Wrist Position During the Throw to Increase Power and Accuracy

Depending on how you hold the ball, the power and accuracy of the throw differs. No matter what size your hands are, quarterbacks can still have strong throwing power depending on their wrist position during the throw. Athletes that have proper wrist positioning during a throw, not only have better accuracy and more power, but also have higher interests from colleges. 

The Proper Wrist Positioning 

To start, your thumb cannot be too high. The higher your thumb is, there is more of a straight connection between your hand and the football. Having your index finger a little higher on the ball allows you to keep your thumb down, which creates a gap. The gap allows your wrist to feel stable and strong. There should not be a lot of laxity, or looseness, in your wrist.

Generally, the more distance between the index finger and the pinky the better, to best control how your pinky comes through. Two main issues when throwing is that the pinky doesn’t come through all the way and the lack of coming down and through during the finish. The image below is an example of the pinky coming through completely- the hand, wrist, and elbow are all inline with each other. When your pinky does not come through all the way, the trajectory of the ball completely changes

 

 

You want the nose of the football to face slightly downward and to the left when leaving your hand when practicing your wrist position. The downward flick allows you to have greater velocity. You need to be able to understand how the timing works for you and your motion, as this is the most crucial part of the mechanics. 

When grabbing the ball, you almost hold it as if you have a claw. You do not want to let the ball sit back into your hand. The image to the right shows the ball sitting into your hand, which is the improper way to hold the ball. When the ball sits in your hand like this, you won’t be able to throw the ball 50 or 60 yards- it limits your motion and power. Instead practice at getting your wrist into a strong position when throwing 10-15 yards and increase distance from there. After that, you can work on improving your deeper throws as you find success with the underneath throws.