Would You Like to be 17% Better?
 |
| Image by The Ardvaark via Flickr |
I was reading the December 2008 issue of Men’s Health today and saw something I wanted to comment about. There was a blurb on page 52 about how employing a rigid preshot routine will help you master the free throw. Now this is specifically about basketball, but it applies directly to pool also.
The reason the study uses the foul shot is because it is the only time in bball when the shooter can take his time, set up in exactly the position he wants and shoot without interference. This is why it’s so analogous to pool.
According to the study in the Journal of Sports Sciences (full text available only with a paid subscription) who reviewed the 2006 NBA playoffs, the players using a preshot routine shot better than those who didn’t by a margin of 17%. Can you imagine if this one change could improve your game by such a large margin?
Why does it work? The researchers hypothesized that there were two primary reasons. First, it helps you avoid over thinking and second, it helps you keep from making mistakes in your shot mechanics.
Players using a preshot routine shot better than those who didn’t by a margin of 17%.
Like you, I’ve read in many books and heard from many wise pool players how a preshot routine can help. They explain how it helps you relax, helps you focus, groves your stroke, etc. But this is the first time I’ve seen the assertion backed up with quantitative data. I have not seen the full study, so I can’t talk to its methodology or statistical soundness, but absent evidence to the contrary I’m going to give the journal of Sports Sciences the benefit of the doubt and believe their conclusions.
Note that the authors spoke of “rigid preshot routines”, meaning that they were the same every time, not just that there was some sort of routine before each shot. Keep this in mind when you decide to add this to your game. I know I’ll be moving this up my list of things to work on until I’m doing it on autopilot.
| Archer | Reyes | |
|---|---|---|
| Easy Shots | 1-2 | 2-3 |
| Average Shots | 3-4 | 4-5 |
| Tough Shots | 5-8 | 6-8 |
One significant way shots in pool are different from basketball foul shots is that the foul shot is always the same, whereas in pool you face a different shot every time. Phil Capelle, justly famous for his “Play Your Best” series of books, had a research note on his Billiards Press site (site no longer available) where he detailed how two top professionals adjust their routines based on shot difficulty.
Does this ring true for any of you out there? It does for me. As I think about all the many people I play against, and all the pros I watch on video and TV, the ones with a semi-rigid preshot routine are indeed substantially more accurate than those who don’t or whose preshot routine is more inconsistent. By accurate here I mean not just making the ball, but also moving the cue ball to the desired location.
Related Posts
Review: The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Galwey
Quiet Eye & Deep Focus Improve Shot Making Accuracy
Driving to Excellence
Loading ...
7 Responses to “Would You Like to be 17% Better?”
SeriousLearner
- December 4th, 2008
Great article, and yes it does ring true for me. I think that the preshot routine is an undervalued part of the fundamentals. If you want to be any good at this game you have to develop good fundamentals and the preshot routine helps your body & mind get in a groove together and deliver the best of what you’re capable of.
Thanks for the cool site, I’ll definately be coming around.
Fast&Loose
- December 5th, 2008
This is overstated. There’s no way that just by doing a preshot routine I’ll get that much better. If it worked, everybody would do it.
John Biddle
- December 7th, 2008
Fast & Loose, I haven’t done a study of my own, and clearly this study was about basketball, but I do think it could easily be true.
Everything I read tells me that a consistent preshot routine is very valuable in maximizing one’s consistency, and consistency is the way to maximize achievement.
It isn’t easy to add a preshot routine, because those who don’t already have one have the habit of nt using one. Breaking habits requires concerted effort over a significant period of time. Most who talk about this advise that it takes 30 consecutive sessions of use of something to make it a habit, and that means you can’t slip into the old behavior during that time. This is far from easy, so although it seems that adding a preshot routine is an easy way to a 17% improvement, it isn’t as easy as t seems. The improvement, I believe, will be real.
snookersus
- July 5th, 2009
I love both pool and snooker. But the truth is in pool some of the shots are so easy they could be knocked in with the other end of the cue. Thats why you can get away with changing your pre-shot routine. Check out the top sixteen snooker players. They all have pre-shot routines and they all have pretty much identical ones. Thats because accuracy is at a premium for shot making and cueball control. Alot can be learned from them when it comes to consistancy in any cue sport that requires making balls and playing position. Yes I know they’re different games and that snooker players don’t always beat pool players, but they’ve already proven alot of this stuff pool players are trying to figure out. Check out Ronnie O’sullivans or Stephen Hendrys 147 on youtube. Its called consistancy.
John Biddle
- July 7th, 2009
Snookersus, thanks for stopping by. While I don’t watch as much snooker as I do pool, I would agree that the top snooker players I’ve seen have a more rigid approach to a preshot routine than pool players do. They seem as a group to have more uniformity in their fundamentals in general than top pool players do.
I would not agree that pol is easier than snooker. You didn’t say that directly but it seems like you believe it. Moving the cue ball around more in pool would counterbalance the longer shots on bigger snooker tables. I’d call it a draw.
Hank Samuel
- November 13th, 2009
John
Great job on the Mills and SVB observations.It was a classic match!Your web page so well done,so so much information.Keep up the great work.
Sincerely,
HANK SAMUEL
eddiethelock
- November 16th, 2009
A good read on this would be “psycho-cybernetics” by maxwell maltz.
Pretty much explains what everything else is based on.
Leave a Reply