Abstract
This paper is on the topic of Basketball Free Throw and to demonstrate the relationship between structural and functional anatomy and movement performance. The first section of this paper will discuss the muscles and actions that are important for the movement and how these muscles relate specifically to the movement outcome. The second section of this paper will cover the limiting/facilitating joints and associated structures. The third section of this paper will discuss the combination of muscle and joint motions important for movement success. The fourth section of this paper will discuss how strategies or training techniques may improve chances of a successful outcome. The fifth section of this paper will discuss the sources of injury and/or movement failure, how these injuries develop, what are the specific structures are involved, what structures attempt to compensate for the injured structure and how is the movement affected. The final section of this paper will discuss how this movement is critical for success in sport, or functioning of daily life and what happens s with aging, disease, or injury that can compromise function and ability to perform the movement.
Introduction
In a game of basketball, two teams with five players each start the game. Both these teams attempt to outscore their opposing team with passing, handling, rebounding, dribbling, and above all shooting baskets. In between the game when one team commits a foul or violation, the fouled player gets an opportunity to make a shot called a free throw (Mood, Masker, & Rink, 1991). In a free throw shot, a player who gets fouled by the opposing team member/s attempts to score basket without any interruptions from the opposing team members. The amount of free throws received by the shooter depends on the sort of violation, foul or game situation. Free throw shots are considered as the one of the most relevant shots in a game of basketball and it determines the game outcome. Success of free throw shot needs good concentration, relaxed motions and above all good body mechanism while taking the shot.
The free throw shot made by a professional athlete can be divided into four phases that comprises of preparatory phase, windup phase, force phase and release phase. In the preparatory phase of a free throw shot involves a player lining up to take the shot, contemplating the correct position and angle to take the shot. The muscles involved in this phase of shot are the hamstring muscles or the knee flexors that are the muscles used for bending the knee; a shooter slightly bends the knee’s position in preparation of the shot. Other muscles used in this shot are the flexor muscles that are used as the shooter gets in the correct position and essentially stays still in the action, meaning use of minimum restrictive force. Main restrictive forces during this phase are the antagonist muscles of knee flexion and elbow. The next phase of free throw show is the win-up phase, where the shooter begins bending the knees and elbows at the right angle while having hands placed accurately on the ball. In this stage power is used in the lower part of the shooter’s body and movements like the knee flexion and hip, in addition to the dorsiflexion of the ankle combine to build-up the power just before the release of the ball. Also, in this step the wrist extension and the upper body flexion occur during this step. Force phase is the most important part of the free throw shot. During this phase, shooter needs to focus and perfect the muscle action and technique required for successful completion of the shot. In this phase the hips and knees extend while the ankles plantar flexes for using the force created at the time of hip and knee flexion. While extension of these body parts the weight of the shooter shifts to the back heel and the back straightens. The kinetic linking power gets transferred from the lower to the upper limbs. The elbows start to extend from the 90 degree angle to full extension moving from this stage t the release phase. In the release phase, increased extension of hip enables the shooter’s posture to become upright before the release. For making a fluent shot the ball is brought above the eye level, the shoulder flexion, the wrist and elbow extension are needed. In the final stages of this phase role of wrist muscles increases significantly. For delivering the arc required for shooting the basket, a swift ‘wrist flick’ is also very important. Both elbows have to be in full extension and the wrist flexion is also needed. This is commonly known as follow through, an important sports skill that relies on the ability of flexing wrist for successful free throw shot (Floyd, 2012).
When the trunk moves from its flexed position to an extension, the upward movement of the trunk will push down on the lumbar vertebrae, pushing down on the sacroiliac joints, which will push down on the body’s hip joints. The downward force transmits to the knee joints and produces greater knee flexion responding to the downward movement of hips. Players who don’t have the needed trunk flexion in this stage of the free throw shot would decrease the ability of loading legs for the shot with the use of trunk extension and might end up losing full contribution to free throw of leg extension from the deeply flexed position. Additionally, it has been suggested that trunk extension can help in triggering more forceful moment of knee extension. However, the deeper trunk extension produces added hyperextension at the neck area helping the shooter to retain the focus on the rim (Oddsson 109-118).
In case the ball gets released too late or too early, the ball’s velocity would not be optimum as the elbow and wrist joints speed up or slow down rather than staying in the peak velocity. The wrist flexion provides ultimate thrust for releasing the ball and helps in determining the angle of projection and velocity of the ball (Martin 127-133). In the final phase of a shot the follow through is done, where all joints continue moving through the end of its full motion range following the release of the ball. A skilled follow-through, legs get fully extended and the toe points towards the floor. The vertical trunk and shooting hip are lined up vertically with the ankle and the knee, as well as the shooting arm’s joints. The shooting shoulder is at 140-150 degrees of the shoulder flexion—closer the upper arm to the vertical the better is a shot as, the greater vertical forces are applied to the ball. The movement of the joints to end point of the range of motion ensures the joints doesn’t stop moving before the ball is released, that decreases the release velocity of the basketball. Trunk has to be rotated away from shooting hand, for lining up the shooting shoulder and the arm directly with the rim. The trunk rotation has happened at the time of releasing the ball from the shooter’s hand, as it gets facilitated by dropping off the non-shooting hand from the basketball.
As far as joint movement pattern is concerned, there is not a huge difference between the success rate of the shot and the angle of the joint from where the ball is being shot. But, some dissimilarities came out that possibly could determine the success of scoring a basket. One of the dissimilarities was the joint’s peak angular velocity involved in the free throw. Those who successfully take a shot, their lower body joints that are the knee, hip and the ankle had higher peak angular velocity in comparison to those who miss the shot. In another way, the upper body joints of the successful shooter that are the wrists and elbow have lower peak angular velocity than the ones that miss the shot. On top of it, more proximal joints that are central to the body get used first in comparison to the distal joints of the body. The movement spreads from the centre of the body and moves across the hip, ankle and the knee for the lower body while, in the upper body, the movement spreads from the central part of the body and moves across the shoulder, elbow and finally to the wrist.
For taking a successful free throw shot, a player needs to accomplish set of steps. These steps are; firstly, ‘Approach and stance’, the player approaches and aligns himself at the free throw line with feet-shoulder width apart in the square stance or in a slightly staggered stance. Slightly staggered stance is the most common stance where the front foot is placed on the free throw line and the back foot’s toe is even with the front foot’s arch (Ball, 1989). Secondly, ‘shot set and backward swing’ is the next step where the shooter has adequate amount of forward trunk lean, knee and hip flexion, while shooter’s ankles are dorsiflexed. The basket ball has to be placed closer to the trunk aligning the shooting knee. The hip, shoulder, ankle and knee of the shooting side get lined up vertically as player prepares the backswing motion. Thirdly, ‘force producing’ in the next phase where force is generated through the body movement of the shooter’s body parts. Shooter projects the ball towards the basket by using the forward and upward forces produced through extending the player’s trunk and leg, as well as by straightening the shooting arm. In this force producing phase, the ball has to be placed in front of the shooter’s body with the shooting hand directly behind the ball and the non-shooting hand is placed on the side of the ball for balanced shot. The fingers get spread on the ball while the basketball is placed on the pads of the shooter’s fingers. At the end of this phase, the player’s knees are in the maximal flexion and the vertical velocity is zero (Hartley & Fulton, 1971). Fourthly, ‘critical instant of ball release’ is the next step where shooter’s legs and trunks needs to be fully extended, indicating that the knee, hip and ankle joints make full contribution to ball’s flight. The trunk has to be vertical and it should not be leaning backward or forward at the time of release and follow through of the shot (Penrose & Blanksby, 1976). Fifthly, ‘arch of shot’ is the step which determines the how the ball becomes a projectile having parabolic pathway towards the basket. The ball after the release would reach the basket either at a low arc or a high arc. The rule is higher the arc, greater the probability of success of shot. Strength of the shooter determines the arc of the shot, a higher arc shot needs greater strength in comparison to a low arc shot. The angle of release needs to be somewhere between 50-55 degrees (Brancazio, 1981). Finally, ‘follow through’ is the final step in successful shooting of a free throw shot. Here the joints continue moving through the end of the full range of motion after the ball release. In this step, the legs of the shooter are extended fully and the ankles get plantar flexed. Trunk is vertical and the hip on the shooting side is aligned vertically with the ankle and knee, as well as the joints of the shooter.
There are some errors that turn out to be common in Free throw shooting for most individuals. One such reason is poor alignment that happens when shooters fail in lining up the shooting side knee, hip, shoulder and elbow with a line through the ball towards the basket. Another common reason is lack of backspin that happens when players apply sidespin during the release or avoid any spin at the time of release. Having low arc on the shot makes players, who have insufficient shoulder trunk or elbow extension, flexion at the time of release making the ball release too flat. Relaxation of the shooting arm is needed at time of the shot, with only active mover muscles need to be contracted, and others have to be relaxed and loose. Full follow-through is important as players need to finish in the goose full-neck position of their shooting hand with arms pointing towards the ceiling and hands pointing at the basket. Some other reasons for failure are interference of non-shooting hand, shooting ball too hard, high tension on the shooting arm, taking off the shot angle and leaning at the time of release (Alexander 17-18).
Free throw shot is one the most important shots in Basketball and around 20% of all points scored in the NCAA Division 1 are from free throws shots (Kozar, Vaughn, Lord, Whitfield, & Dve 243-248). The importance of this shot increases later in the game, because free throws tend to comprise a greater percentage of the points that are scored in the last 5 minutes than the initial 35 minutes by either the winning or the losing team (Kozar et al., 123-129). Free throw shot is considered as the easiest shot for a professional basketball player, as the player stands alone, 15 feet away from the hoop with no defense or distraction. The player needs to get ready target, pip the ball and shoot. A decline is witnessed in the free throw attempts of basketball athletes in their post-injury and aging days. This drop-off in free throw attempt numbers is also demonstrated in the abysmal shot rates, plummeting usage rates and inability to create their own offense. There is an expected and obvious drop in the efficiency of almost all athletes as they get grow old and start sustaining injuries. The reason behind this is simple- physiology, as the body starts to age the ligaments and tendons start t lose water making them less elastic and more fragile. Knee troubles are common trouble for most experienced and newly retired basketball players as with age knee troubles start to disturb athletes (Wagner).
Conclusion
Every muscle in the human body comprises of a network of fibres that are responsible for certain types of movements. When a human body engages in playing a game like basketball, the muscle fibers start to make the movement your brain functions such as dribbling, running, shooting, collecting, catching, rebounding, dunking and hitting free throws. The actions taken causes every muscle responsible for specific movement to lengthen, shorten and stay the same, this called muscle contraction. While free throw shot does not seem like an action that needs a lot of movement, muscle groups and joint in the body work together in isotonic contractions, with ever muscle group involved working in creating a movement. A free throw shot engages elbow, hip and ankle extensors in addition to wrist and shoulder flexors.
Works Cited
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