This is SO MUCH cleaner looking than the post from early in the month.Not sure if this is getting better or worse...
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This is SO MUCH cleaner looking than the post from early in the month.Not sure if this is getting better or worse...
I was purposefully starting on the ball of my rear foot and dropping down from there, should I stop doing that?I think you're not quite balanced onto the rear leg in transition and tipping off. Supplement with Hershyzer Drills maybe.
That part is probably fine. Try to square up your rear foot a little more perpendicular to the target so you leveraging off of it more sideways.I was purposefully starting on the ball of my rear foot and dropping down from there, should I stop doing that?
Been playing for a little over 3 months, and I can't even top 200 feet most of the time. Have spent a ton of time reading this forum, watching videos, trying out drills and different form, and somehow am still terrible! Any advice is greatly appreciated!
In this video I just threw 14 discs. Tried a bunch of different stuff throughout. I don't believe a single one of these went over 200 feet. Only one angle but I doubt more is relevant at this point...
Again, beginner here, trying more to learn myself more than to give form advice…. That said, I watched a video once saying that the best stance/foot position on a drive, to get more distance, is to stagger your feet, where the heel of your front foot is even with or even slightly past the toes of your back foot (so, RHBH, working from an imaginary line perpendicular to your target, your front foot heel is on or slightly left of the line, while your back foot toes are on or slightly right of the line). He says that way you have more room for your arm to come past your body in a correct power pocket, and it allows you to get more body spin more easily. Thoughts, anyone???"I am still pulling the disc from the front and having to round to get out of the way of my torso."
Again, beginner here, trying more to learn myself more than to give form advice…. That said, I watched a video once saying that the best stance/foot position on a drive, to get more distance, is to stagger your feet, where the heel of your front foot is even with or even slightly past the toes of your back foot (so, RHBH, working from an imaginary line perpendicular to your target, your front foot heel is on or slightly left of the line, while your back foot toes are on or slightly right of the line). He says that way you have more room for your arm to come past your body in a correct power pocket, and it allows you to get more body spin more easily. Thoughts, anyone???
I want the disc to swing in/load behind my elbow/shoulder. As long as I keep my shoulder joint wide enough(not hugging myself) it's impossible to round.
Rounding only happens when the lead shoulder joint collapses/hugging yourself and your elbow can't bend much and bring the disc into your center, so you have to swing the disc around your trail shoulder.
It's hard if you're learning online/remotely. Do/post drills, swing heavy things, don't assume your body is going to swing exactly like anyone else. Get out of your head, have a drink, swing freely. Just try to discover what all the big guns have in common. It's a strange journey for most of us ;-)Thank you Brychanus, for taking the time to break this down and explain it. I read and reviewed this many times, and compared it to video of me - gotta admit, it is still kind of like Greek to me, but I am sure as I continue to watch, study, and practice, I will grasp more in time. I think I am too upright, and not getting into a good power stance. Probably too rigid - no loose noodle arm and whip effect. Improvements in putting seem to come so much easier than improvements in driving!
You might need to back up and try something else first, but if you want to try and fix it with Ride the Bull (which IMHO is one of the best drills of all time. I use it as part of my warm up every round now):
1. Posture, Posture, Posture. Mechanics are harder to learn or impossible out of posture, sadly. Let your shoulders relax and protact more like hugging a cylindrical trash can. From a side view you should look more like this. I physically held a trash can to help with this. Heavy water jug is good too:
(the rest)
Fair warning 2 - this is going to take weeks of practice, probably. No way to cheat retraining balance.
Remember that posture is many things - "bad" posture in an e.g. office worker is usually due to a weakening posterior chain since chairs remove the need for using those muscles. Athletic postures all require strong (enough) posterior chains in balance with the rest of their body.I remember seeing you (or someone) post this video somewhere and trying that, a while back, and I tried it out at the gym with sandbags. Didn't translate obviously.
I feel like I have a mental block about protracting my shoulders because I my shoulders are already rounded from my normal bad posture, so "good" posture to me is going the opposite direction haha.
I will say that since the inception of me reading everything here, ride the bull is the one that I have always had the hardest time connecting to the disc golf throw. But maybe that's because I've never done it right? Regardless, I will blindly follow you until it makes sense.
Anyway, here is my attempt at things (went with a 5 gallon barrel full of gravel). I realized after all of this that I wasn't supposed to be crossing my leg behind - not sure how much of a difference that makes but will note that for next time anyway.
Just getting a feel for things...
Attempt 2...
With a rod...
And attempting ride the bull again...
I'm wondering then if I should pause my fieldwork until I get further in with this, since I don't want to reinforce bad habits while retraining.
(Sorry if these videos are unnecessarily long - thanks as always for the help!)
You also favor shifting to one side more than the other - that will be a problem for your form even if you only throw one direction with your backhand.
Usually people do a drill like 1-5 times, get bored and impatient, go back to throwing, and barely change.
If you use drills, you need to do them often enough to make your old throwing behavior feel weird and wrong and week. Think about the number of throws you do vs. drills. IMO/experience from "drill land," 5-10 minutes of a correct drill a day takes about 2-3 weeks to "stick" for most people. Then it gets easier to tweak things later because you've already built up muscle memory. Sometimes very athletic people need a lot less, but that's just because they've already done more of the "drills" earlier in life in other contexts.
Ride the bull feeling weird - totally, especially if you haven't done a lot of things athletically moving sideways at a high level. Tough starting when older. I guess I'm evidence that you can gradually change if you're willing to stay after it.
What's your fitness routine? Work life involve lots of desk/chair sitting? I have more suggestions there based on how you move but don't want to assume.
Yeah, flexibility on the left side in general has definitely lagged behind the right side since I started playing disc golf - definitely need to keep a balanced routine.
Psh, I would never do something like that!
Yeah this definitely makes me feel like I should focus solely on this and not throw and bring in those old habits. We'll see how we're feeling by the weekend to see if I even want to play or if it'd be better to give it an other week of buckets.
I can respond to both of these in kind - pretty much all of my "athletic" experience has just been olympic weightlifting at the gym. Rarely ever do anything one-legged/one-sided except for accessory weightlifting. Typically my fitness routine is just lifting some combination of typical ohp/bench/squat/DL/rows 3x a week. Over the last couple years I tried adding in more flexibility/plyometrics but it's been hard for me to stick with it.
However, I've been waylaid for a few months due to a torn ligament on my middle finger (from playing volleyball - should've stuck to disc golf!) that makes it very difficult to grip a barbell. (I should have picked something else up in the meantime but alas...)
So all that is to say I'm down to build a new routine from scratch!
And yeah, I'm a SW engineer so mostly sitting at a desk. I do have a standing desk that I don't use often enough.
Anyway, here's this morning's efforts:
What weight is in that bucket?
Take that hip hinge back a bit more shallow so that you're standing slightly taller. You should feel it recruit calves, hammies, and glutes but not too stressful. Balance looking a little better (but do a little each day).
I'm actually going to add this now since you mentioned flexibility on one side. I wish I had worked on this two years ago. I do it in each workout and throwing warmup whenever I can. Do it both sides and see how deep you can get while staying in balance:
Workouts: I won't take two legged lifts away from you if you like them, but neuromuscularly/balance wise/supporting muscle wise I strongly suggest some one/split legged/lunge walking lunges in each direction etc. I had trouble sticking with it too at first and eventually just went "all in" and scrapped my old workout routine in favor of my DG specific one, mileage varies.