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Part III: You Can’t Diss Physics Whenever I ask athletes to make a change in their technique, I always want them to ask “Why, coach?” If they simply follow my directions, their commitments to change are based mostly on trust in my opinion. If they learn the science that supports my request, they acquire something more enduring to work with. The science not only furthers the athletes’ immediate understanding; it also provides them with knowledge they can use to improve their future performance – not only as athletes, but perhaps someday as coaches. This is akin to the greater value of a man learning how to fish as opposed to being given a fish. The ultimate goal of this article is to convince a whole lot of free throw shooters to change their technique. To this point, I have argued essentially that “their mechanics are too complex.” Smart players and coaches should certainly be asking: “In what ways are they too complex? And what is the science that supports your judgment?” These are fair questions which I am delighted to address. Here are five things everyone can learn that help us to judge the efficiency of a free throw shooter’s mechanics. |
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1. How precisely our bodies measure and process many kinds of information. 2. How our brains communicate with our muscles. 3. The importance of optimum balance -- and how we can measure and improve it. 4. Newton’s Laws of Motion. 5. How muscle spindles work. |
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This information, seldom taught in basketball clinics, is both fun and interesting to explore. We have two options for learning. One is simply to read about and intellectualize how your body works. And the other is to do some simple experiments that will help you to feel how your body works. I am a great believer in the value of helping people to feel things. So -- let’s use some “experiments” as teaching and learning tools. I’ll be your guide – free of charge. PLEASE DO ALL OF THESE EXPERIMENTS!! You will learn far more from these experiments than from any written text. The concepts we’ll explore are very basic. As with all experiments, you will need a few items to work with. You can fetch these one at a time as needed, or get them all together at the start. They are quickly available in almost any home. Here’s the list: A roll of scotch tape. A pencil and paper. And sneakers, or other foot wear with a non slip sole. 1. Let’s start by exploring how precisely our bodies measure things. Take your roll of Scotch tape. Find a perfectly smooth and flat surface on which you can assemble some strips of tape. Using pieces of tape 2-3 inches in length, place 3 strips of tape about one inch apart and parallel. Leave the left strip of tape just one piece thick. Over the middle strip, place an additional piece of tape precisely over the first. This strip will now be two pieces thick. Then over the right strip, place two additional pieces so the strip is three pieces thick. Now run the pad of your index finger back and forth over each of these strips of tape. Do this first with your eyes open, and then with your eyes closed. Can you feel the difference in thickness of the three strips? Try it with other fingers. We have lots of sensors in our finger tips, so they pick up the difference in thickness very easily. Next, run the end of the finger nail on your index finger over the strips of tape. Though there are few sensors in your nails, you should still feel the difference in the thickness of the three strips of tape. Now, as you run your nail over the tape, you are sensing a movement or lifting of your whole finger, or hand, or even fore-arm. The angles of the bones in your joints are being changed by a piece of tape that is less than 1/500th of an inch thick – and proprioceptors throughout your body process this information. (Proprioceptors are functional parts of the nerve system that continually update the brain on where our body parts are in space.) How cool is this? What is really incredible is that our bodies constantly measure and process this kind of information whenever and however we move. Knowing this, can you now connect the dots and see that if our bodies can measure things to the smallest imaginable degrees, then they must also have the ability to perform tasks with equal degrees of accuracy. For all of us, this knowledge should raise the bar of expectations for the high end of human performance. If there is one thing I have learned over 50 years of coaching world class athletes, it is that higher levels of performance are possible than most coaches or athletes ever imagine, understand, or pursue. Lance Armstrong is a great example of an athlete who sought every possible advantage from the world of science, and paid attention to the smallest details that would enhance his performance. Perhaps the best example of the precision with which our bodies can perform is found in the world of music. Please think about the skills of the very best classical pianists. How do the truly great performers distinguish themselves from the very good? By the subtlest differences in the pressure and timing of their touch on the keys! Each movement of their fingers and their arms is so precise and so unique that they produce qualities of sound that can only be described as magical. The same can be said of the greatest violinists. Think how precise the movements of their fingers and arms are, and appreciate that they can duplicate this precision over and over again – in practice and on stage. To put this in perspective for free throw shooters, please consider: The world record for consecutive free throws made is 2,750. This is not a mis-print; it is two thousand seven hundred and fifty! This was done in a single shooting session by Dr. Tom Amberry at age 71 in 1993. “Dr. Tom” made one free throw every 15.7 seconds for 12 hours. He did not miss the 2,751st attempt. He just said “enough” – and went home for dinner. Tom says: “It is important to have the right mechanics. Once you learn to put your body in the proper position and shoot correctly, then the rest is mental.” I think his record is the most astounding in all of sports. It represents a greater mental achievement than physical. 2. This thought leads us to explore next how our brains communicate with our muscles. On a piece of plain paper, draw three circles about two inches in diameter. We’ll call these circles A, B, and C. You can draw these free-hand. Accuracy is not required. Next, inside each two inch circle, draw 20 smaller circles (1/8 to ¼ inch in diameter) that are more or less evenly spaced. Again, accuracy is not required. Now, in circle B, fill in any five of the small circles. And, in circle C, fill in fifteen of the small circles. Leave all of the small circles “open” in circle A. What have you drawn? Each of your three circles represents a cross section view of a nerve pathway. Nerve pathways form the communication links between our brains and our muscles, tendons, and joints, etc. These nerve pathways carry conversations in two directions simultaneously – both from and to the brain. Like telephone or computer wires, nerve pathways carry astounding amounts of information; but their capacity is NOT unlimited. They slow down (or shut down completely) when overloaded. The three circles you have drawn illustrate the availability of three different nerve pathways to carry multiple conversations between our brains and our muscles. This is best understood if you think of each nerve pathway as a large telephone wire with twenty smaller wires wound inside of it – each contributing to the total “load” the big wire can carry. Big wire A is a nerve pathway at rest. All of its 20 smaller wires are available to carry conversations from the brain to whatever muscles they are attached to. Big wire B is a pathway with 5 of 20 small wires in use. It is working at 25% of capacity; and 75% of it is available for recruitment. In big wire C, three fourths of the small wires are in use; and only one quarter are “open for business” – waiting to be called into service. We can do a very simple exercise that lets us feel how our strength and coordination are diminished when nerve pathways that we need to perform one task are busy doing another. This concept is easy to understand intellectually; but it is made far more clear if you can feel what is happening in your body. So – let’s do another experiment. Please put on your sneakers or other non-skid shoes. If you don’t have any, you can do this barefoot on a carpet. For this experiment we are going to do a series of lateral jumps (left to right to left, etc.) while maintaining different upper body postures – from erect to an 80 degree bend at the waist. You don’t have to be young and athletic to do this, just able to jump back and forth a few times. If you are past the jumping stage in your life, have a younger person do the exercises while you watch. It is actually helpful to do this experiment with a partner so you can first feel what is happening in your own body, and then observe what happens with others. Stand erect -- as perfectly balanced as possible -- with all of the muscles in your back, shoulders and neck completely relaxed. Now -- as fast as you can do it -- jump laterally back and forth from 8 to 12 inches (depending on your athleticism and agility). You can practice a few times to get your rhythm and coordination organized. Then do 8-10 lateral jumps as fast as you can move your feet. Speed is the goal. Next, repeat the same lateral jumping movement but begin with (and sustain throughout) a 40 degree forward bend at your waist. Your natural inclination will be to raise your head and shoulders to a more erect position as soon as you start jumping. This is cheating! Maintain the 40 degree bend regardless of how awkward it may feel. Then repeat the same lateral jumping movement while bent forward 80 degrees at the waist (and no cheating). If you start to become more erect, stop. Re-set your 80 degree angle, and start again. And move your feet as fast as you can. If you have a partner, ask him or her to do the same exercises – first with an erect upper body, then bent forward 40 degrees, and then 80 degrees. Observe carefully – especially the speed of the jumper and the amount of relaxation or tension you can see in his or her body. What have you learned? The first thing you should feel doing this exercise is that when you are bent over, your back muscles are so busy supporting your head and shoulders they can’t be fully recruited to rapidly move your feet. The more you bend, the more coordination you lose in your lower back, hip flexors, quads and hamstrings. Your quickness is greatly diminished. Whereas you felt light on your feet when erect, you feel heavy and awkward when bent over. Your coordination goes to hell both above and below your hip joints because the conversations between your brain and your muscles are limited. I presume you can extrapolate from this exercise considerable knowledge that is applicable to free throw shooting. Relaxed muscles work faster and with greater “ease” than muscles under tension. If you fail to respect the relevant science in your choice of mechanics, you will always pay a price in performance. This “lesson of the three circles” is one of the most important concepts in athletics for all coaches and athletes to understand. It applies to virtually all sports activity. It helps explain why relaxation is so important for maximum performance. All muscles that are tense are using “bandwidth” in the nerve pathways that cannot then be recruited for other desired actions by the muscle. Your next experiment is to emulate two styles of free throw shooting. All you have to do is stand on an imaginary free throw line, and shoot an imaginary ball at an imaginary basket, thirteen feet and nine inches away. (This can be your Walter Mitty moment when you hit nothing but net on ten consecutive shots.) First, I want you to shoot ten shots pretending you are Mel Thomas, and then ten shots pretending you are Tina Charles. For each athlete, we will mimic the shooting style as accurately as possible. (For those unfamiliar with UConn basketball, Mel is a 91% free throw shooter who demonstrates the simplest mechanics on the team; and Tina, a 67% shooter, demonstrates the most complex.) Here is how Mel Thomas shoots free throws: She walks to the line very relaxed and places her feet with a slightly open stance. (Her left foot is a little behind the right foot.) Mel stands as erect and relaxed as if she were talking to a friend in a lunch line. She bounces the ball a few times, but does not change her posture to do so. Then, with no extraneous pre-shot routine -- in a single, coordinated motion she sets the ball about chin high, bends her knees just a little, and rises and shoots. She keeps her spine straight though she does tilt forward just enough from the hips to counter-balance the impending force of pushing the ball. As she straightens her legs, Mel also rises slightly to the balls of her feet – as most good free throw shooters do. Mel moves very little mass over only short distances. Her muscle recruitment and energy output are about as low as they can be. This is a pretty easy routine to mimic. As you shoot ten shots with Mel’s mechanics, notice how easy it is to repeat the motions. There is little to think about -- which frees your brain to stay target focused. Mel’s head remains very still except for the small dip and rise associated with her knee bend. On the fore/aft axis, Mel’s head (and eyes) hardly move at all; and the same is true for her hips and buttocks. Mel’s entire motion displays extremely simple mechanics that are easy to repeat. In the language of the circles, when Mel is shooting free throws, there are many open nerve pathways available for recruitment in every part of her body. Now, before we mimic Tina’s shooting, we need to focus our attention on balance. Part IV: Seeking Perfect Balance. “Perfect Balance” is probably not attainable. But it is a useful goal which helps us to achieve the best balance possible. It is my experience that many more people talk about balance than actually do something about it. Let’s see if we can find specific ways to improve balance. We’ll do so first with some common sense. And then, to support the common sense, we’ll get some help from Sir Isaac Newton at the end. Common sense tells us that one of the prerequisites for a repeatable and consistent shot is to always release the ball from exactly the same point, and the same body position. If we video ten consecutive shots by Mel, and select from each tape the frames where she begins to extend her arm, and where she releases the ball -- the photo images would overlay one another with extremely small deviations. This results from her being in extremely good balance at every point in her shooting motion. Consistent balance is a prerequisite for repeatability and accuracy in shooting – especially from a fixed position at a fixed target. Next, let’s simulate ten shots with Tina’s mechanics. Tina is 6-4 and has broad, muscular shoulders and long legs and arms. She begins her pre-shot routine by bending forward about 70 degrees at the waist and simultaneously squatting to a low hip position. From this crouched position, Tina bounces the ball a few times in front of her and then one more time 10 inches to the right of the previous bounce. She then rises from this crouch in a coordinated motion to release the ball. The weight of Tina’s head and shoulders is suspended on long levers. When she bends at the waist, her head moves nearly two feet both down and forward. Then, as she rises, her head re-traces the same path – now moving two feet upward and back. Her eyes have no consistent relationship to the basket at any point in this entire routine. (How our eyes work, and the roles they play, is a subject for another whole essay.) At the same time Tina’s upper body cycles through this long range of motion, her hips and buttocks are moving down and aft – again suspended on long levers. As she rises, Tina engages the large muscles in her thighs not only to lift her body but also to re-center her hips under her shoulders. At the appropriate time amidst all this motion, she extends her arm and hand to propel the ball. I have tried to describe this motion in fewer words but it’s hard to do because there is so much body mass moving up and down and forward and aft. Tina’s “off to the side” dribble moves her head and shoulders 3-4 inches off centerline while her arm swings out even further. Providing balance for this movement requires another whole set of back, buttocks and leg muscles. There are very few open nerve pathways or relaxed muscles anywhere in Tina’s body. How is it possible for Tina (or any other shooter with similar mechanics) to gather her long body from all of this motion and rise to a repeatable “space” from which to finally extend her arm and shoot the ball? Please simulate Tina’s routine 10 times, and just try to rise from the crouch and release the ball from the same balance point and body position twice in a row – much less ten times in a row. Please do this exercise with an awareness of each of the muscles you are using and the number of nerve pathways you must engage. The balance issues of Tina’s whole body are so complex that she has little chance of returning to a common point to launch the ball. To shoot accurately, she must always make last second adjustments with arm and hand movements. To isolate the balance issues from everything else that is going on with Tina – a simple exercise is instructive: Stand erect, in perfect balance and completely relaxed. Now bend forward 80 degrees and return to your start position. Do this ten times with just 3-4 seconds between each repetition. Be sure, as you rise, to stop in exactly the position you started. Can you feel, in the soles of your feet, your weight distribution shifting back and forth from your heel to your fore-foot. Can you feel the weight of your head coming up and needing some muscles to stop it right where it started – “top dead center” in perfect balance? As you rise, can you feel your hips moving forward and needing muscles to stop them at the exact balance point where they began? (When you bend forward, your hips automatically move back to provide a counter-balance.) It is a difficult and complex task for your body to return to the same position twice in a row. Now, if we video ten shots of Tina, do you think the frame by frame over lays would be as close a match as they were with Mel’s shots? If not – we have balance problems that will cause many shots to be released from inconsistent positions, and with inconsistent velocity and trajectory. These inconsistencies are most easily reduced by simplifying mechanics. To be fair, gifted athletes with complex shooting motions can improve their accuracy with practice, practice, practice – becoming ever more consistent in repeating mechanically complex movements. But for almost all, there is a performance limit they simply cannot exceed. I am really uncomfortable picking on Tina as I always try to coach with positives. So, please, understand it is the mechanics not the person I am shining a light on. Tina is a super person, a super athlete and the National Freshman of the Year in women’s college basketball. She is an amazing, young talent. Much to her credit, she did improve her free throw percentage over the course of the season from 49% in her first 12 games to 73% in her last 12. This improvement came from lots of practice, a slower and more consistent tempo, and gradual reductions in the amount of waist and knee bend in her mechanics. Tina has a lovely jump shot from 12 to 17 feet – done with really simple mechanics and great relaxation. If her free throw mechanics were as simple and relaxed, she would be an 80+ percent shooter throughout every season. Now -- I know that I have selected two extremes in shooting styles for this comparison – and most shooters’ techniques fall somewhere in between. The bottom line is that simplicity beats complexity every time. My observations confirm that wherever shooters rank on a scale of complexity, will be very close to their rank in team, conference or national shooting percentages. A final perspective on balance from the world of science is found in Sir Isaac Newton’s best known laws of motion. These are very simple, and no person – whenever and however they move – can escape their constant influence. Here are the laws: One – “An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by another force.” Two – “Force equals mass multiplied by acceleration.” Three –“For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.” If you just apply these three laws to all the movements in free throw shooting, you get a whole lot of issues to think about – And something fun to do in your spare time! I would like to add some additional perspectives on balance from other sports. I know from the ski sports that very small improvements in skeletal alignment produce significant improvements in performance. One strip of plastic repair tape under one edge of a snow ski boot changes the tilt of a skiers shin bone about 1/6 of a degree and moves the lateral position of the knee one sixteenth of an inch. This small change in a skier’s alignment does affect (for better or worse) the skier’s balance, efficiency, quickness, and ease of muscle recruitment. We work to this degree of accuracy to provide skiers with the most efficient possible stance. The smartest skiers and coaches do equally precise balance and alignment work on the fore/aft plane as well. Every improvement in skeletal alignment relieves some muscles from balancing tasks. This creates more open nerve pathways, and enhances quickness, agility, and relaxation. Part V: Muscle Spindles Our last lesson from science that relates to FT shooting deals with “internal muscle behavior.” Throughout this essay we have been looking primarily at those results of muscle behavior that are clearly visible. The mechanics we’ve studied have physical components we can see and measure from outside the body. Most of the science we have dealt with has been related to physics. We need to go one step further now and consider some of the bio-chemistry that controls muscle recruitment -- but cannot be seen. This is highly complex science which can only be summarized here. We learn from the study of muscle functions that the bio-mechanical chain of events that controls them works through “muscle spindles.” These spindles are an essential part of an electro-chemical firing mechanism. This chain of events more efficiently recruits muscle fibers in short, quick motions than in more prolonged motions. In the simplest language, this means that muscles work more accurately on short, quick tasks than on long ones. It is not hard to see how this applies to free throw shooting. We can demonstrate this with a simple experiment: Extend your right arm straight out in front of your body, and hold your hand still. Then move your hand eight inches to the right at a quick but not hurried speed. Repeat this movement a half dozen times at the same velocity. You should be able to duplicate the speed very closely. Now do the same exercise but move your hand twenty four inches each time. Can you duplicate your velocity over two feet as precisely as over eight inches? My experience confirms what science teaches -- that duplicating velocity is far more difficult when the firing of the muscle spindles extends over a longer space and time. Of particular relevance to FT shooting, is an understanding that in movements where muscles are asked to return to a given start position, they lose memory of that position very quickly. (This occurs because, as the muscles continually “update” their positions with their home computer (the brain) the more complex the return route becomes. Thus, the further a muscle travels, in both space and time, the more difficult it becomes to return to exactly the start position. In addition, the longer a muscle pauses at the “turn around point”, the more memory is lost. (i.e. when a shooter lowers her hips and pauses before rising – a penalty in accuracy is incurred for the pause.) The rule of thumb is: “The longer the pause, the greater the penalty.” This rule applies to a broad range of muscular activity, not just to free throw shooting. It is simply how things work throughout our complex central nervous system. Again, we can demonstrate this with a simple exercise that will make you laugh and feel a little embarrassed. Hold your hand out in front of you again as in the last experiment. Move your hand three feet to the right and return it – without a pause -- to precisely its start position. This is easy to do. Next do the same movement, but pause for two seconds at the “turn around point.” Then do it with a four second pause, and a six second pause. The longer you pause, the harder it is to find the exact starting point. This exercise makes me feel stupid; and laugh at myself. For every additional second that I pause, I have more difficulty “remembering” where I began. It is a simple movement; yet my brain and muscles go dumb very quickly. If we apply this concept to Mel’s and Tina’s free throw movements, we can see that: In Mel’s FT shooting, she recruits her large leg muscles for only a short space and time because her knee bend is small and quick, and she doesn’t pause at the turn-around. Tina, on the other hand, recruits her major leg muscles for a much longer and more complex movement because she has to first drop into and then rise from a deep crouch. In addition, while in the crouch she pauses to bounce the ball. The longer duration of Tina’s movement, and her pause, makes a precise return to her “home position” very difficult. In FT shooting the velocity from the upward push of the legs has a large influence on the velocity that is ultimately imparted to the ball. The more consistent this velocity is, the more accurately a player can control the distance of each shot without making late adjustments with arm and hand muscles. Mel’s short muscle recruitment provides more consistent velocity than Tina’s longer recruitment. You can feel this by simulating six shots with Mel’s simple mechanics and modest knee bend. Concentrate on feeling your leg muscles repeat the same velocity or speed on successive shots. Then, with nothing changing in your posture and mechanics except a much deeper knee flexion, see how much control you have over the velocity in your up-motion. The latter task is far more difficult and should prompt players to think very critically before deciding to shoot free throws with a deep knee (or waist) bend. Continue to Page 3 |