Challenge:
By putting their head and knee over the ball, the ball striker will bend in half (fold at the waist). A ball striker that bends at the waist over top of the ball:
1. Limits their ability to open up their hips as they approach the ball, thus limiting the ability to initiate the stretch-reflex and the time that they can generate force (accelerate the leg).
2. Shortens their body into two halves (upper and lower), thus generating force from the lower body alone (hip flexors). This forces the player to put additional effort into the ball strike, resulting in speed - accuracy errors (in all sports, increase speed/effort = decrease in accuracy; decrease speed/effort = increase accuracy).
3. In order to avoid kicking the ground with their toe (means of self-preservation), when the ball striker bends over top of the ball, their ankle flexes into a position that is difficult to lock and that creates a wedge forcing the ball to go up quickly (very similar to the field-goal kicker's 'Wedge' style in American football).
- Consequently, when we tell young players to "Get over the ball", "Keep your head over the ball", or "Get your knee over the ball", we are actually putting them in a body position that forces them to use more effort (less accurate), and puts their ankle in a position that is difficult to lock (less power generated) and makes the ball go up quickly with side spin.
4. The ball striker should focus on keeping the body open, by pushing their hips forward and pulling the shoulders back. Contrary to the OLD RULES this will serve to make strikes more accurate and not create a strike that goes up.
5. By creating a 'long line' from toe to top of the body, the ball striker is able to put the forces generated by the body's movements in the appropriate order.
