Watching the final of the Olympic Basketball competition last week reminded me of the importance of thinking the right things before executing a skill.

Whenever someone lined up for a free throw you could see they had a moment to consider the shot, specifically to cue up in their mind and body the movement pattern that they needed to execute the skill.

It’s a matter of searching within yourself for the movement pattern you’ve learnt in training and/or bringing up the sensation of the beginning of the movement or even doing some visualization of the (successful) outcome. You may need to adapt the movement to the conditions, if necessary, and then let the ‘muscles’ memory’ take over and let it happen.

To make this all work well, the cueing up of the skill should happen in extensively in training.

For more on this topic, have a look at the excellent products over at Sports Mind Skills - Free Throw Champ and Basketball Intelligym.

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