Rugby Line Out

The importance of an accurate line-out throw was highlighted when Dylan Hartley’s overthrow led to an Australian try in the recent international.

One of the best ways of practising the line-out throw is to suspend a ball from the crossbar at the required height. This gives the hooker a target to aim for, and the catchers have to catch the thrown-in, as opposed to the suspended ball. When line-outs are contested, the hooker has to learn to give the ball the correct flight to beat the front jumpers. When the suspended ball is removed, the hooker has to imagine that there’s a ball there to aim at.

The importance of holding the ball in a consistent fashion has been demonstrated in research on basketball free throws.

Aglioti et al (2008) tested 10 elite professional players, 5 sports journalists, 5 sports coaches and 10 students who were complete novices. They were shown video clips of different lengths of a professional player taking free throws, and had to predict whether or not the throws were successful. They found that the professional players were able to predict significantly more successfully when the clips were stopped at the point when the ball left the hand. The other groups needed to see the trajectory of the ball after release before they could make accurate predictions.

Researchers then used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to assess activity in the brain when the participants were watching the video clips. They found that both expert players and watchers had increased activity in the parts of their brain concerned with movement when they watched video clips of free throws, as opposed to when they watched static pictures or videos of footballers taking a penalty. Novices did not show this higher level of brain activity.

The really interesting bit was when the researchers studied the brain activity of elite players when they watched a “miss”. At the moment the ball was released from the hand, there was a spike in activity in the area of the brain that controls a muscle in the little finger called the abductor digiti minimi. This muscle pulls the little finger away from the body’s midline.

The researchers also looked at the angles formed by the little finger, wrist and knee joints during free throws. At the point when the ball was released, when the elite players watching got their vital information, the only difference between shots that were accurate and those that missed was the little finger angle.

So, hookers note: if your little finger is in the wrong position at the moment the ball is released, your throw is likely to be off target.

David Donner