NBA Shooting Habit That Increases Range: Is It Dangerous? (Ft. Elliot Hulse) - Splash Lab Basketball
Splash Lab Basketball
True Ballers Share Knowledge >>

NBA Shooting Habit That Increases Range: Is It Dangerous? (Ft. Elliot Hulse)

A major question that a lot of people have is why good shooters and great shooters bring their knees inward when they shoot a basketball.

In this video post, you’ll learn why this is such a common question.

You’ll also hear strength expert Elliot Hulse, address this phenomenon, as well as talk about leverage and power generation and how it could potentially help you become a better shooter.

More...


shooting-range-1
improve-shooting-range-1

A major question that a lot of people have is why good shooters and great shooters bring their knees inward when they shoot a basketball.

The reason that it’s such a common question is because:

1. Players don’t talk about it. (Maybe because they don’t know they do it)

2. If you go online and search knees inwards, you see it as a corrective issue. You see corrective stretching and other ways to try to fix it. Instead of anyone talking about how it could be beneficial.

But then you see these players, if you look at their feet, they are intentionally doing it - they are pointing their toes towards each other. It seems like they know that it helps them.

So I asked Elliot Hulse, strength expert, coach, and former Pro Strongman, to talk a bit about leverage and power generation and how it could potentially help.

*Elliot asks me to try jumping with my knees pointing inwards*

My hips felt tight.

Elliot: Your hips felt tight because you increased suspension in there.

improve-shooting-range-2

It’s almost like a spring. So as you medially rotate your femur (upper leg), there is an anterior pelvic tilt associated with it.

If you point your knees in, your butt sort of sticks out. When your knees go in and your butt sticks out, you have to bring your chest up in order to not fall forward so I have to engage a lot of my low back.

By doing this, you are loading your hips like a spring by flexing my hips back and extending at the lumbar spine.

You said tight … Well yea it’s tight, you just loaded a spring.

So when you load that spring and you shoot out, you’re a mastermind. You’re using your body at its most leverage.

Now, I would be careful to say that everyone should now go and do that.

Let that be a caveat.

If you are watching this, don’t go and change your knee position now because of this video.

I think the key is, how is that working for you? That is my question to all athletes and anybody working on something.

Now, most knee injuries occur because of medial rotation. That’s why all the other physical therapists are out there saying that it must be corrected. Because there are so many ACL injuries and medial tendon tears, you know, the knees are getting screwed up because the knees are going in.

improve-shooting-range-4

What they are not differentiating against is the eccentric and concentric loading of that movement. When you come down after a rebound and your knees go in, now what was being expressed as concentric now has to maintain an eccentric load. And a lot of times the load is way too much eccentrically.

We want to make sure that we are doing things differently based on whether we are expressing concentrically or expressing, because it really is a yielding expression, eccentrically. So I will say, authoritatively, that with the knees going in, you are going to get more power concentrically, but don’t let it carry over to your eccentric loading.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ

The purpose of this video is to understand the prevalence of this movement pattern in the NBA. Elliot Hulse is a strength expert and his recommendations for shooting are strictly based on a strength/bio-mechanical perspective.

The dynamic nature of basketball makes it difficult to separate concentric and eccentric movements and therefore, bringing the knees in when shooting can be dangerous and can potentially cause knee injuries over time. Please be very careful! Thanks.

>