Could you please give me a shooting program I could complete in about an hour 3-5 days a week?
Mark Badrov
Dear Mark, It would take too much space and time to write a detailed program for you. Let me just say that you need to work on a few simple things, and however you find to do that will work.
Those few things are these:
1) CONSTANT, AUTOMATIC RELEASE
First, with my Method, youíll want to develop a constant and automatic release motion. This is a Release thatís a simple pushing action, always at the same speed and force, aimed high, a to-the-end-of-the-arm motion, with the elbow locking, the follow through held on line. The
wrist and hand are relaxed and do nothing more than cradle the ball and keep it on line with the action of the arm, which does the aiming. The hand will actually ìflopî forward and bounce in the follow through when the wrist is relaxed. (To me, thatís one of the signs of a great shooter!) Letís call this a ìPureî Release. The speed and force of the arm action are about 70-75% of maximum, something you can do all day long without hurting your elbow.
2) SHOOT FROM THE LEG POWER ON THE WAY UP
Secondly you want to learn to shoot FROM the leg drive energy, from what I call the UpForce. This is the powerful and stable energy created by
the legs and middle body. For most shots, you want to shoot early in the jumping motion to catch all of that available energy. Start close in and then move back, increasing the energy and power. The shot will start to feel ìeffortlessî because itís coming more from the big muscles.
3) LEARN TO VARY ARCH TO CONTROL DISTANCE
With varying power coming from the legs, and with varying distance to the basket with different shots but a constant Release action, all you need do then is change the ìangleî of the Release (the arch) to control distance. If you have a lot of energy, you shoot higher. If less, you shoot lower in trajectory. It all depends on the moment. There is no set arch, no perfect trajectory. Higher is generally better, as the target gets larger and larger the higher you go, but you have to adjust the arch to reality ... to how much power you have and how far away the basket is.
MAIN THING -- THE RELEASE!
From my research Iíve discovered that the key practice you can do is find the distance where, with just the release motion (with no or minimal leg action, just enough to trigger the release), aimed with medium-high arch, you can drill shot after shot after shot, dead center, swish. To find this distance, first approximate where you think it will be and then just fire off your ìpureî Release and see where the ball lands. If you did the action as intended (see #1 above), then observe where the ball lands and adjust your distance forward or back so you are making dead-center swishes. When done well, the ball canít do anything but fly pretty much the same distance every time. It canít go any further or any less far at that angle. With practice it will start to be ìautomatic,î which is the goal.
Do this exercise first every time you practice shooting. Have the intention to ìmasterî the motion. Once itís starting to be learned, then you can move back and add leg power with the same Release and just vary the angle of the shot to control distance. If you do all this, you will start to make a lot of swishes, and youíll know itís a powerful (and simple), repeatable way to shoot.
Later you can add movement and shoot off the dribble and off picks and screens, but itís the ìPure Releaseî that allows great shooting to happen. As you shoot off movement, itís even more important to ìcatchî the energy from the legs and middle body as it stabilizes the shot, much needed when thereís the increased complexity of speed and movement.
*Young kids will need to use a little, constant leg action to give them enough power for a medium high shot