I'm training on a court in my neighborhood three times a week and I notice that my shots with the inside of my foot aren't going where I want them to. I feel like I lose accuracy when I want to shoot hard. Is there a specific exercise for this or is it just a matter of practice?
What's really going to help you most is practicing the slow finish first, focusing on getting your supporting foot positioned right (next to the ball, not behind it) and keeping your eyes on the trajectory all the way through. Once you've got that down, then you can start adding power while maintaining that position, because most people lose accuracy when they speed up without having the basics solid. When you normally shoot hard, do you feel the ball going off to one side? That's almost always because your supporting foot is positioned wrong, not so much the technique of the strike itself.
I don't think it's just a matter of uncontrolled practice, because then you'd just be reinforcing bad habits! The key is that when you want to shoot hard, your body tries to put more power into it but you lose control of your inside foot, so try this: practice shots with the inside of your foot but first at a wall or goal from very close (2-3 meters) and focus on making the contact clean and centered on that flat part of your foot, not with your toes. Once you nail that at short distance, then increase the intensity. The difference is huge because you're training the right muscle memory from the start, not trying to fix it later when you're already going full speed.
the thing is it's not just about your standing foot or how fast you're training, but a lot of times you're aiming badly because you're tensing up your ankle too much at the moment of impact! try doing drills where you strike the ball with the inside of your foot but keep the joint relaxed, almost like it's a pendulum, and you're gonna notice your accuracy improves a ton even when you're going for power.
The most common mistake is thinking that more power = better accuracy, when it's actually the opposite: hard shots come out inaccurate because you accelerate your foot too fast and lose clean contact with the ball. Try this: before training, do 10 minutes of finishes from 5-6 meters but force yourself to strike at 60% of your maximum power, focusing only on the inside of your foot hitting the ball straight on (not from the side). Once that becomes automatic, ramp up the intensity. It sounds weird but it works better than just practicing full-power shots, because your muscle memory learns the correct trajectory first and then speed adds itself without wrecking your technique.
Basically, you've got a coordination problem between power and control, and the guys above touched on parts of it but didn't nail it. The support foot does matter, but the real culprit when you want to shoot hard is that you're accelerating the movement before your body is aligned. Your body tries to put in more energy and automatically destabilizes, so the ball ends up flying off in any direction. The ankle tension that someone mentioned above also plays a role, but it's a symptom, not the cause.
What I'd recommend is breaking this into two training phases. First work on shots at half power for two weeks, making sure every single one goes exactly where you're looking - not a single one off target. Keep in mind you're not being slow here, you're being precise. While you're doing this, work on the stability of your support foot: when you strike, that foot has to be fixed and just slightly ahead of the ball, like an anchor point. Then gradually ramp up the intensity, but keep the form.
Once you nail that, hard shots are going to come naturally because your body's going to have the right structure before you put power into it. What's probably happening now is that three training sessions a week help you out, but if you're reinforcing the wrong movement, you're progressing really slowly. Better to train fewer times a week if you're actually going over technique in each session.
When something similar happens to me with a movement that needs both precision and power, I notice tension is enemy number one, so what works is deliberately slowing down those last centimeters before impact, like your foot has to "caress" the ball at the last moment even though you're moving fast. Try filming yourself or ask someone to record you from the side to see if your ankle is stiffening up right before you strike, because a lot of times you don't even realize you're doing that involuntary tension.
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