If you were a youth lacrosse player at any point in your life, you have heard a coach yelling the words "SHOOT OVERHAND!" These two words are constantly repeated, seemingly with the only purpose of keeping you from shooting your sidearm shot to the top corner like your favorite professionals like you practice at home. However, these two words are not empty.
From my experience as a lacrosse player, there are two main benefits to shooting overhand vs sidearm or underhand:
When you shoot a lacrosse ball overhand, not only do you have the entire six by six feet of the lacrosse net that you can hit, but based on the downward motion of your shot you get the added benefit of being able to use the ground to bounce your shot. This means that even if you miss your mark and release the ball too late, you still have a very high change of it at least getting off the net as it will bounce off the ground and continue its trajectory toward the net.
However, when you shoot sidearm the horizontal motion of the stick makes it significantly easier to miss the net, as if you release the ball too early or too late you will miss on either side, and this is why coaches of young players are constantly telling them to shoot overhand. Coaches want their players to be as accurate as possible and develop the best technique to be as successful as possible, and shooting overhand is how you do this.
The second benefit of shooting overhand is that with proper technique you can hide the ball from the goalie while shooting. When you shoot a lacrosse ball overhand you want to get extension on your arms. This will allow you to get as much force behind your shot as possible.
What this also does is hide the head of the stick behind your head while you are going through the shooting motion. Like a pitcher in baseball hiding the ball as long as they can to give the batter as little time as possible to react to the pitch, by shooting a lacrosse ball with good extension and overhand it hides the ball as long as possible behind your head - giving the goalie as little time to react to it as possible. Conversely, when shooting sidearm it exposes the head of the stick to the goalie for a longer period allowing them as much time as possible to read and react to your shot.
With all of this being said, for all of my sidearm and underhand shooters out there, don't worry, shooting that way has its benefits too! Just as it is important for a young lacrosse player to learn to shoot overhand, it is just as important for a player to continue to add to their repertoire as they grow as a player. Being able to change your release angle means that the goalie never knows how you are going to shoot the ball and this is what ultimately makes you a lethal shooter.
Take Ryan Brown of the PLL Waterdogs LC for example. Ryan Brown is considered by many to have one of the greatest shots of all time and a large part of this is that he can shoot all around the click. In this video from the PLL, you will see that one of the things that makes Ryan Brown great is that he can shoot from any angle.
Now, whether you are a coach trying to get your players to shoot overhand or a growing player trying to see what angles you are shooting at, how do you see this or practice it? SPAITR is the first lacrosse device on the market that provides you with all this information in the palm of your hand!
With the SPAITR Neuro attached to your stick and our app installed on your phone, you will get all this data instantly after taking a shot, and you will be able to see a full breakdown after a practice session.
Want to know whether that shot was really overhand or if it was still leaning three-quarter? Just look down at your phone.
Want to get a full breakdown of what percentage of the time you shoot overhand vs sidearm vs underhand? Look at your angle breakdown after a game or practice session and you will be able to see that you shot overhand 35% of the time, sidearm 55% of the time, and underhand 10% of the time.
SPAITR will provide tangible data for you to practice more efficiently and gain a greater insight into yourself as a player to reach and exceed your potential.
