why is follow through important in sports?

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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

13 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

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

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