professors probably are not going to check the scores, they are not going to ask every week how you did…they have more things to worry about. I knew I was always going to be that passionate, tender-hearted, and hardworking person no matter what I did and finally started to understand that. It’s so hard when you are in it to understand that. You feel the pressure. You feel the, “you need to perform or your spot is gone,” or “you need to get into better condition.” You do whatever you need to do to play. You want to play…you are competitive & you want to win. You want to be the best at what you do, that’s what you have known your whole life. 

This is something I am super passionate about because I think I wish I would have realized it sooner and more people need to come to terms with this sooner. I’ve talked to one too many athletes that believe their sport is their entire world. By no means am I saying that loving sports is a crime. I love sports. I am still coaching. Sports are always on in my household. We plan our weekends around the Badger football games and the Packer football games. Never-the-less we need to start instilling in athletes that their confidence has to come from other sources. If my sport is all that I am confident in and have one bad performance, it trickles into every aspect of my life. I’m not getting sleep. I am not taking care of my body. If I’m not getting sleep, I am not recovering. If I am not recovering, I’m not getting the most out of my workouts. It all circles back and there needs to be an emphasis on confident people first, confident athletes second.  “

Eric: “Yes. Absolutely! It’s interesting as you were saying all of that, in any aspect that you are in and I heard this from my coaches (Yes, I still have coaches), it’s about how you identify. If you identify with yourself as a softball player. If you identify with yourself as a business owner or a father and you place too much emphasis on these things, that’s who you are. The problem with those things is you don’t have control over them. You don’t have control over every single thing that happens. You are putting your outcomes in the hands of things you just don’t have full control over. 

Like you said, you can have a check-swing homerun, you did everything great on your end and it’s still not the outcome that you wanted. Now you are identifying as you failed. This is probably a little deeper for some of the junior athletes right now, but I hope that it is registering on a certain extent. 

If in every single situation you start to identify yourself as a learner, then your happiness is limitless. Your confidence is limitless. Your satisfaction is limitless. Going into every situation and saying you are a learner, is the only way you can take back control of what’s happening. If you identify with anything else, or as anything else, it is an external locus of control. It is out of your control so it becomes a crazy train ride mentally and emotionally. 

As a business owner, it’s not a good day or bad day, it’s a learning day. As a softball player, it’s not a good day or a bad day, it’s a learning day. As a father, my kids…I did everything right and they are still going to run around, punch each other, wrestle, and throw each other through the window…I am learning how I can do things differently next time. 

It’s interesting because I just heard this and then you bring that up there it kind of matches with the type of the thing I wish more people, athletes, and individuals would know and think about. It’s hard. It’s not to say in every situation, “I’m a learner, I’m happy.” We are humans. You go back to success, failure, and judging yourself by that…but it is a skill and a craft to hone to go into every situation and be a learner. Whatever happens, learn from it. 

If my kids get an A on a test or a C on a test, do I really care about the grade that much? I care about what they learned about themselves in that situation. Hopefully that registers with some people out there. Again, I think deeper than we need to get on a Thursday morning but it also circles back to just staying present in the moment. Not worrying so much about the outcome or what is going to happen next. That is very challenging…we are humans. We default to what could go wrong, the more present you can be in the moment…the Michael Jordans and Giannis’s of the world…this is what they do best. “

Haley: “I love that. My dad always told me, “Haley you never fail. You only fail if you don’t learn something from the situation.”

Eric: “You could say whatever, that’s cliché. No, it’s not. It is one of the absolute truths. If you can get your mind to wrap around that, it could be the keys to so many things in life. Alright, that’s enough depth for some of our listeners. “

What Are Some of the Key Aspects of the Physical Performance Side that are Important for Pitching?

Eric: “Let’s get back into more on the topic of how physical performance, and some of the things that we are working on with our junior athletes and let’s bring it into softball. For any of the rotational athletes that I work with, it tends to really be universal. We are going to bring it back to softball, but if you are softball, baseball, golf, hockey, pitcher, or hitter…it is all rotational and energy transferring through your body. What are some of the key aspects of the physical performance side that you think are really important for pitching, but likely for hitting as well?” 

Haley: “I talked about it a little bit with my core, I would also like to add my legs and my glutes surprisingly. Like I mentioned, all the pictures of me pitching, my core is completely unengaged. I was not transferring that energy into my pitch. That is all rotational. Pitching is all rotational. Again, it goes back to I didn’t invest the time in it. I didn’t see the value in it. At the time, I believed it was more important to get stronger in my legs or arms. I bring it back to, as far as my legs and my glutes go, super silly, and this is what I teach every week to my little kids…I ask them a question: What’s stronger, your arms or your legs?

They look at me like I am nuts. They tell me. “Your legs coach Haley, duhhh.” I say, “yes, duhhh….so let’s use them, right?” How can I activate my leg? Am I just stepping out or pushing out and using my hips? I can say it is our legs that are stronger, but it’s the force you create with your legs that trickles into your core that you are able to get that whip and ultimately bring that hip through and generate more power. 

It’s the same thing for hitting. I want to have a little bit of a lag, like I would with my pitch, where I am going to be able to rotate those hips, engage my core, and transfer the energy from my legs from the ground into the ball. The same, but different. 

I think it would be beneficial if you could explain a little bit more of what exactly that rotational training would look like because I wish I would have dove into it a little bit more during my time as an athlete. What are some the things that these junior athletes can be doing to start getting that?”

Eric: “I think it’s easiest to start realistically with what is happening when you pitch. At the basics of it all, it is a transfer of energy from the ground, to your legs, through your core, through your shoulders, to your arm, to the ball, or the bat to the ball. 

It actually happens in that sequence. If you took a graph, and said over time, what happens in what order…it goes:

1. Ground reaction force

2. Legs 

3. Core

4. Shoulders

5. Arms 

6. hand/ball/bat/golf club

Kind like you asking, “what’s stronger, arms or legs?” I would phrase it, “how do you think this would go if you didn’t have your legs?” “How do you think this would go if you didn’t have a core?” “How do you think this would go if you didn’t have arms?”

What happens with a lot of people, and hopefully you are able to incorporate all of these things, but most of us will have a deficiency somewhere. If that energy is going through the body and it is supposed to be building…and we find there is a deficiency in strength somewhere, then that energy does not get transferred efficiently and we may not get to that end point of releasing the ball or hitting the ball. Therefore we cannot get as much pop as we would like. 

The first thing that you have to do is you have to have strength of legs, strength of core, and strength of upper body. Then, that is not enough. That is the prerequisite. You have to be able to put it all together and sequence it with speed. We call that power training. 

This would be, taking that energy and powerfully transferring it through your body. What you talked about…you were doing strength. You didn’t have order with it necessarily, or a solid plan, but you were doing strength. You were there, at the baseline…and that is great because you need that in order to do power. The next step was you needed was power. You cannot have power without strength. The next thing is how do I move fast? How do I sequence that? 

Some of the rotational stuff that we do is going to involve taking a lighter object, like a medicine ball/speed stick/lighter band, and go through a drill where you don’t have to think about much. You just have to say, “how quickly can I shot-put this medicine ball?” or “how quickly can I whip this club around?” All we are trying to do is get you to use the ground, and transfer that energy throughout your body as fast as possible. You can train fast. In order to actually swing fast or pitch fast, you have to train fast. 

Medicine ball rotational drills are important. There is a lot of jumping that is helpful. In order to use the ground and react with the ground well, box jumps, vertical jumps, and power-based plyometric training is really good to start using the ground. Also, there are a lot of different types of slams. Medicine ball slams, for instance. Slamming it and saying, “I am just going to try and break this thing open and go as hard as I can is, and it doesn’t look like softball/baseball/golf/hockey, but it is transferring energy fast from your arms and legs from the ground fast. That’s the next step that a lot of people are probably missing. They are not thinking about, “okay now I am strong, how do I use that strength and get my muscles to operate fast?” We either do not have the resources, do not know how, or haven’t even thought of it typically.”

Haley: “So is it figuring out how to transfer that strength appropriately another way to put it?”

Eric: “Correct. Like we talked about before, performance, nutrition, recovery…once you figure one thing out…now there is another thing. Once you get strength, that is the basis…but it is not enough. Now that I have the strength, how do I learn to use it efficiently and quickly? That’s what some of the power and speed-based training is all about. Once you put that together, now you are an athlete.”

Haley: “I completely agree. Even with that rotational stuff, it’s so broken down and niched that you can see how it is going to directly correlate to what you are going to do. If I am going to do a rotational medicine ball throw, I am going to work on rotating my hips. When I am hitting, what am I doing? I am thrusting those hips forward. It is the same thing, but now I am teaching my body how to move fast.”

Eric: “If you think about what happens a lot too, is somebody might ask: well wouldn’t just working on hitting improve my speed? If you are intentionally swinging hard. Sometimes the goal with practice is the outcome, hitting the ball where you want, and making good contact. That is an important piece of performance and getting better, but there has to be an intentional focus on speed. You have to be fresh and going all out for 4-6 reps, then resting for a while. That is not what most people are doing when they are practicing. Typically it is just repetition time after time after time. 

So you are spot on in terms of there is an overall transfer there, but the problem is if you are using actual practice for pitching as your speed training, you are still focused on the outcome that it is not the mindless how fast can I move. There is a big difference between those two things. “

If You Had To Give One Piece of Advice That You Could Give To The Athletes That You Coach, What Would You Go With?

Eric: “I do have one question for any of our guests that I like to have them depart with their wisdom to us. An all encompassing fashion for the audience listening. If you had to give one piece of advice, that you could give to the athletes that you coach, what would you go with?”

Haley: “It’s tough because I could go so many different directions with this, but I think this kind of encompasses everything. Gosh darn it, just believe in yourself. Where the fun gets taken out of the game is when you start to make it more than what it really is…a game. My goodness, have some fun on the field. Show some passion, have energy, enjoy the time with your teammates and be competitive. You’re out there because you love to compete and you are passionate about the sport. Bring out the best in others. You get to play the game. Why? Hopefully because you love it. Not everyone gets to play. Not everyone is lucky enough to say they can participate in something that they are that passionate about. You get to do that, and that’s really cool. I wish I would’ve appreciated that a little more. 

Adding on to that, go back and thank you parents. You don’t get to do all this without them. That’s something I wish I would have done more of. I know I always thanked my Dad every time he caught for me. He was passionate about me getting better, he would spend 3 days a week out in our backyard catching me. He doesn’t have to do that. Your parents don’t have to pay for you to play the sport, but they do because they love you and want you to enjoy it and this is something that you enjoy. You wouldn’t be anywhere without them and be sure that you thank them. 

Believe in yourself and have fun.”

Eric: “I love it. Very important. These are games after all and it is important to remember that. That’s excellent. I appreciate your time today, Haley, and continue to thank you for all you are doing as our marketing assistant…we’ve loved having you aboard with us here. The big take away from today is obviously a large mental aspect along with what we are doing physically. I do think they go hand-in-hand and it is hard to have one without the other, but appreciate your insight!”

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