I didn’t play any sports growing up and my kids are in it now. I hear a lot of talk about “following through” and “follow through”. Throwing a baseball, shooting a basketball, golf swing, hockey, swinging a bat.
In these cases the ball / item has already left or has been hit so why is follow through important? Does it have an effect on the initial release / impact?
In: Physics
Planning a full follow through swing of a golf club, or a full follow through of a boxing punch, changes the trajectory of your entire movement
When you **dont** plan the follow through, your muscles will already be working towards a quicker slowdown, meaning you’re pulling back on your swing before contacting the ball
This not only slows your movement, but changes the angle of contact, and changes the path of motion.
Your golf hit will be weaker and way off course, your boxing punch will have less impact and travel slower
Follow throughs are important, the effects really are drastic
Follow through is important because it guarantees that you accelerated all the way through the task. If you don’t follow through, it is common to find that the deceleration happened a split second before the hit/shot/swing/throw.
Not following through means you’re using muscle to stop your movement. That resistance often happens too early. It’s hard to control and hard for the thrower to know/feel exactly when the deceleration started.
Follow through is important because if you stop the throwing or hitting motion right at the moment of release or impact, you aren’t going to impart nearly as much energy into the ball. It is also much easier just to complete the motion rather than try to stop at some midway point.
The follow through is important because it gives the coach basically a history of what has occurred previously.
So in order to get a good follow through you must have a good initial swing. If you have a bad golf swing for instance you can’t have a good follow through.
For instance a lot of players slow down just before impact resulting in a very abrupt follow through if you tell the golf player to swing harder through impact the ball will go further also the follow-through will look better.
So it’s kind of a mind trick telling the player to have a better follow through will indirectly result in a higher impact velocity
If it was a machine throwing the object, it wouldn’t technically matter. Or a block of the throwing mechanism may even be good (such as a catapult).
But for humans, if they don’t plan on following through, the entire biomechanical process will not be as powerful.
EG – If you’re throwing a baseball, and plan to stop moving your arm the moment you release the ball, you’d have to slow down your arm before releasing the ball.
Basically you want to be at full power at the moment of contact/release. in fact, for thay moment and critical fractions of a second since that contact does take a little time.
If you’re planning on stopping at that moment, you’re already going to be slowing as it arrives.
It’s more psychological that way than mechanical, follow through is the simplest way to get mind body and need inline.
Imagine it this way, you’re in a race, if you start slowing down before the race is over you’re going to be slower, than if you powered through and slowed down after.
In this case the race is over but youre following through with your speed even though it doesnt affect times anymore. For the kids if they dont follow through their slowing their arm down before letting go of the ball causing a slower throw
you have to continue the motion. if you stop too soon, you don’t get full force or power.
let’s say you’re kicking a soccer ball. if you stop your foot just as you touch the ball, it won’t go as far as it would if you continue the motion all the way through. It’s not just the motion but power, too
it also helps with form. in some sports, the half a second after you let go is the most important. any wavering from you causes a change in direction. so you continue the motion in the direction to perfect accuracy.
imagine a major leage pitcher. in the last moment of the pitch, he pushes the ball forward with his fingers. if he thinks he’s done at this moment, his brain stops his body stops. now it’s 90mph instead of 95mph, or ball, not a strike. and he left 5% of himself in the dugout, not giving 100% to the game
and finally, because of these, it’s lazy not to. if you’re not going to put in the full effort, don’t play. and at game time, you play like you practice.
A lot of good reasoning in the responses, but maybe this practical example might help too.
Try smacking an empty plastic bottle off a table or something. The natural way would have your hand continue moving after it hits the bottle and then the bottle goes flying.
Now try to do it again but stop your hand as quick as you can after hitting the bottle. It’s not going to be as good of a smack!
That extra motion is the follow through and it’s both a natural part of a swing/hit that you have to work to stop (and make your hit worse and waste energy) and an important part of overall techniques
If you wondered why a novice trying to hammer a nail takes longer than a builder, or bends the nail and just struggles, it’s because they don’t follow through
A novice aims for the head of the nail and when they swing they pull back on the hammer to stop the swing, this means less power is transferred from hammer to nail and because the hammer is pull back just as it hits the head of the nail the direction of the force may not be straight down and through causing the nail to bend
A professional aims for the head of the nail also lining up the angle of the nail and hammer face so it will be straight
Swinging the hammer and driving it through the nail (follow through) the only thing the decelerates the hammer is the resistance of the nail in the wood
It takes me no more than 3 strikes to drive a 90mm (4inch?) nail by hand can usually do it in 2 not including starting the nail
I’ve seen people try drive 30mm (just over 1 inch) nails
Taking about 15 swings because they decelerate before impact and constantly pushing the nail over because stopping your swing changes how the force is applied to the nail by the hammer
The ball by the club
The ball by your hand
The other dudes face by your glove
Drive through for accuracy and power don’t stop short
Also fatigues less when you don’t try stop your swing/punch/throw technique is king
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