I grew up a fan of all sports. If there was sports on TV, I would be watching it, but only for about 10 minutes. At that point, I would be running outside to play the sport I’d just been watching. I’m Canadian, so there was plenty of time spent playing hockey, but in June I would be playing tennis because Wimbledon was on TV. In the summer, I’d be throwing baseball against the garage wall, with a strike zone drawn on. In the fall, I would be back in the back-alley as both the quarterback AND the wide receiver.
My introduction to golf came at about 12 years old, and very early on I took lessons. I learned proper swing mechanics (or at least tried to) and I remember learning the importance of warming up.
Then I met my shooting mentor a couple of years later, and he too talked about warming up. The ideas were similar. They made sense. I can’t promise my 13 year old self did these things well, but they did make sense. And I can remembering incorporating at least some of the ideas into my routine.
I was shocked when I started working with more elite athletes that most didn’t really warm up in any organized fashion. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised given that you most of us skip over these little details in various areas of our lives. How many of us don’t stretch before we exercise? Or don’t wash the apple before we eat it? Most of the time, we just want to get to the work, not do the prep work.
Which brings to mind the great quote from Abraham Lincoln. “If you gave me 3 hours to cut down a tree, I’d spend the first 2 sharpening my ax.” HE was willing to warm up.
First lets talk about why it is important. There are a couple of reasons. We want our body to get physically warm to prevent injury for sure. That doesn’t have too much to do with shooting though. From a shooting standpoint, we need to remind our body of the correct way to shoot the ball each day. We need to remind it of all the little details that are so hard to hit at game speed, but so important to our success. We need to develop muscle memory but executing the same habits today as we did yesterday and the day before. Slowing down at the beginning of a warm up and doing form shooting can help us do that.
The next important aspect of warming up is mental. We should start our shooting warm up with simple, precise tasks to get a precise motion. But simplicity early is key. Your body doesn’t fully remember the motion from yesterday, so when you keep the first shots simple, you increase the likelihood of a successful outcome. And when you are successful early in a day, your confidence grows. Only good things can happen when you head into every game, practice and workout with confidence because you’ve seen good results.
The opposite of this is the guy that walks into the gym and says to himself “lets see if I’m hot today” and shoots one half court shot. He’s chosen a difficult shot, rarely makes it, and so rarely thinks he’s hot and lacks confidence. You can take control of this and see success early by shooting easier shots early.
Now, there is no ONE warm up, where if you every just did this they would all be more successful shooters. But there are guidelines we can follow.
Start close, slow down, be precise early. Do form shooting from close to the hoop. I usually start about 2 steps inside the free throw line with my NBA players. We have three versions of for shooting we do, that are each progressively more like a real shot and less like a drill.
After completing 50 or so shots of form shooting, stay close but start to speed up a little bit. I usually have players do 3 semi-circles worth of shots, starting on the baseline, moving in an arc with each shot, until they reach the other baseline. The first semi-circle comes at about 10 feet, the second at about 12 feet, and the third around the free throw line. With each semi-circle, the players speed up just a little bit, and start to add movements like pivots and jabs.
Lastly, we identify 3-4 game situations where that player gets shots in games, and we get 5 or so reps of those situations. In between each set, we shoot a few free throws.
Again, there is no hard and fast rule to warming up. You need to learn what your body needs. I was a good shooter, but I also needed more time than my friends to warm up. Some of them would shoot 5 shots and say “ok, I’m ready”. I would need 10 or so minutes. So learn what you need, then start to do it.
Preparation is all within your control. So take control.
