[Kinesiology] Body Mechanics and Basketball

Yeah, i get it. Certain sports movements are actually hurtful, but necessary for the sport. Fitness/health pros on the teams aren't paid to re-invent the game, so they're not going to make a big deal out of it.

I think as fans, we usually attribute injuries to either freak accidents or just wear and tear from years of being active. However, what about injuries that come from the demands of the sport, which sometimes for players to go against healthy and safe movements?

I know i may be reaching here, but look at Rose's situation. He did fine when his game was mostly based on athleticism. Then, he starts to focus more on developing a consistent jumper, starts having foot/leg issues, and eventually blows out that knee on a routine jump stop. Everyone assumes it's a freak accident and Rose was just pushing himself too much on the play...but, assuming basketball shooting is mechanically incorrect, wouldn't perfecting shooting form drive you away from proper body mechanics and put a player at a higher risk for injury?

All that being said, pitching isn't comparable to a lay up in this context, since the issue there is more about high repetitions and not improper mechanics. A pitcher, much like a quarterback, plants the correct leg. When shooting a lay up, you plant the incorrect one, mechanically-speaking, anyway.

The pitchers throwing arm is going in the same/similar direction, as his opposite leg. You can see the mechanical connection in the picture that follows it.




This highlighted sling, along with the limbs it connects to at each end, either all contract or stretch (relax) at the same time. As you wind up, it all stretches, much like a rubber band, then it all contracts (snaps together like a rubber band) to create the throwing motions.

When shooting a lay up, you disrupt this sling/connection, because you are not just stretching or contracting along the whole sling at once, you are contracting half and stretching the other half. I haven't found anything addressing the effects of this disruption in detail, which is why i was hoping someone on the board knew more about this.

 

Bad posture comes from imbalances in the muscles. Basketball is forward-movement intensive. You rarely need to pull with your back muscles. when you shoot or pass, it's all forward pushing. dribbling is downward pushing. Rebounding has some downward pulling, but not significantly, since bigs are taught to keep the rebound high.

Also, when you dribble and shoot, your palms face down, so there's a lot of pronation of the arm/hand involved, as well as medial rotation.



Bad posture, from sitting, is mainly due to your glutes turning off, but also all the work one does with their arms/shoulders moving forward, which stretches back muscles.

Both activities lead to rounded shoulders posture, unless you make an effort to add extra back work to counter it. Even then, the forward/pushing being done may be too much to overcome completely.






I used Pierce as an example because he's been quoted as saying he only plays basketball to workout/train.

But this has more to do with general wear and tear. Even runners, with proper form/posture, will wear out their bodies in time.

In my second overall post and the one before this one.

I realize you didn't make the comparison. I'm making the comparison to show that, at least in pitching/throwing, an athlete is actually using mechanics that take advantage of the body's natural movement patterns. A lay up, on the other hand, doesn't seem to. It's going against those patterns. I already explained why/how it does that in previous posts. The body, although equipped with individual muscles, doesn't move them individually. It has certain myofascial connections/patters that it uses to carry out movements. The most functional ones are the ones i talked about, which form an X on the front and back of the body or you can also look at them as two individual diagonal lines / \ that cross, since sometimes they're drawn individually.

These are some examples illustrating the same point:

Spoiler

 

^^^ I've never seen or head someone suggest it either, but like i said before, doctors and trainers would probably not gain much by stirring up that subject. It's the like the issue with taping ankles. It's proven that it decreases mobility in the ankle, and since the body must make up that mobility elsewhere to keep moving, it creates more in the knee joint, which can see it up for tears/sprains. Knowing this, teams will still keep taping ankles and allowing players to do so because they think ankle sprains are more likely.

The wear and tear from change in direction is part of natural movement though. The body is built with the ability to stop and go, so again, this is more natural wear and tear. what i'm referring to is wear and tear from improper movement.

Think about an automobile. If you stop and go a lot, you're going to wear out break pads and possibly other suspension parts, but that's normal. The car is built to stop and go and eventually wear out parts. When i talk about improper movements though, it would be like using that car with bad wheel alignment. Both circumstances will cause wear and tear, but the former is through the proper/ideal driving conditions, which maximize the life of parts. The latter will "injure" parts much more quickly, because although the car is still being driven and getting the job done (going from point A to B), it's not really being driven properly.

 

Here's another example of that sling movement that is said to be natural to the body:

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That's how you'd train it to keep it in sync. You can see how the limbs move in basically the same directions as when throwing or pitching. Right lat and left hip contract in rear, while the right pec/obliques contract with the left adductors on the front. Then those movements all do the opposite and it keeps repeating. If you apply that to a lay up, it doesn't match.

That's irrelevant


This is strictly about moving properly vs improperly and the difference in wear (and/or dysfunction) each brings.

 

Imagine you're working with James Naismith on the day he came up with the game. Forget about what your dominant or strong side is and how you've been taught to make a lay up. Based on your understanding of myofascial lines alone, how would you instruct someone to shoot a lay up?

 

Like i said before, that's still within the natural movement patterns of the body. I guess people aren't understanding the basis of my question. Your body has natural patterns it has to follow to move correctly, like someone else mentioned, it's why you walk with your arm swaying along with the contralateral leg. If you force yourself to walk or run with the same side leg and arm moving together, you'll screw up your mechanics. Eventually, if you keep it up, you'll suffer from movement dysfunction and injuries are more likely.

So, based on my understanding of these natural movement patterns, the traditional lay up form is also going against them, rather than along with them. I'm not talking about pushing movements, that use natural patterns, to their limits, like in the Marbury video.

Running and walking with bad patterns is obviously worse than shooting a lay up with bad patterns, since running and walking are more complex and repetitive movements, but both would still create some shake up in our body's naturally synchronized movement patterns. This has to be true, unless someone can explain to me how shooting a lay up involves good body mechanics (as oppose to good basketball mechanics, which we already know is true, but irrelevant to what I'm asking).