Today we’re going to talk about how to find your perfect authentic swing. Before we get into that, I just want to address that The Art of Kicking, both the journal and book versions, are out right now!
You want to find your true, authentic swing. I think a lot of things have to happen in order for you to get to that point, but there are some things that I can help you out with to try to help you find your own swing through some different perspectives and mental shifts.
So, one thing to note is you’ve probably tried a few techniques and you’ve been pretty upset with the results that you’ve gotten. If you’re in a situation where you’re still struggling and you just can’t seem to break out of your habit, it’s probably because you’ve been doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results like Albert Einstein’s famous quote. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.
So, you have to think about how you can adjust or switch up what you’re doing in order to give yourself a completely different, hopefully, better, result. The second thing to do is to just film yourself. Film yourself often. That was something that I did religiously – film myself every time I kicked a football.
What you can do to find your perfect authentic swing, faster
Once I started to take it seriously, I would film every day. Every day I would kick. What it does is it allows you to look back on your technique and just see the progression, whether it’s good or bad, and be able to see what you’re doing differently from like January to October.
You’ll see if there’s a big difference in your technique if you’re doing things worse or better. You’ll see things you can improve on. You can take that and compare it with a professional kicker to see the differences. It gives you a visual representation of how you’re doing compared to a professional, which you aspire to be.
I think a lot of you guys would benefit from finding a guy that you like in the NFL and trying to replicate his form to some degree, not being completely the same because his swing works for him and your swing will be different. Ultimately, it’s nice to have somebody to mold and replicate to some degree.
For the longest time, I was a really big fan of Randy Bullock. He had a pretty unique swing, but it seemed like one that I could really do and replicate. For a long time, that was something that I did. I was really focused on the high counter arm deal and really focused on driving the ball, and it worked out really well for a couple of years.
Then, I started to do more of a Jason Myers style, and I noticed even more of an improvement. Now, I do something between the styles of Jason Myers, Justin Tucker, Randy Bullock. Ultimately, what it comes down to is I found my authentic swing – one that works for me and me only.
I could tell other people how they could swing like me, but it really wouldn’t work out the same way because, again, a perfect authentic swing varies from person to person.
I would never tell you to mold yourself to one specific technique only and find what works for you, but I would say that you would have to find something that would reduce the chances of injury. One thing that I notice a lot of guys do is crunch a lot. Definitely don’t do that.
Finding something that is effective on all kickers is a big one. Plant foot is one that I can think of that every kicker should do effectively. If you’re not hitting your plant spot in the right way – like a good, wide, deep plant – and you’re not doing it consistently and it’s a big area you know you need to work on, you should focus all of your attention on that because your plant foot influences a lot of things. Same is true for your shoulders and your hips.
With all of those things combined, Figure out what your biggest, most common issue is and what you can do to fix or improve it.
In terms of finding your perfect authentic swing, just let go and have fun. Just try not to think about anything while you’re kicking, keep the session super light. Just do whatever comes naturally to your body and technique, and what feels like you could do repeatedly from kick 1 to kick 50.
A good way to think about it is, “What could I do the exact same way in every single kick that doesn’t require a lot of mental energy to replicate?” So, if I’m a kicker who has done really well with a high counter arm and a tall chest, that’s all I’m gonna focus on for the whole session because it’s very simple to do those two things. Just keep your chest tall and your counter arm high, those two things have worked really well for me in terms of my contact consistency and overall accuracy.
For someone else, it might just be to focus on hitting the sweet spot on the ball. That’s simple enough for them and that works great for them. Everyone has their own thing. Find something that you feel you could do repeatedly and do that.
Tips to help you find your perfect authentic swing
The next thing that I would say is to journal. That could be writing how you feel during the session, something you could feel like you could do better on, some things that you feel you could improve on during the session, how the session went, your mindset, tracking your statistics, etc.
If you’re too lazy to do it yourself, like a lot of people, including myself, you don’t have to worry because I did it for you. I actually made a journal called The Art of Kicking JOURNAL.
It’s going to have an entire template for field goals, punts, kickoffs, what your biggest intention is, what you’re trying to improve on moving forward, how you feel after your session, allowing you to rate your kicks (A-ball, B-ball, C-ball, D-ball), did you make or miss it, how was the overall session (4-star, 5-star, etc.), how was the weather, etc.
All of these cool things that a lot of you guys have never really thought about is going to be really helpful to get it on paper, so you can improve every single day moving forward. That’s a huge resource that you can check out because there aren’t a lot of resources like this out there. I figured I might as well make it because if you want it done right, you might as well do it yourself.
80/20 rule to find your perfect authentic swing
The last thing I was gonna say kind of ties into the one before – the journal – is to find something that’s gonna give you minimal effort and maximum result from it. It’s called the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule). Essentially what it means is “If I take a concept that’s very small in theory, what is it that can make the biggest impact on the biggest scale?”
One example is a tall chest. A tall chest, like the plant foot, does a lot of things really well. If I keep my chest tall, that will help my leg get up higher. It’ll help my hips get through the ball more. It’ll help my momentum go downfield. A lot of these things influence other parts of your kicking game.
A tall chest will help you get downfield better; it’ll help your extension, flexibility, pop on the ball, and even your height. That would be something I would say to focus on.
I’ve also noticed that a tall counter arm does the same thing where it keeps your body taller. That worked for me. I like to have my authentic swing involve a taller counter arm, as well as a get-downfield mentality.
Plant foot can be another one where you focus on your plant foot specifically. That will make your hips get in the right position, help you get downfield, help you be more accurate, more consistent, more repeatable. It keeps your thinking brain out of it as well.
For some other people, just thinking to get downfield. That helps with your drive, power, explosiveness, consistency, accuracy. If you can mix two things together to make your authentic swing as simple and repeatable as possible, I promise you that you’re gonna have really good results versus thinking five or six things at a time.
I bet you’ve had days where you go out and think of five things to do, and your session sucks because you’re trying to do all of these things and it’s just messing you up.
Rather, when you focus on one or two things, you get a really productive session. That would be my advice to you guys. Try to break it down into the simplest, most dumb versions possible, so that your brain is automatic like “Get downfield, got it. Stay tall, get downfield, boom,” versus thinking five things at once. The more thoughts in your head, the less things work out for you.
For me, I don’t even think about the actual physical features. I just think about what it feels like. For me, I feel like what it would be like to have a tall arm and what it would feel like to push my body downfield, towards my target. That’s it. You don’t have to think as much as you do.
That’s my little rant for today. If you haven’t already checked out The Art of Kicking. I know a lot of you guys have supported me. We actually just hit #1 on the Kindle version of football books for teens & young adults. I’m literally a best-selling author now, and that’s just mind-blowing to think about. Thank you, guys, so much!
Right now, we’re #1900 on the Kindle rankings. So, I thank you guys again for your support. This is going to be a book that’s going to change everything for you guys. I really appreciate the support and I look forward to seeing you guys very soon.
Hit me up in the comments! There are some other resources you guys can check out. Until next time!
