Shot Mechanic Explained / Part 4

Possible Causes For Elbow Flare:

1)Shooting hands not centered on the ball( frequent among youth players). When you shoot with the shooting hand centered on the ball you are creating kinetic force through the center of the ball. This makes the shot release fully symmetrical. A lot of players line their hand on the ball too far left or right as this causes the elbow by default to flare out as you lift to release the ball from this shooting hand position.

2) The second possible cause is the shot pocket starting too close to the body. This creates a lot of tension and a natural elbow flare out with this shot setup.

3) Another possible cause which is the hardest to diagnose is a real biomechanical restriction  going on in their anatomical structure and can only be recognized by a well seasoned movement specialist as a coach with many years of pattern recognition. In this case the body is actually fighting against itself .A specialist such as a physical therapist is recommended at this stage first to unlock movement for coaching to still have an effect. When a player has a real physical limitation no coaching is effective until that part is dealt with first.

4) This last possible cause is more complex in nature and is something that I have personally considered that I have never heard any other coach mention or maybe never even thought about and that is the mental block experienced by youth players when you tell them to lift the ball first before the release. When their minds are still in an incubation stage that instruction can cause a real cognitive load on an undeveloped brain that can not process or understand how a ball must be vertically lifted first then released forward. They struggle with the physics of that part of the shot sequence as I have observed it many times. Because they don’t understand this part of the shot, the shooting elbow gets stuck causing them to release late and rather than lifting the ball first,their brain tells them to push the shot out first and because this violates a core shooting principle the body tries to compensate causing the elbow to flare out just to get the ball out of their hands. In part five I will share some solutions and corrections I use to help players get past this sticking point.