The REAL Way To Become an Elite Shooter

So I'll put some clips of this on the screen for you guys to see if you guys are watching on YouTube right now. There's different drills that we can do that force these sort of constraints on us and force us to work these different factors such as balance. We might start with our shoulders facing the basket or maybe it's our right shoulder face basket. We're facing like our chest to the sideline right there in front of the free throw line. And you've got to jump, turn in the air, square yourself and shoot the ball. So now we work on being able to shoot hit shots when we're not exactly lined up with the basket. Right. Our momentum is kind of twisting a little bit. And so that's a whole other factor added into your shot now that you have to overcome and adapt to, to still put the ball in the basket. Right. So it just makes things a little bit more difficult. And we can add another element of difficulty that where I might have them start facing completely away from the basket. So back to the basket. They've got a jump square in the air and then shoot the ball right there. That's not a shot you're probably ever going to shoot in a game unless there's some crazy end of shot clock, end of, you know, quarter situation where you have to do that 99.999% of the, the time you spend on the floor, that's not a shot you're going to be shooting. But we're, we're just working in aspects of building that ability to, to be adaptable, right? Of building that functional movement variability within your training so that when we get into a game and it's not perfect and you have to lean a little bit and you might have to twist your body a little bit, you've already been exposed to that serial to adapt to it. There's plenty of ways we can do this. I love doing drills where we might have to switch up full work every single time. So maybe we're shooting from the same area, but I'll say, okay, you know what, we have to go from a 1, 2 into maybe the next time we have to hop. And so we're just rotating between footwork every single time. So now we're able to shoot when we have to step with this sort of footwork. And maybe the next time it calls for us to use a different sort of footwork. So now because we've, we've worked on being able to go from this shot immediately to a different sort of shot, we're able to do that in the context of the game because we've worked on it again. And so another even simpler drill that I love to use is called bat pass shooting. This might start from the free throw line in the mid range or I might even do it in the three point line. Maybe we'll go from the three point line. I'll say, okay, we're going to go five spots right here, going to go both corners, both wings on top of the key. And at each spot I'm going to throw you a bad pass and you've got to catch it and shoot it. Okay, so now we're working another additional factor of variability because we're working on your ability to. If I throw the ball so high you have to jump and catch it, can you still hit the shot coming off of that when the pass is not perfect? Because the pass in a game, most passes are not going to be perfect to you unless you've got some really good teammates who always put the ball right where you want it. Chances are you're going to have some passes that come high pass, come low pass, go to the side. So the better you are at being able to hit those shots and the more comfortable you are at being able to adapt when that comes, the better you're going to be in the context of an actual game. Now, again, what that's going to mean is that you're probably going to shoot the ball a little bit worse in practice. Because I would expect that if I'm really challenging you and throwing bad passes to you and it's going to throw off your rhythm a little bit, it's going to make everything a little more difficult, you're going to shoot ball a little bit worse. But what does it mean when it comes to actual game transfer? Again, we want to train to become experts. Okay? I think that's the biggest key that you guys want to think about when it comes to training anything but especially shooting. What does the term expert actually mean when it comes to shooting the basketball? Those players who are experts in that are experts with when it comes to functional movement variability. All of that means that when things get switched up a little bit in the context of a game, the defender contests one shot, they don't contest the next shot. The next time they may have to lean a little bit. The next time they go straight up with the ball. The next time they may have to shoot the ball a little bit off balance. If they're able to hit all those shots, all those different sorts of shots, and they're high in that functional movement variability, that is where you become an expert. A novice is somebody who can only make those shots when it's perfect, when it's a perfect catch and shoot or a perfect one. Drill, pull up. They can knock down the shot, but as soon as they have to lean a little bit, as soon as they're a little bit off balance, they can't hit the shot anymore. That's the difference between an expert and a novice. When it comes to basketball. We want to train to become experts. That just means we want to add another level of difficulty to the shots that we shoot. So not every shot that we practice is going to be a game shot. Again, anytime you see me post on Instagram, there might be some drills, you might say, wow, that's not a shot. You never shoot a game. Why are you working on that? Well, typically it's to work a different aspect of shooting so that when we get into the game and we got to hit those game shots, we're more prepared to do so. Okay. Again, it's about training to become an expert. And when you do that, you it's going to be a little more difficult in practice. You're going to miss more shots. But again, when we get to the context of the game, you've experienced having to hit different sorts of shots with different sorts of restraints, and so you're able to go in and be effective. I want to give you guys my free leap here. Score workout. We're going to target a bunch of skills that you're going to need to have. You want to be an elite player on the perimeter. All you got to do to get that is click the top link in my description right below and I'll get that right to you. Sam.