REFLECTION
You’ve probably heard this familiar saying about coaches: “those who can’t do, teach.” There’s probably some truth to the idea, especially in sports, but I think the opposite is probably more true: those who do, can’t teach. Some athletes are so gifted they don’t even know why they do what they do. Others know what it takes to be good at something, but they’ve forgotten half of it because it’s become second nature for them.
If I tried to make this video fifteen years ago, for instance, I’m not sure I would have been able to translate all the necessary information for proper throwing mechanics as easily or as clearly as it came to me this time around. Winning football games requires knowing how to throw the ball well, but when you’re still playing, you’re not thinking about throwing the ball well, you’re thinking about winning the game. The key was being able to strip away all the variables of playing the quarterback position (pass rush, play call, down and distance, etc.) and applying 100% of my attention to the mechanics of throwing. All of which was a little easier with some distance from the day to day of playing football.
Plus, teaching people how to win a football game with your arm is of limited usefulness. Most people aren’t going to be a quarterback, but they will play catch with their kids or their siblings or their friends. That’s why the video was called How to Throw a Football, not How to Be a Quarterback, and why the instructions I was able to pull together made sense, even to people who have no plans to ever pick up a football.
LESSON
The reason it made sense, and I think one of the reasons the response to the video was so positive, is that people were putting it together that mentally there is very little difference between learning how to throw a football correctly and learning how to do anything the right way. It will always come down to following a set of basic principles. In this case:
- Start from the ground up.
- Everything is connected.
- Don’t get ahead of yourself.
With throwing, the power and force come from the ground and move up the kinetic chain from there, from the balls of your feet to the last point when the ball leaves your hand. It starts by creating a strong base with your legs. Then you turn your hips and your front shoulder, load the ball with your throwing arm at a 90-degree angle, and as you plant your back foot to throw, your front foot drives toward your target and acts like a trigger, unwinding everything like a rubber band so that your hand and the ball are like the cracker at the end of a bullwhip, carrying and then releasing all of the energy potential from the rest of your body.
Can you still throw a football if you don’t do it exactly like this? Sure. But if you only use your arm, your velocity will be inconsistent. And if you don’t connect all the pieces of the motion, you won’t be consistently accurate. And if you rush things, you won’t always get the distance you’re looking for. The whole process will be inefficient. Throwing is all about maximizing energy efficiency, which gets more important as you get older and your physical capabilities start to diminish. As I got deeper into my career and my arm strength started to drop, for instance, I had to speed up when I wanted to throw the ball harder or farther. The process was still the process. The mechanics and the sequencing were the same, but the timing was sped up to maximize the transfer of total energy into the ball.
When it’s all done properly, even when you’re just having fun on vacation or on the golf course, well you can ask Ben Affleck or Bryson Dechambeau what it’s like to be on the receiving end of one of those balls.
APPLICATION
You can see how these principles would apply to a golf swing, to pitching and hitting, to drawing, to creating a product or building a business. The specific instructions for each one are different and important, obviously, but they’re really just tactics. The larger strategy is success, mastery, greatness, perfection. Or at least it should be. These principles are the pillars of that strategy.
Part of greatness in anything is mastering the fundamentals. It’s embracing the monotony of doing them well over and over again. During the season, Steph Curry takes 300 shots at the end of every practice, 500 during the off-season. Spot-up threes, dribble pull-up threes, floaters in the lane. He takes these shots from the same spots in the same sequence over and over again, every day, with perfect form. Tiger Woods was the same way. He used to hit 100-200 four-foot putts in a row at the end of his range days. As he got older and his back couldn’t handle the strain, he sped up the routine and hit 50 four-footers with just his right hand, then fifty more with both hands. Both guys did this out of the spotlight, where there was no glory to be had, grinding on the basics and doing them the right way.
So next time you want to learn how to do something new, or somebody asks you to teach them how to do something you’re great at, make sure you have these principles in mind before you dive in.
Start from the ground up. Like they say: you have to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run.
Don’t forget that everything is connected. You can have the perfect takeaway with your driver and you can nail the reverse ‘C’, but if you don’t know where your feet go or you put the ball too far back in your stance, that tee shot is most likely not going where you think it’s going.
And remember not to get ahead of yourself. Get your feet underneath you. Get yourself together. And learn to throw a spiral before you worry about throwing a game-winning touchdown.
