In basketball your follow through is the last part of your shot. It is generally defined as the extension of your arm to shoot the ball and the wrist motion in releasing the ball. It also tells the shooter a lot about their shot. In textbook form, a follow through has a completely extended arm held in place so that the forearm and upper arm form a straight line, as well as a fully flexed wrist so that the hand and fingers are pointed downwards. This is textbook form but that are many variations that an observer will see. Let’s discuss the variations and what they tell might tell us:
A “floating” follow through. When I use the term floating I mean that the follow through is not held in place. That is, the follow through hand is moving down or drifting off to the side. The first thing we should know is that our body will only continue a motion it is already in. If the hand is floating away from the body chances are this is a problem that has to do with the shooters elbow. Generally, players will hold the ball in the center of their body before bringing it up to shoot. When they bring the ball up they will shift it to be in front or in line with their shooting shoulder. As they do this they are beginning the motion that will continue after they have released it. The remedy for this is getting shooters to hold the ball in line with their shoulder, rather than in the center of their body so that the shot follows a straight path rather than drifting left to right or the opposite.
A “waving” hand. What I mean by waving hand is that the wrist is not flexed down and instead is in line with the forearm or only slightly bent. When a shooter does this chances are they are not getting enough backspin on their shot. Often times developing players will palm the ball where they should be holding the ball with only their finger pads. This often leads to this kind of follow through aberration. The net result is that the player doesn’t have the same amount of control over the ball and that they won’t give the ball proper backspin when they release it, thus minimizing the chances of the ball going in if it hits the rim. The remedy for this is to make sure the player has space between their palm and the ball when holding it. The ball should be held in the player’s finger pads only.
The “chicken wing” elbow. By chicken wing I mean that the elbow is not fully extended. That the forearm is not in a straight line with the upper arm. This is another very common follow through aberration. The goal for any shooter is to create consistency but when a player does not extend their elbow fully they are creating a natural inconsistency. There are innumerable degrees a player can not fully extend their arm making it a very difficult body movement to repeat consistently. Conversely, there is only one way for a player to fully extend their elbow. Players that typically do this will have a hard time developing their shot consistently because of the inherent inconsistency in their form. The remedy for this is shooting against a wall or lying down so that the player is not focused on accomplishing the goal of putting the ball in the basket, but rather on consistently getting their body to perform the same way.
There is a lot of shooting instructions on our website to help players develop their shot but it always comes back to repeatable performance. Make sure to do it the same way every time for consistent development and results.
Leave a Reply