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The Ultimate Instep Drive Guide
| Posted: 27 Nov 2008, 15:56 | |
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Since today is my birthday I figured I will publish a guide that would hopefully answer all the questions about the famous instep drive. My girlfriend has been generous and kind enough to get me the Casio Ex-FH20 so I am posting videos at 420 fps really cool. This guide is my property and that of expertfootball.com, feel free to post it on other forums but please mention the proper references and do not assume authorship.
What is the instep drive? Well the naive answer would be a kick with your instep, which is only partially true because your instep is not a homogeneous surface. That said you would think that you should kick the ball with the center of your instep, that again is false. You should ALWAYS make contact with the ball at the area indicated by the arrow in the following picture (the area also appears to be more pinkish red than the rest of my foot  )
You can actually locate the "sweet" spot with your finger if you follow the bone from your big toe up your instep, you will feel how hard that area is and you will understand why you should strike the ball with that part of the instep. You should also notice that the sweet spot is well off-centered. Myth The instep is located in the area where your upper laces are. Fact The true instep is as shown in the above So what the heck is the difference between instep drive, knuckle shot, dip, swerve, bend...? I know a lot of people that get confused with all these different fancy words. So I am going to try to make it simple. An instep drive and a knuckle shot are basically the same thing. A knuckle shot is an instep drive with no back spin, in other words a knuckle shot is the perfect instep drive. What about dip, swerve, and bend? Dip is when the balls speed dramatically decreases which causes an almost sudden drop in the balls flight height. Swerve and bend are basically the same thing it is just a change in trajectory of the ball while it is in flight. Why is back spin really bad i.e not having a good knuckle shot ? Back spin kills the ball's speed dramatically, and it also kills the unpredictability of the shot. Yes, unpredictability, because knuckle shots are very unpredictable they would dip(almost all the time) and swerve (when there is an unbalanced air flow on the seems of the ball). So to sum up the knuckle shot is your dream instep drive that would dip and swerve. This is all great but how do we actually strike the ball? The following consecutive steps describe the making of a good instep drive, do not be intimidated by the number of things you will have to worry about, it will call come to you naturally, think about them as guidelines of things you shouldn't do rather than things that you should do: The run-up This is one of the simpler steps, take a few steps back (if you are taking a free-kick), or roll the ball a couple of yards forward if the ball is in play. All you need is 3-4 yards distance between you and the ball, do not take 30 yards run-ups a la Roberto Carlos, it looks cool but it is totally useless. A common misconception is that you need to dash towards the ball as if your life depended on it in order to get a powerful shot. DO NOT run to the ball at full sleep doing so will make you lose your balance resulting in a poor strike. One last word is worth mentioning is that your body placement must be a little off-centered about half a yard to the left if you are a righty or half a yard to the right if you are a lefty. Planting of your support foot This is the step that follows immediately after the run-up. The placement of your support foot is very important for two reasons: your toes on your support foot are basically your cursor that would help you aim your shots, a good placement of our support foot will enable a good swing path for your shooting leg. The following stills are taken with a back and side view for more clarity : 
Few things are worth mentioning about planting your support foot: The distance from the ball where you should plant your foot is about 8-10 inches or just about the width of the actual ball. You should ALWAYS plant your foot in a way that aligns your ankle with the center of the ball. While planting your foot NEVER plant the front of your foot first, your should always plant the back of your foot first. Body Orientation RULE OF THUMB: You should ALWAYS lean SIDEWAYS during the entire motion of the strike (support foot planting+ swing of your kicking foot) as shown in the following. 
You would hear a lot of talking about leaning back or leaning forward. Again to simplify things, you will only SLIGHTLY lean back/forward to higher/lower your shot (i just made-up a new verb to higher  ) while obviously LEANING SIDEWAYS.
Your kicking Foot This section will cover the following: Angle of your kicking foot, Locking your ankle, swing path Angle of your kicking foot A lot of myths surround this, mainly that your toes should be pointing down while kicking with your upper laces, and that you should approach the ball at an angle and what have you. The truth you are approaching the ball head-on but leaning sideways, in that case it would be impossible for you kicking foot to be perpendicular to the ground, your kicking foot must be in fact at an angle with the plane of the ground as shown in the picture above in the body orientation section. This ensures that you are kicking the ball with "true/sweet" part of your instep. Locking your ankle This is another area with a lot of misconceptions and confusion. You might 've heard that you should lock your ankle throughout the swinging motion of your kick that is really not true though. You should only lock your ankle when you are just about to make contact with ball. Locking it throughout the entire swing will put strain on the motion and result in a poor swing path swing path A correct swing path is at the heart of a good striking technique. Think of the swing path of your foot as the swing path of a simple pendulum. The following stills show the swing path of a strike. 
A special attention to the 4th still of the first row, when the kicking foot just made contact with the ball, you can see how the ball, the kicking foot and the supporting foot are all "in line", this is crucial because this situation is the same as in the simple pendulum case where simple physics tell us that the pendulum will have the highest kinetic energy i.e speed when it is in line with the supporting pole. Having the knee of your kicking foot directly above the ball is a good indication that your are satisfying "the in line" condition just discussed. One last thing is the famous follow-through, ALWAYS follow-through there aren't situations where you follow-through and situations where you don't. Following-through adds power and directionality to your shots. Demo Videos As i promised here are the cool videos of the instep drive at a glorious 420 fps, hopefully these will provide a good demonstration of the technique back view: 
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=yowsFhBPAEc Notice how the ball dips and swerves to the left at the end
Side View 
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ7CCMZYk ... re=channel Cheers... |
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| Posted: 27 Nov 2008, 16:01 | |
very good post that, it will help a lot of people and its good that you included pictures as well, that is a sweet guide.
 i was made to ignite |
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| Posted: 27 Nov 2008, 17:17 | |
Admin Joined: 24 Feb 2005, 23:40 Posts: 4995 Location: Michigan, USA |
very good post. one of the better guide I've seen
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| Posted: 27 Nov 2008, 18:15 | |
that my friend is pure awesomeness ....can u make a ultimate lob pass tutorial 
JESUS IS LORD  Oh crap,missed me bus!! 
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| Posted: 27 Nov 2008, 23:08 | |
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NICEE!!
Good guy man and you got some hairy feet Dream as if you'll live forever, Live as if you will die today. |
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| Posted: 28 Nov 2008, 00:57 | |
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y does it seem like u are using the inside of your foot, espically 4 seconds in the video
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| Posted: 28 Nov 2008, 03:23 | |
Best article I've ever read I could read that a million times. I want you to do more guides!
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| Posted: 28 Nov 2008, 03:37 | |
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messimaradona wrote: y does it seem like u are using the inside of your foot, espically 4 seconds in the video
it is just a viewing angle, the camera was not really aligned it it was a little to the right, but still if you pause the video at 0.04 you would see that the kicking foot is at an angle with the plane of the ground as shown in the picture in the body orientation section. Also keep in mind that the instep and the inside of your foot are really not that far from each other 
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| Posted: 04 Dec 2008, 03:24 | |
Very nice. I love the visuals, except your foot, I could pass on that one 
But it still didn't contain what I wanted, that's okay though I'm hoping to accomplish my own contributions myself someday (SOMEDAY) 
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| Posted: 04 Dec 2008, 04:23 | |
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Kakasgotskillz wrote: Very nice. I love the visuals, except your foot, I could pass on that one
But it still didn't contain what I wanted, that's okay though I'm hoping to accomplish my own contributions myself someday (SOMEDAY) What is wrong with my foot, it a footballer's foot, whta did you expect me to post the foot of Angelina Jolie lol. What exactly are you looking for, perhaps I can add it to the guide
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| Posted: 05 Dec 2008, 02:05 | |
LOL nooo theres nothing wrong with your guide, my dream is for someone (hopefully me) to make an actual video tutorial (step by step vid) of the instep drive and all the aspects of it. That'll be the day 
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| Posted: 05 Dec 2008, 12:27 | |
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Kakasgotskillz wrote: LOL nooo theres nothing wrong with your guide, my dream is for someone (hopefully me) to make an actual video tutorial (step by step vid) of the instep drive and all the aspects of it. That'll be the day
I see you want are shooting for a big production, did you check the videos at 420 fps, they are pretty illustrative. One the main reasons that pushed me to write this guide is the amount of misinformation about the instep drive that is out there. I also tried to have a balance between text and figures. I also figured I would post something useful, I think we are all tired of seeing posts about C.Ronaldo and Messi 
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| Posted: 15 Dec 2008, 11:00 | |
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do all insteps have to have your plant foot on tiptoes?
or atleast elevated a little? because i'm very much used to taking curved shots where i plant my foot flatly on the ground. and when i tried doing this kind of instep where i raised my other foot a little, i didn't feel the power in the kick at all. |
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| Posted: 15 Dec 2008, 15:14 | |
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I am sorry dude, i think you might be mistaken, where did you get that idea of having you plant foot on tiptoes, i don't see it anywhere in the pictures or videos i posted, your plant foot should be flat when you are just about to strike the ball with your kicking foot.[/list]
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| Posted: 17 Dec 2008, 23:43 | |
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well, i saw my friend do it and i asked him if you had to raise your plant foot a little. because i was talking to him about the fear of striking a ball while your toes are pointing to the ground and the possibility of it hitting the ground and you getting injured. and i'm very unsure about this kind of kick thats why i rarely practice it and by the way, i also happen to have long legs.
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