SW has said in some contexts that the backswing doesn't matter much & agrees with Sewer Bill's point about customizing/experimenting to fit things to the body. Not all form trajectories will be like mine, but a few nuggets in my story here might help someone. This is part of why SW goes after posture as a fundamental focus such as with Kjimsern here, and why Sewer Bill is right that you need to customize what gets you the most (consistent) force at the least effort. Also why I think you can go wrong thinking too much about the backswing itself when you have much bigger fish to fry.
IMHO one of the big deals with the backswing is mostly just about how it sets up you to swing with the shoulder closed and maximizing posture and kinetics in that context. That's why GG and PP can apply pretty different wing angles in the backswing.
Personally, I had a lot of trouble with "collapsing pockets" and "backwards rotation" that popped in and out over time. These are two of the cardinal sins for the throwing arm coming out of the backswing.
So for me as a serious case of those T-Rex arms [Exhibits
A &
B], this thread made me think about lessons learned and a lot of them are about the backswing in the context of posture & developing force chains. As we'll see, part of the lesson is what
not to worry about.
Getting a form that generates power, pulls you taut, and maximizes easy force transfer
Since my arms are so short, my chest is crowded, and I get more power much more easily vertically than horizontally, I tend to prefer a low arm slot and drop in/get pulled taut trying to find the postures that clean up my shift. That's hard for plenty of players. I successfully returned to a new pendulum pump with a forward windmill recently, which made all kinds of posture issues more obvious to my body and fortunately resolved some (but not all) of them immediately this time. That is because my posture and leg mechanics had improved and it was getting a bit easier to get "pulled taut" than before while my legs were moving.
Focusing too much on backswing wing angles and on arms can backfire.
I went back to footage from over a year ago and found it interesting that I always tended to have a similar backswing wing angle when I was getting good wrist tension & resistance in the pocket. I believe this is less about the wing angle itself and more about what was happening with the rest of my kinetics & swing thoughts while learning. Even now, any time I try to manipulate the actual wing angle too much, it seems more symptomatic of compensating for posture rather than improving the overall swing. On the other hand, if I find that sweet spot in the backswing where my arm is rotating properly into the pocket
without thinking about it, that is also pretty much the same way I'd get leverage on a hammer or the door frame. In other words, all the work on improving
posture to generate force is related to how the backswing functions in that context.
Do things that keep your posture and kinetic chain developing and discard things that get in the way.
For me, the backswing wing angle seems to end up within a few degrees of the bottom row of the above image. It looks somewhat parallel with the ground, but is actually a bit "wing down" relative to my shoulder line. If the wing is slightly more down like SW or the others relative to my posture at the peak of the backswing, I can still get leverage - and that's the big key. It's hard to do any meaningful form work if that part breaks. I'll be curious if the backswing wing angle naturally trends a few degrees down like those other guys as my form keeps improving. But any time I have manipulated the backswing wing angle too much (and especially too far up/toward the ceiling) I start to get the backwards arm rotation & crowded & crumping pocket syndrome. If I go the other extreme more like Gurthie, something else gets out of whack in my posture. I think this was because I was always putting too much intent into the arm itself rather than the overall way the arm is supposed to work in the swing. This is why I am increasingly a fan of working on the overall posture and moving weight around in balance and finding a "good enough" backswing for learning. Don't let the backswing dominate your focus too much away from those issues.
Not blowing out your arm is related to swinging properly for power.
One thing that really stuck with me from a power & longevity perspective is a comment SW made about Wiggins' backswing elsewhere. He doesn't blow out his arm at 85mph in part because that's probably a pretty similar posture and sequence he'd use to swing a sledgehammer, and he looks it in e.g., the image above. When I stopped ****ing around with the backswing wing angle itself and just focused on getting momentum and the backswing getting pulled taut against the backswing and converting that that elasticity and leverage in the swing, I immediately had less wear and tear, less pocket collapse, and less overall
posture collapse. These things are so deeply interconnected.
Camera matters
Also keep in mind that camera angles can make some aspects of the backswing wing angle look extreme, but when you account for the player's posture and camera angle, they're not always so extreme looking. Look at when you or someone else is throwing on hyzer, flattish, or anhyzer. Notice how stuff aligns or not in each context. It helps your brain encode the 3D motion.
When should I mess with the backswing wing angle?
I think there are pros/cons of different styles, but I think my main takeaway is that they should be secondary to getting the big posture pieces and mechanics gelling well. Don't mess with it
too/I] much unless it's getting in the way of fixing those things. After the big pieces are in a good place, maybe more experimenting can find you more advantages. GG probably gets a very real effect from his extreme wing angle trick. But most of us are not moving the rest of our body as well as GG.
BONUS
Here's a stack of backswing thoughts SW has shared at one point or another I thought I'd tag here.
You also need to abandon the arm/disc away to gravity in the backswing. Struggling players often just reachback with the arm/disc like it weighs nothing/no momentum/inertia.
The disc also has a weight to it and is a lever just like a club (shorter and lighter albeit). If you are only rotating horizontally you are not only severely restricting yourself to only flat throws, but also fighting gravity instead of using it and getting easy speed and rhythm.
The pendulum backswing IMO is the most natural and easiest to learn and helps create more rhythm and torso rotation into the backswing by tossing the arm/disc back like a lumberjack heaving an axe back. The abs are definitely used to turn the shoulders and toss the arm/disc back.
Working around the disc requires more active body turn and reachback/extension into backswing. I think this method is not as natural or intuitive, you would never swing/throw a hammer or anything heavy this way, but it is quite effective.
The 3rd method is the bent elbow reachback like Seppo and Emerson. I found this to be the most frustrating method to try and learn. I get it now in retrospect after learning the other two methods. Other's experiences might be different.
The pendulum backswing carries you more automatically into the top of the backswing via momentum of the swing. The arm is already extended before the backswing even starts - forward pump extends it, so there is no active extension of the arm in the backswing.
If you move around the disc or freeze the disc you have to more actively turn back since there is no swinging momentum and you have to actively extend your arm to the disc to the top or not(Simon varies that). IMO disc should be closer to right pec or center, than left pec, but you will see variance between players.
