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- Nov 2, 2008
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Looks a bit stiff and rigid. Do you have a big sledgehammer?
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I have a medium sledgehammer, 4lbs, like I used in this old video:Looks a bit stiff and rigid. Do you have a big sledgehammer?
I was talking to someone in real time earlier watching him struggle with the "tilted balance" and had him do this drill while I watched him.
I've been kind of surprised at what I'm learning when I do this with people live. Most people can in fact stand on one leg when first asked, but they struggle with the balance when they have to balance with the unweighted knee allllll the way touching their weight-bearing knee. They don't want to get as tilted as Pratt, and they don't want to have as much natural side bend as he has. Then when I get them to do it, they struggle to maintain the balance at first even with posture/mechanics tweaks. I don't think that's surprising at all for the average adult because they never really need to move this way so deeply.
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That's how wiggins is balanced each way, believe it or not:
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Simple suggestion: try to end up like Pratt completely balanced each way, pause in each direction until you feel steady. It will probably feel unsteady at first if you go as deep as Pratt or Wiggins. Then do the "same" in your hammer throws again.
Thanks! Just to clarify, what should I look for in the swings to know that the change in the Pratt drill is translating? I definitely see what you mean when it comes to the Pratt drill, how my shoulders aren't square, but what issue is that causing when it comes to the hammer tosses?Yeah just wanted to confirm it's the same issue in every move. Work on Pratt balance squared up on rear side first.
Also when you toss hammers you do still tend to have some spine extension - relax a little more at the lumber/get slightly more "seated".
I still really like how Clement talks about it. Right now your move looks like what Shawn Clement calls "blowing the side of the pressure cooker" out the back to me.Thanks! Just to clarify, what should I look for in the swings to know that the change in the Pratt drill is translating? I definitely see what you mean when it comes to the Pratt drill, how my shoulders aren't square, but what issue is that causing when it comes to the hammer tosses?
Definitely hear you on the lower spine thing! Just a constant struggle there, but I'm doing lots of core work to try to make my abs a bit more eager to engage and take the load off my lower back.
I still really like how Clement talks about it. Right now your move looks like what Shawn Clement calls "blowing the side of the pressure cooker" out the back to me.
I'll share the concept in my move since I have been through a lot there.
This angle isn't ideal and we've discovered my drive leg leverage is atypical and I keep fussing with it a bit, so SW is below too - note in my new "Waltz" prep step watch how I bring back the disc into the "chest trapped" posture. I'm standing tall and balanced on my right leg, then moving off with whole body balanced tilt (like Pratt) into the first step (my tilt is a bit wrong as I land in the x-step so ignore that). You need to keep the disc "trapped" by your chest or you will tend to tip instead of shift/lose leverage and balance.
Pratt balance - I am a little deeper into it as I step back and then step forward (like Waltz).
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Disc is "trapped" by the chest & shoulder/arm unit:
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Here's kind of the peak of your "Pressure cooker blowing out the side" a bit. Notice how your plant knee is farther away from the target than the leading hip, and your plant heel is closer to the target than your toes. Compare your plant leg to my plant leg. Technically you are swinging back "over the top" of your drive leg and never really balanced on it and thus tipping off. It's the same thing as your Pratt drill so probably worth simplifying it to see and feel what I mean there.
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This is also why your hammer backswing took you away from the target off balance in that one swing when you gave it a good heave- if you brace the backswing correctly that really shouldn't happen.
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Instead it should coil you tighter and deeper against the drive leg building up torque through your core and rear leg.
Pratt drill showing the same thing:
Pressure going out the side/opening over the top of the rear hip (bad):
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Pratt's backswing would be balanced and braced up if he heaved it back (good)
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Thanks! Definitely hear you on the shoulder yank on the hammer throws, and I do that with the disc too. I think sometimes I don't trust myself to swing something so heavy (heavy once it gets some momentum behind it, at least), and I start tensing up thinking how could I possibly throw this without getting every little muscle involved. I recommend a golf club for sure! Can be a little awkward because of the length, but I think the fact that the weight is so far away from where you're holding it amplifies the feedback you get from it.Just dropping in to tell you that you're doing awesome man! Great inspiration and stuff to get from your thread!
The golf club swing looks good and is definitely something I need to get my hand on too.
If I were to give any tip, you might want to let the hammer do more of the work on the forward "swing/throw". It looks like you yank on it too early, instead of letting it carry its own momentum and adding to it at the right time.
Definitely one of the best form threads in here. Good stuff
Last night I was having an older gentlemen work from the "hammer pound and back" focusing on the leverage through the wrist at the very end, then "from the ground up" pumping the hammer with the dingle arm in the same session. He was starting to get the point right away, but of course it looked awkward the first time. Having some trouble figuring out what part was momentum, what part was body posture and sequence at first. It started to get better within 5 minutes of fussing and nudging in real time. Then I stopped tampering and he said he liked how much better it felt and wanted to follow up in a couple weeks (wise guy from a motor learning perspective!).
I'm starting to think that a more general fundamental thing people struggle with is connecting that strange action through the wrist at the end with the full body pump and momentum. It's a weird balance of kind of "letting it go" but remaining in control to help leverage the thing smoothly out just "behind" the momentum of the hammer or arm/disc unit.
That's basically what's been happening on the forum in the past few days with all the chatter about the arm mechanics. I kind of can't really think of it easily without considering a full arm-body move at this point. It's understandably confusing to talk about when you are trying to discuss specific pieces of the motion, so natural swing aids are nice to have ;-)
*Long reply here. Tried to be thorough...Thanks! Definitely hear you on the shoulder yank on the hammer throws, and I do that with the disc too. I think sometimes I don't trust myself to swing something so heavy (heavy once it gets some momentum behind it, at least), and I start tensing up thinking how could I possibly throw this without getting ev
What do you think of all that supinating at the hit stuff, Brychanus? Maybe I'm in the wrong thread...but with the little I know it seems like it runs counter to ideas that seem to have a pretty good track record of getting people (or at least, me) to feel the right feels. My take - of course the wrist has to supinate to throw the disc backhand, or pronate to throw forehand. But what I've gotten from the myriad of hammer drills I've seen around online, for both forehand and backhand, is that you store up some amount of energy by resisting that supination/pronation, even if only to the extent of keeping a neutral wrist. I think you see some amount of evidence in this in elite throwers, in the number of pros whose wrists roll over palm down post release on backhand, or palm up on forehand. It doesn't mean they were trying to "throw with pronation (in the case of backhand)", but it seems to me like it could mean they were trying to resist that supination as long as they could.
I coach ultimate, and a lot of people have success with the cue to throw forehands with their palm up (thumb behind hammer handle). Ricky's talked about throwing forehands with his palm up. Nobody on film (even Ricky) releases a forehand with their palm up, but Ricky does finish all his forehand follow throughs with his palm up - after he releases the disc, his palm snaps back up, because (I guess) he was trying to keep it there all along.
Of course, where this gets confusing is wrist vs shoulder rotation. I throw an ultimate forehand with a pretty neutral wrist, I think, but I definitely externally rotate my shoulder in the load, which could bring my palm up without any supination at the wrist. Either way, I throw a frisbee forehand exactly like I throw a hammer forehand. Literally nothing changes except the grip, it's pretty cool how 1:1 it is.
I think I'm picking up what you're putting down, and I think I agree, to the extent that I feel good about having an opinion on anything like this that I understand so little about. It immediately reminded me of this thread:*Long reply here. Tried to be thorough...
TL;DR: yeah, I guess I believe this is complicated to write and mechanically "much easier done than said" to an extent.
I went a little quiet on the main threads because I think people are mixing coaching cues, mechanics, and anatomical words referring to somewhat different phases and aspects of the move, and I think maybe at least slightly different fundamental ideas about what is going on. One problem when you talk about cues in a video or text is that everything will see whatever they want to see in it even if it is "right." I also wanted to make sure I didn't further confuse myself or the conversation so I stopped to learn more about it. So I would love to sidebar here and see what you or others think as long as we recognize this is mechanics chatter and not really a coaching point per se lol.
I had a side conversation with SocraDeez who always has interesting little motion experiments to share. He pointed out that if you brace on your plant foot and turn a key counterclockwise (like physically try it on a door heading INTO the "pocket"), you'll notice that your brace foot will go through a pronation to supination phase "leading" the arm into the action, just like the arm tends to if you carry the key turn forward through the release point (and the disc golf backhand). Furthermore, counterclockwise turn into the pocket is a nice way to intuitively feel why the elbow wants to go up with the pronation- you get into a much stronger posture overall even though you're just turning a dinky (literal) key.
What about the phase where the arm is continuing out of the pocket? In the "turn the key" thread people are mostly talking about the end of the action, plus a few other things. But let's just talk about "carrying through" the action from the pocket. What would produce the most overall power? People aren't talking much about the "resistive" component against supination (BH direction) you mentioned, which is then "released" and involves the tendon "bounce" people talk about, probably some fascial load and unload, and some muscular acceleration since stretched forearm muscles will contract harder and faster. I suspect that's part of the appearance of "clamping down" with a clearly resisting/contracting forearm in photos of top throwers - I see it too in my forearm as I approach my peak throwing speed if I'm throwing well. This is what "pounding the hammer out" from the pocket means, more or less. I do think people interpret this whole part differently but I always just think about it as part of the holistic action, which is also why you need to be careful exaggerating any one part of it too far. SocraDeez also pointed out that it is possible that some people are interpreting where the "nose" of the disc is in the exact opposite way of a hammer pound. Sheep was talking about that a bit. There is a substantial overall difference to thinking of the nose as the "hammer head" coming around, vs something that is being towed through the motion with the fingertips and then supinated late causing the disc to "flip over" the wrist. In the latter case, the disc nose will only come around and out part way rather than "leverage fully out" like a hammer head smash. Can both actions be used in DG form? That was where I was teasing at two different ways to complete several types of natural actions and hesitated to weigh in. Obviously I'm strongly influenced by the arm/disc "unit" way of approaching it, however, and I convinced myself all over again that the hammer model is more likely far more correct. If you do not pound the hammer, you lose some of that important elastic loading and unloading process, and you do not get the nose of the disc to come all the way around like a hammer head into the release point.
Here's one more little puzzle for you. Arms aren't hinges- humerus has one end as a ball and socket, and our forearms are especially weird. Notice that as the arm pronates, the bones cross. As it supinated, they uncross.
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Crossing and uncrossing is one of the strongest aspects of biology, and in DG you see it (at least) in the X-step, the Oblique slings, and the Forearm. You are resisting in part of that uncrossing effect, and its torque is more or less evident or abrupt from person to person, but (probably) always significantly part of the high level throw.
Finally, you need to consider the leverage profile and how it is transmitted through the fingers to the disc I think to understand the pronation effect near the end of the move/into the release. This is the weirdest part of it to me, but I think I understand it better today after throwing stuff slower. I struggled to understand Klein vs. Gurthie but I think part of what is happening is since Kleins swing plane is very shallow or a flattish pendulum arc and Gurthie's is very circular, and GG starts by slightly leaning away and lands braced like a golfer whereas Klein take the whole move more aggressively forward "over" his brace - not quite "over the top," but it's posturally different. If they are both "pounding the hammer" through their move however, I think the way the wrist and finger pressure works explains the difference in their moves (possibly) because the disc has mass accelerating, and the hand is in effect "resisting against" the disc. There is a big difference between an in leverage and out of leverage action through the end of the move, which significantly involves the wrist action and figure pressures into the "hammer pound." For me, the one as described above is clearly and dramatically better than the other, ~8-10mph difference. It also helps link actions like backstroke, push a quarter on a tabletop with your thumb, basketball chest pass, back fist/backhand where the emphasis on the late action explains the differences on the "same" or very similar overall move.
So I suppose my mental model of what the arm is doing is something like the above. Chopping it into smaller actions is conceptually and mechanically risky. I do think some people need individual cues sometimes and some people are doing all kinds of things that interfere with this action and/or harm themselves. When I work live with people I learned that people can immediately often tell the difference in arm actions pretty quickly with hammers, but it can take a little back and forth at first. Then when you see breaks in the chain you get more creative & specific.
Phew! How'd I do?
"Edit: coaching point: also mess around with windmilling hammers forward and reverse direction on your elbow in the backhand direction focusing on the forearm and wrist each time. Notice when and why the late action involves some supination for the strongest pounds.
Nice, thanks, I'll revisit that one!I think I'm picking up what you're putting down, and I think I agree, to the extent that I feel good about having an opinion on anything like this that I understand so little about. It immediately reminded me of this thread:
DFP Thumb Grip
Ah man I always stopped watching that video after MJ explained his grip, but didn't realize the second to last guy is *Bard Soleng! :doh: He uses a variation of the DFP thumb grip, where his thumbnail will actually vertically jam/press down into the flight plate. His mids (super beat in comets...www.dgcoursereview.com
It's all worth reading if you haven't, but HUB's comment on long axis rotation and the linked articles RFrance posted following that blew my mind and really got me to understand what I was seeing in high level ultimate throwers' forehands. The thread is mostly talking about backhands though, and the wrist roll under/thumb behind the handle pound/push the coin feel.
Thanks for this! By reverse direction on my elbow in the backhand direction, do you mean something like while swinging towards target, externally rotate my shoulder?