WHAT YOU SAY TO YOURSELF AT THE LINE
CAN LEAD TO BETTER FREE THROW SHOOTING
It's true. If you are a Coach with a youth basketball camp, you can help your players to improve their free throw shooting technique. Coach your players to shoot a perfect free throw. Use the FREE THROW TRAINER to improving free throw shooting at your basketball camp or clinic. Yes, shooting a free throw can become a key differentiator between your team, and all the others.
By Al Heystek, www.FREETHROWTRAINER.com
I’m Al Heystek, the inventor of the "Nothin' But Net" FREE THROW TRAINER™.
This is the text of our 4th Instructional Video.
This video is the 4th in a series of 5 Instructional Videos. This one will address your Mantra (what you say to yourself) during the ritual part of your free throw. This video specifically addresses choking, and the problem of trying too hard to make the shot.
When you actually step to the free throw line in a game, you want to take a deep breath and empty your mind of all the clutter about shooting this shot. This is not the time to think about all the aspects of your mechanics (feet parallel, elbow in, hold the ball lightly, bend your legs etc.), that you worked on in practice.
Now is the time to simply focus on one primary mantra or statement to yourself. What I do is simply, take a breath and tell myself to “Hit the red spot.” That's a great refinement I learned from Head Coach Lance Loya, and it works really well.
For players using our FREE THROW TRAINER™, you could simply use the mantra,“Hit the trainer.” (In a game you visualize where the trainer is).
Statements such as “I’ve gotta make it”, or other statements focusing on the results of your shot tend to raise anxiety and reduce performance. Remember, what we commonly understand as choking, is when the player simply tries too hard to make it. And it is the free throw that provides more time to think than any other shot you will take in a game.
My high school basketball coach organized a student assembly in the gymnasium to introduce the team one year. He announced this to us a week before the assembly.
Each of us emerged from the locker-room one at a time and dribbled the entire length of the floor to make a lay up. We could all make lay-ups in our sleep but we had all week to think about this assembly and this shot. Half the team including yours truly missed that lay-up.
The lesson here is that over thinking significantly reduces outcomes.
Stop trying to make free throws. Want it to go in yes, but trying too hard to make it creates tightness and a thinking that makes for (“bricks”) on the rim.
The reason good shooters sometimes miss in clutch situations is partly because they are not perfect and bound to miss sometimes, but it’s especially because even the best shooters can try too hard, thereby choking and missing crucial free throws.
Again, of all the shots you take in a game the free throw is clearly a shot you have much more time to think about which contributes to the choking phenomenon.
So what I am saying is don’t try so hard to make it. Focus on simply shooting the ball straight (hit the trainer) and trust the good result will happen.
No one shoots 100%. Everyone misses. The best shooters miss less often and that is what you are striving for, to miss less often.
Shooting straight is the mantra because in practical terms it increases the size of the basket because shooting it straight puts the ball in the middle of the basket where there is the most space to go in. It’s basic physics. Shots that are off center have much less chance to go in.
Do you know you can fit 2 basketballs into the rim? It’s not easy but you can do it. A ball is about 9 inches in diameter, the basket 18 inches. The basket is quite large and forgiving-meaning there is quite a bit of room for error.
When the ball is shot straight to the middle of the hoop you are putting the ball where there is the most room for error. Shots that are a bit short or a bit long have the greatest chance of going in if they are shot straight. Stand directly in front of a hoop sometime and check it out you get what I mean.
Relax, breathe and trust that if any part of the ball hits the center spot on the front of rim (where the FREE THROW TRAINER™ sits) you have an excellent chance the ball will go in. You will find that even shots that are very close to hitting the FREE THROW TRAINER™ (on either side of it) sometimes still go in because the basket is bigger and more forgiving than you think.
The mental aspect of free throw shooting is huge. Players typically don’t shoot free throws as well in game situations as they do in practice. The internal pressure players put on themselves may be as much a factor as the external noise from the crowd.
This is why even good free throw shooters can miss critical free throws at the end of games.
So developing an internal mantra that goes with the motion of your free throw shooting stroke is key.
You can also get your mantra more deeply ingrained into your mind and body so that the words of your mantra drown out the external and internal pressures. Experts agree that a big part of making free throws is your attitude and mental mindset. Your mantra sets the stage for success.
When the pressure builds at the end of the game, and you are fatigued, that is when all the time in practice pays off. Trust that your ritual, your mantra, your muscle memory will all kick in and you can “shoot it straight.”
This has been Al Heystek, inventor of the "Nothin’ But Net" FREE THROW TRAINER™.
Al Heystek and Andy Atwood
Heystek & Atwood, LLC
Inventors of the Patent Pending "Nothin' But Net" FREE THROW TRAINER™
www.FREETHROWTRAINER.com
I’m Al Heystek, the inventor of the "Nothin' But Net" FREE THROW TRAINER™.
This is the text of our 4th Instructional Video.
This video is the 4th in a series of 5 Instructional Videos. This one will address your Mantra (what you say to yourself) during the ritual part of your free throw. This video specifically addresses choking, and the problem of trying too hard to make the shot.
When you actually step to the free throw line in a game, you want to take a deep breath and empty your mind of all the clutter about shooting this shot. This is not the time to think about all the aspects of your mechanics (feet parallel, elbow in, hold the ball lightly, bend your legs etc.), that you worked on in practice.
Now is the time to simply focus on one primary mantra or statement to yourself. What I do is simply, take a breath and tell myself to “Hit the red spot.” That's a great refinement I learned from Head Coach Lance Loya, and it works really well.
For players using our FREE THROW TRAINER™, you could simply use the mantra,“Hit the trainer.” (In a game you visualize where the trainer is).
Statements such as “I’ve gotta make it”, or other statements focusing on the results of your shot tend to raise anxiety and reduce performance. Remember, what we commonly understand as choking, is when the player simply tries too hard to make it. And it is the free throw that provides more time to think than any other shot you will take in a game.
My high school basketball coach organized a student assembly in the gymnasium to introduce the team one year. He announced this to us a week before the assembly.
Each of us emerged from the locker-room one at a time and dribbled the entire length of the floor to make a lay up. We could all make lay-ups in our sleep but we had all week to think about this assembly and this shot. Half the team including yours truly missed that lay-up.
The lesson here is that over thinking significantly reduces outcomes.
Stop trying to make free throws. Want it to go in yes, but trying too hard to make it creates tightness and a thinking that makes for (“bricks”) on the rim.
The reason good shooters sometimes miss in clutch situations is partly because they are not perfect and bound to miss sometimes, but it’s especially because even the best shooters can try too hard, thereby choking and missing crucial free throws.
Again, of all the shots you take in a game the free throw is clearly a shot you have much more time to think about which contributes to the choking phenomenon.
So what I am saying is don’t try so hard to make it. Focus on simply shooting the ball straight (hit the trainer) and trust the good result will happen.
No one shoots 100%. Everyone misses. The best shooters miss less often and that is what you are striving for, to miss less often.
Shooting straight is the mantra because in practical terms it increases the size of the basket because shooting it straight puts the ball in the middle of the basket where there is the most space to go in. It’s basic physics. Shots that are off center have much less chance to go in.
Do you know you can fit 2 basketballs into the rim? It’s not easy but you can do it. A ball is about 9 inches in diameter, the basket 18 inches. The basket is quite large and forgiving-meaning there is quite a bit of room for error.
When the ball is shot straight to the middle of the hoop you are putting the ball where there is the most room for error. Shots that are a bit short or a bit long have the greatest chance of going in if they are shot straight. Stand directly in front of a hoop sometime and check it out you get what I mean.
Relax, breathe and trust that if any part of the ball hits the center spot on the front of rim (where the FREE THROW TRAINER™ sits) you have an excellent chance the ball will go in. You will find that even shots that are very close to hitting the FREE THROW TRAINER™ (on either side of it) sometimes still go in because the basket is bigger and more forgiving than you think.
The mental aspect of free throw shooting is huge. Players typically don’t shoot free throws as well in game situations as they do in practice. The internal pressure players put on themselves may be as much a factor as the external noise from the crowd.
This is why even good free throw shooters can miss critical free throws at the end of games.
So developing an internal mantra that goes with the motion of your free throw shooting stroke is key.
You can also get your mantra more deeply ingrained into your mind and body so that the words of your mantra drown out the external and internal pressures. Experts agree that a big part of making free throws is your attitude and mental mindset. Your mantra sets the stage for success.
When the pressure builds at the end of the game, and you are fatigued, that is when all the time in practice pays off. Trust that your ritual, your mantra, your muscle memory will all kick in and you can “shoot it straight.”
This has been Al Heystek, inventor of the "Nothin’ But Net" FREE THROW TRAINER™.
Al Heystek and Andy Atwood
Heystek & Atwood, LLC
Inventors of the Patent Pending "Nothin' But Net" FREE THROW TRAINER™
www.FREETHROWTRAINER.com