David’s Basketball Lesson #4:

An Undervalued Technique: Holding the Follow Through

By now you should be beginning to see some of the benefits from exhaling as you shoot. If you haven’t noticed any improvement, you may need to contact me so I can determine what is going on. My phone # is 360 305-7084 or e-mail me at david@pureperformancesports.com.

In this lesson you will learn a technique that is taught but not emphasized. There are many reasons why this works and I won’t go into them here. Please just trust me and work on it. You can then determine for yourself how well it works.

Want more ideas on how you can improve your shooting? Buy my book Becoming A Zen-Sational Basketball Shooter.

Here is the Lesson on holding your follow through.

An Undervalued Technique: Holding the Follow Through

Have you ever heard of holding your arm and hand after you shoot? This is one of the “dirty little secrets” of shooting. Holding after you shoot means that your arm, wrist and hand come to an absolute (and absolutely relaxed) stop  when you follow through until your ball actually reaches the basket. What this will do for you is to help take away your physical reaction to your shot. The natural tendencies are to react in some way. When you make it truly OK to miss your shot (or make it) without judgment then your body can and will take over for you.

Holding for that long is not easy as you will want to move on. Of course, the best time and the easiest time to do this is when shooting free throws. In any case, really work on this in practice and then see if you can do it when you are actually playing in a game.

Let me tell you an interesting story. I went to a Slam semi-pro basketball game in my home town and I was watching them warm up. There was this one player who actually held his arm and wrist on his follow through every time until the ball reached the rim or backboard.

He started shooting baskets close to the side line and behind the three point line. He then proceeded to shoot baskets all the way around the three point line to the other sideline. He must have taken 10 to 12 shots. What was amazing was that he did not miss a shot. All 10 to 12 balls went in. Now maybe you can say that holding his arm until the ball reached the basket was not the reason why he made all of his shots, but just maybe it was a huge factor.

Unfortunately, he did not get any play time in that game. I did want to see if he was able to hold his arm that long when he was actually playing. I also wanted to see how well he shot under the pressure of having his opponent in his face, but there was no doubt that he could really shoot.

After the game I talked to him and he told me of another reason to hold your follow through. Because your arm is still “out there” there is a more likely chance of being fouled. That alone would be worth learning this, don’t you think?

So, go ahead and work on this and see what happens. It is very simple. Just hold your follow through until the ball reaches the rim making sure that the arm, wrist and fingers are very relaxed.