Throughout the shot it is imperative that the ball is under the player's complete control. Keeping two hands on the ball will help command the ball. The dominant shooting hand should be placed below the ball and slightly to the back while the other hand supports the side of the ball. Ideally the ball will be held with the palms only just scraping the surface of the ball. It should be held in the tips of all ten fingers widely spred. Most importantly you should always shoot in the direction you are looking and the entire action will be smooth and flowing.
Concentration is vital. The player should focus on the net and never take his eyes off it untill he scores or misses. The best players will not have to look at the ball, they should use their fingers to feel where it is. Many more experienced players imagine a spot in the air above their target which they aim for, to make the ball pass through and thus scoring.
The direction the ball will move in is mostly determined by the wrist and fingers. The shot should start with the wrist of the shooting hand bent as far back as posible. The players should aim to get the wrist and the elbow of the dominant hand directly under the centre of the ball. When the shot is taken the arm is extended fully in the direction of the net and the ball is released with a vigorous snap of the wrist and fingers.
The last area the player should consider when shooting is his relaxation and confidence in himself and his team. This is gained through praticing with a team and working on personal skills.
Fatigue:
Performance is seriously degraded by the effects of fatigue. It occurs when the muscles are over loaded with work and can't carry out actions with the same accuracy, skill, speed or strength. If signals of fatigue are present the performer will not be able to accomplish the work load required in adequate time. The more fatigued the player is the more mistakes he will make and this will carry on becoming worse if the player is not rested as soon as possible. If the muscles are not rested they may even cease to function completely. Fatigue will greatly increase the chance of injury as the performer no longer has complete control of his / her body.
Proceedure:
Eight subjects were grouped up from my GCSE P.E. Class and divided in two. Group 1 are the people which will be fatigued and Group 2 are the control subjects.
The first group were asked to take five shots from a set point (in this case we used the Free Throw line). Then they were taken into the weights room and asked to do as many bench presses and bicep curls as they could possibly manage. Most subjects managed 30 bench presses and 20 bicep curls with a seventeen kilogram weight. After this they were taken back to the basketball nets and asked to take another five shots.
Each time a person takes a shot it is recorded whether they score, hit the back board or net (a miss) or miss the net, backboard and rim entirely (air ball)
Next the second group is asked to take ten shots and the results are recorded.
Results
First five shots:
Last five shots:
Analysis
To illustate these results I have put them into graphs.
The first chart shows the number of successful shots that group 1 scored after fatigue, against the number of shot that group 2 succesfully scored.
The graph does show that the people in group 2 had a much higher number of accurate shots. This is most likely caused by the effects of fatigue on the first groups upper body.
Next I have made graphs to show the success of the four people in groupe 1. Hopefully this will show the effect of fatigue on their ability to score more clearly.
Vicky
Guy
Tom
Nick
With all the the subjects they didn't score as well as they did before fatigue as they did after fatigue, with one exception; Tom. Tom scored much better after fatigue, this may be because he got some paractice from the five shots he had taken before and therefore managed to overcome the effects of fatigue. Having said that he got airballs more times after fatigue than he did before it with would suggest that the fatigue was effecting his performance.
The next graph shows the results from the last five shots of both groups.
This shows eveything that I would have expected apart from one thing. The non-fatigued subjects (group 2) missed an unusually high number of shots I think that this is because the group 2 had most of the less expirenced players. Other than that the first group got more airballs and scored less than the unfatigued subjects.
Conclusinon
The experiment that I have carried out shows that after players are fatigued their abillity to score rapidly diminishes. I'm very sure that this is due to the effects of fatigue because I have tried to rule out any other effects in the following ways. I conducted my tests inside a sport hall where wind or cold air are not present to degrade the players abillity. I accurately measured the distance that the player is from the net before he takes the shot, to make sure that all my results are all gathered under the same conditions. All of the players used the same net and ball. The ball was correctly pumped up to the correct presure (10 lb).
Taking all of these factors in to consideration I have reached the decision that my hypothesis is in fact correct. The players abillity to score is impaired by the effects of fatigue in the upper body.
