How to get better at Basketball : Dribbling Techniques

 🏀Ball Handling & Dribbling🏀🏀

How to Get Better at Basketball

Ball handling and Dribbling are the foundation to a good basketball career. According to James Wilson , " Good ball handling means you have better control of the ball , which results in having a good foundation in shooting , passing or dribbling" (14)

🏀Triple Threat🏀

A tip James Wilson mentions in his book How to be better at basketball in 21 days is : To understand the triple threat stance

The triple threat position allows you to pass , shoot or dribble (hence the name). The triple threat position is when you are in a "crouched, athletic attack stance you have a firm grip on the ball on your dominant hip and eyes facing forward " (Wilson 14). Once you get this stance down you are a triple threat.

🏀Dribbling 🏀

Dribbling should be a second nature for basketball players especially guards. In James Wilson's book he emphasizes that you should not dribble the ball with your fingertips but with the palm of your hand.

In this clip , Alexis (Point Guard) is shown dribbling with her palm. As you can see it is very difficult for her too have CONTROL over the ball . 

When dribbling with her fingertips and palms the overall control of the ball is greater.

Another example of bad vs. good dribbling

 

As seen with these clips , correct dribbling and using good ball handling techniques can drastically improve your game.

Questions : 

Do you have any dribbling or ball handling tips ? 

Have or Do you play basketball ?

How To Stay Healthy By Exercising

Do you physically exercise on a regular basis? Maybe once a month? Or maybe once a week? Or maybe even more than once a week? Or maybe even not at all?

Well, it’s a fact that if you do not produce physical activity daily you will become unhealthy physically, internally, and in many more ways.

What I do to develop myself to produce physical activity is motivate myself by strengthening my brain to develop health strength. For example, I create procedures for my daily routines. Or I produce brain power by learning New ways to work out and exercise.

From the book “Change Your Brain Change Your Body” Daniel Amen states, “ physical activity is A natural part of daily life. Physical activity is the single most important thing you can do to enhance brain function and keep your body looking young. Physical exercise acts like a natural wonder drug for the brain. It improves the hearts ability to pump blood through the body, which increases blood flow to the brain. That supplies more oxygen, Glucose and nutrients to the brain, which enhances overall brain function.” (Amen 109).

I believe that I can relate six main exercises for your body and brain. The six exercises would be, exercise encourages the growth of new brain cells, physical activity enhances cognitive abilities at all ages, exercise enhances your mood, exercise calms worries and anxiety, exercise helps alleviate depression, and people who exercise regularly sleep perpetually better. The six brain exercises are truly facts due to my experience of exercising. I’ve noticed that all these six exercises can relate to making you intelligently smarter, gain higher abilities in strength, calms your mood, makes you happier about yourself and relax happier.

Exercising can be as easy as going to the mountains and snowboarding, playing sports, stretching/acrobatic apprentices, going to the gym, walking your dog, jumping jacks, and even sleeping. If you take the time to add exercise into your busy schedule it will definitely be a success and act leading to happiness for your life. 

One major concept that I’ve noticed you my experience of working out and exercising is The fact that it plays a major role on your health benefits. When I work out what I’m trying to do is gain strength and make myself stronger physically. I do this not only because it makes me feel better about myself but also physically is healthy for me.

If you develop the correct mindset to stay healthy it will indeed be progressed by your brain/minds motivation and dedication towards keeping yourself healthy. To do this I have realized that you have to have a lot of dedication. Dedication in a way of strength in your brain. It can be driven by motivation and just straight up thinking.

I will leave you with a comment/motivational question, it is, if you desire to stay healthy you will join me and develop a correct mindset to stay healthy by asking yourself, who do you really want to be strength wise, what will you do to make it there, when will it happen, where will happen, and why will you do it?

Amen, Daniel G. The Brain-Body Solution. Change Your Brain, Change Your Body: Use Your Brain to Get the Body You Have Always Wanted, Piatkus, 2012.

Warming up your Body

     As a cheerleader, it is always important to stretch your body before you do anything cheer related including cheers, tumbling, dancing, and stunts. This can also be included with any athletic activity or sport! A helpful non-fiction book called The Complete Guide to Cheerleading: All the Tips, Tricks, and Inspiration was quoted as saying "Before practice, prepare your muscles with a 10 to 15 minute warm up. Muscles with good blood flow are more elastic and therefore less prone to injury" (Clark, Farina 78). As a cheerleader on the Kentridge Varsity and Sparkle team, we actually often do 30-45 minutes of warming up our bodies with workouts that include a 2.5 mile run, squats, lunges, push ups, and a generic muscle stretching routine. Because of all of the warming up that we do as a team, we have had far less body pains because of strains, and more blood flow through our bodies during practice and games

 

     One of the many effective stretches that I learned from this book is called the "sit with thigh stretch". This stretch helps to loosen up the joints in out thighs and lower back. Christine Farina and Courtney A. Clark instruct us with this stretch by saying, "Sit with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor, and your hands behind you for support. Lower knees to one side, and try to keep your knees together as you reach the ground. Rock your legs over to the other side… to loosen up your thighs and lower back" (Clark, Farina 91). This book also mentioned how you should do this stretch multiple times in a row in order to create blood flow and keep loosened muscles loose throughout the cheerleading practice/game/competition, etc.

 

     This stretch has helped me in more ways than I thought that it would throughout my cheerleading career AND my home life. I have suffered from severe lower back pain for the past few months related to cheer, and this stretch was recommended to me by my physical therapist and massage therapist, even though I been doing this stretch for a long time since becoming aware of it from this book. After becoming more strict with my stretching routine and completing them on a daily basis, my pain has slowly decreased because of me loosening my back with this continuous routine, so I recommend doing this stretch before a strenuous physical activity, especially cheerleading.

A personal tip that I have learned from doing this stretch is that you can also stretch your shoulder muscles if you have the tips of your fingers facing the opposite way that you are facing; shown in the picture. You know that a certain stretch is effective if you are able to stretch multiple parts of your body at once with only one stretch. 

     Thank you guys for reading this post and hope y'all have learned something new!

 

My question for all of my readers of this post is:

What are some of your favorite stretches or exercises that you do before you do a physical activity or sport?

 

MLA Citation:

Farina, Christine, et al. The Complete Guide to Cheerleading: All the Tips, Tricks, and Inspiration [With DVD]. Ed. Adam Brunner. Minneapolis, MN: MVP Books, 2011. Print.