By Boak Ferris
Following, please find a number of handball drills and tweaks designed and tested to accelerate your move to the next level. Whether you are a beginner, an intermediate, a pro, or simply seeking to improve your game, you should find a surprising drill or two that may just give you the boost or edge you seek. If you don’t like to drill, this text may not serve you.
NOVICES AND BEGINNERS
The most urgent skill you need when you begin, frankly, is a perfect first shot to master. As long as you are getting accustomed to the ball, the court, the walls, and the angles, you might as well use that time to build a solid “can-opener” first. A can-opener defines as “a shot that keeps the opponent unbalanced behind you.” Beginners love the kill shot, and would love to master that early, but hitting a perfect kill at the right time requires wisdom and sophistication. It takes a lot of energy to bend down and use your full mechanics, and, if you overhit it, it becomes a setup for savvy opponents, who can exploit your recovery time to win the rally. It’s also best used in tactical situations, when you are serving, since, if you miss, you only lose your serve, and not give the opponent a free point. Giving opponents free points is the fastest way to defeat.
At this stage, you would like to develop tactics while you develop mechanics, so this first drill works. (Mirror all drills below if you are lefty.)
1) Master the close-proximity bounce-pass up your dominant-hand side wall first. Let’s name this shot the “Fred Lewis shot.” Stand about two feet behind the short line, and about four feet from the right sidewall. See if you can throw the ball, like a baseball pitcher, so that it caroms off the front wall and then bounces right in front of you, between your body and the right sidewall. Also throw it with enough strength that the ball continues along the sidewall past you, without ever hitting the sidewall and heads toward the backwall without coming off the backwall. Try to feel your arms, quads, hip-girdle-/beltline-rotation, and front-step down, prior to releasing the ball, as you perfect this throw. Feel your front-foot/rear-foot/front-
The secrets to consistency in this throw, and to next hitting the ball similarly, are to “load up” or strongly plant your back foot on step 1, and to simultaneously line up a backswing to guide your follow-through forward toward the front-wall target. [Note for peekers: if you are having trouble with consistency and accuracy, focusing on your backswing pre-line-up is the fastest way to troubleshoot and correct. Reference available on request. A second troubleshooting tip: finish your palm perfectly parallel to the front wall target as you throw/strike.] Once you can throw the Fred Lewis pass consistently, and can feel the correct body movements, now try to copy those while hitting the ball, bouncing the ball in front of your front foot, and then by stepping forward with your 1-2-3. Note that you may find more success using a sidearm throw/strike, maintaining your hitting forearm parallel to the floor as you finish, or by an underarm/pendulum type throw/strike. The pendulum starts with a sidearm backswing and lift, but ends by finishing with your fingers pointing toward the floor, and is a motion to eventually master, if you want career-longevity for your arms, back, and shoulders. You may find success, also, by bending your back leg during step 1, and then finishing step 3 by bending and absorbing your hip-turn into your front quads before “releasing the ball.” If you can hit the Fred Lewis shot 8 to 10 times out of ten, you are ready for drill 2. Notice in handball you have an advantage over pitchers, who have to pitch from a standing position, whereas you are allowed to run forward, accelerating your body weight forward into the equation for the “pitch.” If you find your throws and strikes ending up too much toward center court, instead of between your body and the near sidewall, you can correct by placing step 3 down more toward the sidewall, until the ball trajectory is perfect.
[Insert for coaches: coaches may find success coaching clients to experiment with the pitching throw/hit 1-2-3, as advised herein, to help beginners feel the torque caused by sweeping the front arms out prior to cycling their shoulders and completing the 1-2-3 during a throw or strike. Another option is to have novices learn to throw/hit as if swinging a baseball bat. This latter visualization helps beginners maintain a load on their rear foot, but is negative in the sense that the front arm does not sweep out ahead to generate the power and torque generated by the opened shoulders working in “opposition.”]
2) You now want to learn to hit the Fred Lewis shot, aiming to hit the ball to rebound on that same spot on the floor, from farther back in the court, with your strong hand. As you master the first drill, next move the starting point of the drill back in five-foot increments, straight back along the right sidewall, and make the ball rebound off the front wall to the floor target exactly as in drill 1. (Instead of starting two feet behind the short line, you now move to 7 feet, 12 feet, and so on, with your dominant-hand sidewall four to six feet in front of you.) As you move back, you may find you need to lift the ball toward the front wall since you are farther back, in order to bounce the ball right on the floor next to the wall. Once you can hit the Fred Lewis shot from the 30-foot mark, you now want to master this shot by hitting it from anywhere in the court with your dominant hand. I suggest moving back from the floor-position in drill 1 in a semicircle in five-foot increments back to the rear non-dominant-hand corner, to hit this same shot with just your strong hand, even if you park your butt on the non-dominant-hand side wall. See if you can rebound the ball on this same exact floor-spot from the non-dominant-hand service-line area, too, using your dominant hand.
3) Once you have got the idea and feel of this shot mastered, you must teach it to your offhand to move up the ranks. For righties, you will now hit with your left, to Fred Lewis-bounce-pass the ball up the left wall, between your body and the wall; while lefties hit the Fred Lewis pass up the right wall with their rights. We will call this version of the Fred Lewis shot, as a tactic, the “up-the line shot” or “same-side to same-side”. Do just as you did with drills 1 and 2. And for the piece-de-resistance, you now want to master hitting these Fred Lewis shots, not by dropping the ball and striking, but by tossing it up to the front and sidewalls, letting it bounce in front of you, getting your backswing lined up, and then “hitting the Fred Lewis up-the-line bounce-pass shot.”
++Here’s how to troubleshoot the off hand: Most novices and beginners, and even intermediate players, struggle with perfecting the off-hand, because they omit two biomechanics necessary for making it expert: a) You must lift your front arm up, and sweep it out, first, before striking the ball with your off hand. If the front arm drags or hangs, the struck ball falls toward the ground as the dragging front shoulder pulls the ball downward. Maintaining a lifted front arm and elbow keeps the dual-shoulders rotation parallel to the floor, and produces a shot that flies as you intend. b) Second, you must finish and “close” your front step 3, toward the wall, after using the mandatory 1-2-3, even while directing your off-hand shots, to develop accuracy. So, if you find the ball weak or dropping, the front shoulder is not clearing the way; and if you find the shot pulling toward center or scattering, you need to finish that front foot step 3 down.
*Why are you learning this shot first? Well, each shot you hit will involve a tactical situation. In many cases, your opponent has returned to center court, and stands possibly behind you or out of sight. This shot is designed to move the visualized-but-unseen opponent behind you up YOUR strong-side wall, where you can watch the opponent as you yourself glide-step back to center-court position between the restraining and service lines. So, if you get this drill down, you will be mastering the court, too, so learn to add a required glide-step after each shot to own center court, each time you practice drills 1-3 above.
Coach’s HANDBALL DRILLS AND TWEAKS for INTERMEDIATE COMPETITORS
By Boak Ferris
You should own the Fred Lewis shot from the beginners’/novices’ article. I have found that intermediate clients have never mastered the Fred Lewis bounce-pass as defined in the beginners’ drills. Once you acquire it, you will now want to add and differentiate pass shots. Toward those ends you will need to improve the following skills.
4) When you drill, you must drill offense; and you must drill defense—separately. What that means is a) “I will drill shots to hit only when I am serving”; and b) “I will next drill shots to hit only when I have received serve.” Moreover, and this is tough to remember when you are on a court by yourself, whenever you drill, any specific shot, visualize where you opponent likely is, while drilling a)offensive shots and b) defensive shots, even if you have to conjure a specific person/competitor in this visualization.
5) For an offensive-shot drill, develop a rally-ender and name it, (“My Finisher”) to hit only when you served. You own it only when you can kill or roll it out or pass it 9 out of 10 times from anywhere in the court with your dominant hand. The easiest finisher to guarantee is the backwall setup, already moving in the direction you want to hit the ball. Master your finisher by tossing the ball to the front and sidewalls and backwall and then by executing a 1-2-3 on the move. Add finishers, as you choose. These are your scoring shots to hit ONLY when you serve, to make long matches and tourneys over many days manageable.
6) For both offense and defense, drill the V-pass always by visualizing your opponent on the court. Only hit the V-pass if you can see the opponent during your shot. The V-pass is best hit right on the wall closest to (adjacent to) your opponent’s standing position, and heads to the backwall without leaving a backwall setup: so it is a speed-controlled shot. In live competition, if you cannot see your opponent when you wrongly attempt a V-pass, you have likely lost the rally, by yielding this shot, since a good opponent has more court perspective and domain than you, and can predict and field your attempted V-passes to a difficult spot, while you are blind. (You will think, “I just hit a good V-pass, so why am I now scrambling?”)
Note that a good three-wall shot can be a type of V-pass, also, intended for hitting the third wall, the sidewall, adjacent to where your opponent stands, without leaving a backwall setup. Master V-passes with both hands. To troubleshoot the V-pass, note that players who use a sidearm finish often overhit this shot, and the ball ends up caroming too high off the sidewall. Thus, to correct, note that you can aim your V-passes closer to the center of the front wall, than your intuition tells you, since the sidearm finish “pulls the ball” while imparting a spin that corkscrews the ball up for its first bounce. Contrariwise, a V-pass hit with a pendulum finish, as described in the beginners’ article, allows you to direct a V-pass by aiming more toward the sidewall, while also imparting more topspin that keeps the ball down, and makes a retrieve harder for the opponent to get. This technical observation about the different spins caused by the different arm finishes also applies to the trajectory of the Fred Lewis bounce-passes.
7) Similarly, for both offense and defense, drill the Fred Lewis bounce-pass always by visualizing your opponent on the court. Hit the Fred Lewis pass ONLY when you cannot see the opponent during your shot. Remember, while drilling V- and Fred Lewis passes, to practice visualizing the scenarios when you can both see or NOT see the opponent during your shot. When in doubt about which side to direct the Fred Lewis pass, remember the adage, “Hit to the opponent’s ‘off-hand” side”—unless you yourself are close to a side wall, in which case, the Fred Lewis shot is always same side up same side. With the up-the-line choice, if you miscalculate, your body is in a good position to get a fair replay.
8) Also, you will need to develop a second type of Fred Lewis bounce-pass as a cross-court bounce-pass, too. Once you have mastered the up-the-line Fred Lewis passes, you will want to mix in cross-court bounce passes that bounce next to the far-side wall, and scoot up toward the backwall without leaving the dreaded backwall setup. Master the cross-court Fred Lewis pass with both hands. Both types of Fred Lewis passes benefit you by sending an opponent, who can’t perfectly judge where the ball will strike the floor, back up along the sidewalls to retrieve, while you recover center court with a calm glide-step.
9) Develop a defensive punch shot that you can use to neutralize a server. The best drill involves having a service partner who hits low aces, but these are hard to recruit, so you can try the following. Stand near the sidewall, either side, and with the hand on that side, loft the ball underhanded to the front wall, low enough that the second bounce of the ball arrives to the service line near that same-side sidewall. Now, bend your back leg, and drive your bending front leg and front foot down next to that low ball, and with a pendulum backswing, bowl your same-side fist under the ball so that the ball backspins off your first knuckles up to the ceiling along the same side, and caroms steeply down along the same sidewall toward the backwall. You must, as best you can, dip behind the ball and then straighten your legs and rise through the punch. That leg work adds consistency, and gets the ball to the roof, while helping you not over-punch the ball, as your rise does some of the speed control. The defensive punch buys you lots of time, so you can recover from these biomechanics and glide-step to center.
Visualize the ball trajectory to the roof-spot you intend, to achieve consistency. This is true in any sport, and with any shot. The ball contacts your first knuckles at the center of the base of the palm. The feel of this shot is a combined medium-force punch with a forearm push, then next pushing the third knuckles up toward the ceiling target, while rising “beneath” the ball with your legs. The plane formed by your largest finger-joints ends up parallel to the roof. If you use all arm and punch, and hit it too hard, it’s a backwall setup. If your knuckles hurt, well, so did your hands at one point, and you will get used to it as your mind and body adjust.
Coach’s HANDBALL DRILLS AND TWEAKS for PROFESSIONAL COMPETITORS
By Boak Ferris
10) For tactical superiority, and to dictate play, you must develop two-way shots for each and all of the shots mentioned among the intermediate skills, in addition to developing two-way shots off of all of your customary and specialized shot-motions. Your pro opponent will read you, and anticipate shots you show, so having go-to options for each shot, allows you to keep your opponent guessing.
If you have mastered the dominant–handed, up-the-line Fred Lewis bounce-pass, now develop a second shot, off the same motion, a kill-shot to the front right corner, and to the mirror target, if you’re lefty. This developed kill-shot can be straight-in, or sidewall front-wall, or both. You will acquire these options faster if you develop and master the 1-2-3 glide-step, which the opponent will see you use on all of your options, making you harder to predict. If you have developed the cross-court V-pass, now hit a Fred Lewis bounce-pass up the same-side wall, off the same motion. If you have developed the uppercut punch shot, to the ceiling, now develop the underhanded paddle shot kill up the same-side wall (same-side here means sending the ball from right up the right, or from left up the left), using the same motion, showing fist first, and then opening your hand last millisecond. You can use this paddle-shot as a two-way option to your defensive punch for serves, and for surprising servers, who expect you to go to the roof, once they see you can do it. If you served, you can go for a score, with a two-way shot, and if you received serve, you can go for sending the opponent to the farthest corner, with your two-way shots, without flooring the ball. Glide-step to the restraining line, and don’t rush, whenever you drill, after each strike. Lightly step down on the restraining line, as your opponent strikes. Learn to strike all your shots on the move, not simply by standing and bouncing the ball to yourself, a habit which can carry over into matches, if you are not mindful.
11) If your shots ever fall of tune, and you need to tune them up, focus on the back-foot plant, along with lining up the backswing to propel your target and follow-through lines. Work to complete a smooth and calm 1-2-3 glide-step, while exhaling through ball-contact. “Exhale the ball to the target.” This mental habit actually slows the perceived passage of time for you. Lining up your backswing to generate the perfect follow-through line, and knowing you are doing it, forces you to skip your feet and plant step 1 at the correct pre-shoot position. Your tactical shots now go in, not with your mind “aiming” them, but rather with your footwork directing them.
12) Please do not drill any shot, without first habituating moving to the pre-shoot position and then skipping your 1-2-3 into the shot. Always start your backswing-line-up and back-foot-plant well behind the point of contact, so that you can 1-2-3 glide-step into drilled shots. Lacking this one discipline costs the most wins for pros in my observations. Champions are fit, so much so that they constantly achieve the pre-shoot position on all shots over long tournament weeks. ‘Hand’ball is really ‘feet’ ball, moving those feet prior to perfectly lining up each address. All the champions won with their feet, with the hands as the last flourish to the motion. If you cannot/will not move your feet, to finish the closed-position 1-2-3, you will need to develop a reliable short-stroke, since you will otherwise feel like you are always staggering or lunging at the ball, without grace and smoothness, and wondering why this opponent won’t let you get any rhythm. It’s not the opponent. . . ., except the one in your mind that excuses less-than-helpful habits. Note, during a match, when you make up your mind to line up your backswing guide, and then commence your 1-2-3, you will automatically move to the proper pre-shoot position. Furthermore, using your full steps and time forces the opponent to wait, partitioned away from your intended forward vector, as you select the best two-way shot for offense or defense.
13a) Experiment with maintaining your hitting elbow above an imaginary horizontal plane that cuts the ball in half. Keep your elbows up well before stepping into shots, so you can take a quick downswing if you’re surprised, and so you can alter your swing from sidearm to pendulum to punch, or even to overhand at the last second. Casey does this better than the humans on our planet.
13b) While talking about the high-elbow, it’s time to talk about improving your power. You do not need big power to become a champion, but most pros enjoy power, which is useful to have against lower competitors who cannot defend power with perfect shot-heights and court-positioning as did Chapman.
So, here’s where massive power comes from. You can increase your power by maintaining a hitting-arm high-elbow prior to contact, and by “holding” that elbow above the plane of the ball, as you snap your follow through toward the wall target. Tati Silveyra mastered this “held” high-elbow-drive. It may take a toll on your hips, since your legs have to absorb the heavy and accelerated follow-through, especially if you don’t pivot well on your finishing front foot as Brady did.
Big power also depends on generating “cantilevered” torque with your double-shoulders’ opposition-rotation, while maintaining a low center of gravity. The front arm sweeps out, elbow up, as the hitting upper-arm drives the high hitting-elbow up to down. To finish, the front elbow rotates from up to down, as the hitting elbow snaps forward and around, just like pitching a fast ball. Thus the elbows and shoulders work in opposition to create a cantilever between the front arm sweep, followed by a milliseconds’ time-lag, and then the rear-arm snap, generating massive upper-body torque.
Once you think about it, you can begin to feel it, when you get it. But if you just use the arms, and not your legs and hips, you become top-heavy, and the ball will never stay down, and scatters. So, at the same time, you must integrate your second cantilever, generated by the rotational lag between your rapid hip-girdle rotation toward the target, and the subsequent whip-snap of the dual-shoulders-rotation, all managed over the balls of your feet, while you flex both knees before, and absorb with your front quads and flexed front knee after. (Be sure to follow practicing big power with a glide to center court—even habituating the return-to-center during solo power-drills.) This hip-girdle acceleration, lagging with the torso turn, is known in golf as generating power with the “X,” the X referring to an imagined shape your body takes, as the hips drive first, uncoiling forward first, in opposition to the lagged torso- and shoulders-turn which snap around.
By the way, you lose all this natural power, if you do not finish your 1-2-3. So big-power hitters, like Martin Mulkerrins and Brady and Silveyra and Bike, deliberately step down on their final step 3 of their 1-2-3, in order to complete the massive hip rotation required to add huge weight to their shots, followed by turning over the rear foot and heel, to maximize the hip rotation, as the body-weight transfers to the front. With the finished front step, and a completed rear-foot turnover, prior to contact, the hip-girdle achieves its maximum possible rotation around.
Another secret to power, much unknown, is to press the hitting-side thumb down into the top of your index finger, which will compress all four fingers together, and continuing to push the thumb down into the fingers as you contact the ball. Doing so causes your hitting forearm to behave like a heavy axe, and the ball “springs” off your hand when you snap your wrist. You can add some power by letting the ball roll through the palm from the heel of your hand, and off the end of your fingers, accelerating the wrist snap as you do so, or also by cradling the ball right in the net of your compressed fingers above the palm, and then whipping the fingers toward the target, propelled by the wrist snap. Since power is useless without accuracy, you will always finish your stroke with your palm perfectly parallel to the wall-target right at ball-contact, even as your wrist next finishes the snap. If you prefer accuracy to power, concentrate on the parallel-to-target-palm-at-
As you can see, power has a lot of moving parts, so the best way to improve your power, is to practice slow, with getting each part “felt” in your body, with your footwork as your base, and then by moving to the next. You can always add increasing arm speed, once you get the moving parts synchronized. To my mind, power is less important than accuracy and a lesser priority than proper 1-2-3 footwork, which are pre-eminent for competitors who wish to move up the ladders faster.
14) You might also experiment with the Irish Whip—which offers benefits. First, it’s a quick stroke, one that allows for accuracy and power when you have too little time. Second, the weight transfer is ideal for adapting to and improving your sidearm and pendulum strokes, and it helps teach you a feel for that weight-transfer. It also only works with perfect cantilevering shoulder opposition in both arms. As an intangible, it also is a developmental precursor for adding an excellent punch to the ceiling, as the footwork is similar to that required for a punch, should you wish to develop one, while allowing you to roll the ball through your hand, if you wish to keep an open hand and take power off.
15) If there’s something you need, that you wish to work on, I am pretty sure you know an existing pro competitor who has that skill. It’s best to find role models in online videos who share your stature, body-type, and biomechanical abilities. Where you can go wrong watching videos is falling into spectator mode and watching just the ball. Never watch the ball if you wish to leverage videos for DIY training. Watch your role models’ footwork, positioning, and mechanics, in all rallies, AWAY FROM THE BALL.
*Important note and disclaimer: do not try anything herein without first seeking the necessary advice of your physicians and coaches who may need to certify you to try any included biomechanics or lifestyle choices.