ncgamedog
Birdie Member
Hey guys!
This is my first post on the board. I've been lurking a reading everything I can find, and putting in a TON of field work and rounds.
A quick back story:
I used to play quite a bit of DG in college (3-4 times/week) which was around 2-3 years ago. During that time, I didn't care much about proper form, it was just for fun, and I did what came naturally to me. I reached a point where I was very accurate and averaged around 300'-350' on drives. I know one thing I ignored to do was rotate my shoulders away from the basket and try for a long reach back. I kept my focus on the line I wanted to throw and reached back as far as I could with my shoulders perpendicular to the line I wanted to throw. I also don't think I used an X-step, just a series of rythmic choppy steps on my run up. One thing I could never do well during that time was throw an anhyzer line well and stuck to understable plastic thrown on a hyzer release, which (depending on angle) would net in a flat to nice hyzer line. Now after a couple years away from the sport I have landed back in an area that has ton of great courses and have been working hard to get back into the game.
I decided to try and do things right this time and to work on developing proper form. I have been playing/practicing almost everyday now for a couple months. I have been focusing on my X-step and finding the "hit" from a LHBH aproach. I have mostly used the "towel snap" & LEFT pec drill thus far, and can absolutely smash the towel. Out of 10 swings 7-8 sound like a gun going off of M-80 firecracker. The problem I have is translating that power to the disc!
I have been working crazy hard the last few weeks on grip and X-step timming and reading a ton on here.
One break through I had was my power grip, I was not getting a good rip point on my index finger and was mostly pinching the rim between my first index finger joint and thumb (at inner edge of wing where it meets the flight plate). My fingers are kinda short and chubby so it was what was most comfortable. Now I am tightly curling my index finger around the rim so that my finger pad pulls tightly on the inner wall of the rim toward the seam. I lock the disc by curling my middle and ring fingers so that the tips of them push into my hand and the pinky pad pulls the back of the disc up into the back part of the seam. This loads tons of tension in my fingers and gives me a solid and secure grip/rip point.
With that all said... I CANNOT seem to git rid of this terrible OAT (wrist roll over)!! After much research on here and tons of practice, I have narrowed it down to a few things:
1) My left knee is a little weak (old Football injury) and I tend to straight leg my plant foot and torque around it. NOT Good! this also causes me to be flat footed. I got a knee brace to help with that, and it made a huge difference! I now feel strong on that leg and am able to stay on the ball of my feet much better. Still have a hard time pivoting on my heel though.
2) I know that I am strong arming my throws and that causes me to snap the disc very late on an anhyzer line usually landing in a big roller that comes around like a boomerang.
3) I am struggeling to keep my elbow out away from my chest on the pull through and maintain that 90* relationship to my chest. I tend to pull across my chest letting my elbow drop below the pull line and the inner part of my bicep drags across my left pec. I can keep my elbow high with the LEFT pec drill or throwing from a stationary position, but lose it at full speed X-step. I think one of the biggest reasons this is happening is because I am not clearing my hip and getting good rotational power from my hips at the beginning of the pull. I have tried to focus on this and drive off of my back foot, but it only translates to a forward lurch, rather than a rotational explosion. This lack of good hip action causes me to overcompensate and rush/strong arm and roll my wrist over at the hit.
This finally leads to my overall point from the thread title....
I discovered today during field practice that I may be better off trying to throw RHBH!! I have been a pure Lefty all of my life. I was a three sport athelete in high school and tried baseball in college. I was always a good hitter and have great body control (read: hip/wrist explosion) from that standpoint. I find myself turning around and pretending to go through my batting swing to compare to my disc throw. When I am batting, I have a very comfortable weight distribution over the balls of my feet and load the back foot more. To initiate my swing, I load my hips by rotating my belt buckle in (toward my back foot) about 3-5 degrees, and draw my hands back, as I begin the downswing my grip is still lose on the bat and I explode my hips, rotating them around to clear them to make way for my hands to come through, I can literally feel my shoulder PULLING my elbow through at 90* to my chest and My grip only tightens right before impact with the ball.
I realize what I am missing from my disc golf drive, is that ability to have the relaxed control and quick explosion of my hips which bring my shoulder and elbow through the power pocket or "wheel house" in baseball terms. My LHBH drive approach feels awkward just the way switch hitting would feel awkward to me. It is very frustrating to know that I have that kind of atheletic abilty in one direction and not the other. My batting timing is excellent and has always been a natural gift/talent, so not being able to produce good disc drives is almost maddening.
I am to the point that I may try switching to RHBH for my drives. I feel like the footwork and timing are almost more inportant to a successful disc drive than the dexterity and grip pressure control I have in my left hand. It's a very strange sensation, knowing my body mechanics are superior in one direction and being very aware & "in-tune" with my control, and my hand strength/dexterity/control being superior in the other direction! I have actually been able to throw the disc better than I thought I would be able to RHBH, but my right hand feels almost numb in comparison to the awareness I have in my left.
I, of course, don't have the power RHBH that I do LHBH yet, but I feel like that could come with more practice, because I feel better about the hip clearence and ability to not strong arm the disc.
Its frustrating because I feel like I make big gains in distance, and then a new problem arises and I take two steps back. I made a few throws last week that went very near or over 400' , but I'm talking maybe 2-3 out of 20 that were good and the others were all OAT anhyzers.
I feel like I just did a complete brain dump here, but I've been trying to work through this on my own. I am just at a loss at this point on which direction to go from here. I apologize for the loooong first post.
If there are any other former baseball players who have had success with this transition please offer your advice on how to translate the form either to a switch hitting approach or throwing with your off hand???
Seems like a great group of helpful folks on this forum, and I have really enjoyed reading the information I have found thus far.
Thanks for any help!!!
-Justin
This is my first post on the board. I've been lurking a reading everything I can find, and putting in a TON of field work and rounds.
A quick back story:
I used to play quite a bit of DG in college (3-4 times/week) which was around 2-3 years ago. During that time, I didn't care much about proper form, it was just for fun, and I did what came naturally to me. I reached a point where I was very accurate and averaged around 300'-350' on drives. I know one thing I ignored to do was rotate my shoulders away from the basket and try for a long reach back. I kept my focus on the line I wanted to throw and reached back as far as I could with my shoulders perpendicular to the line I wanted to throw. I also don't think I used an X-step, just a series of rythmic choppy steps on my run up. One thing I could never do well during that time was throw an anhyzer line well and stuck to understable plastic thrown on a hyzer release, which (depending on angle) would net in a flat to nice hyzer line. Now after a couple years away from the sport I have landed back in an area that has ton of great courses and have been working hard to get back into the game.
I decided to try and do things right this time and to work on developing proper form. I have been playing/practicing almost everyday now for a couple months. I have been focusing on my X-step and finding the "hit" from a LHBH aproach. I have mostly used the "towel snap" & LEFT pec drill thus far, and can absolutely smash the towel. Out of 10 swings 7-8 sound like a gun going off of M-80 firecracker. The problem I have is translating that power to the disc!
I have been working crazy hard the last few weeks on grip and X-step timming and reading a ton on here.
One break through I had was my power grip, I was not getting a good rip point on my index finger and was mostly pinching the rim between my first index finger joint and thumb (at inner edge of wing where it meets the flight plate). My fingers are kinda short and chubby so it was what was most comfortable. Now I am tightly curling my index finger around the rim so that my finger pad pulls tightly on the inner wall of the rim toward the seam. I lock the disc by curling my middle and ring fingers so that the tips of them push into my hand and the pinky pad pulls the back of the disc up into the back part of the seam. This loads tons of tension in my fingers and gives me a solid and secure grip/rip point.
With that all said... I CANNOT seem to git rid of this terrible OAT (wrist roll over)!! After much research on here and tons of practice, I have narrowed it down to a few things:
1) My left knee is a little weak (old Football injury) and I tend to straight leg my plant foot and torque around it. NOT Good! this also causes me to be flat footed. I got a knee brace to help with that, and it made a huge difference! I now feel strong on that leg and am able to stay on the ball of my feet much better. Still have a hard time pivoting on my heel though.
2) I know that I am strong arming my throws and that causes me to snap the disc very late on an anhyzer line usually landing in a big roller that comes around like a boomerang.
3) I am struggeling to keep my elbow out away from my chest on the pull through and maintain that 90* relationship to my chest. I tend to pull across my chest letting my elbow drop below the pull line and the inner part of my bicep drags across my left pec. I can keep my elbow high with the LEFT pec drill or throwing from a stationary position, but lose it at full speed X-step. I think one of the biggest reasons this is happening is because I am not clearing my hip and getting good rotational power from my hips at the beginning of the pull. I have tried to focus on this and drive off of my back foot, but it only translates to a forward lurch, rather than a rotational explosion. This lack of good hip action causes me to overcompensate and rush/strong arm and roll my wrist over at the hit.
This finally leads to my overall point from the thread title....
I discovered today during field practice that I may be better off trying to throw RHBH!! I have been a pure Lefty all of my life. I was a three sport athelete in high school and tried baseball in college. I was always a good hitter and have great body control (read: hip/wrist explosion) from that standpoint. I find myself turning around and pretending to go through my batting swing to compare to my disc throw. When I am batting, I have a very comfortable weight distribution over the balls of my feet and load the back foot more. To initiate my swing, I load my hips by rotating my belt buckle in (toward my back foot) about 3-5 degrees, and draw my hands back, as I begin the downswing my grip is still lose on the bat and I explode my hips, rotating them around to clear them to make way for my hands to come through, I can literally feel my shoulder PULLING my elbow through at 90* to my chest and My grip only tightens right before impact with the ball.
I realize what I am missing from my disc golf drive, is that ability to have the relaxed control and quick explosion of my hips which bring my shoulder and elbow through the power pocket or "wheel house" in baseball terms. My LHBH drive approach feels awkward just the way switch hitting would feel awkward to me. It is very frustrating to know that I have that kind of atheletic abilty in one direction and not the other. My batting timing is excellent and has always been a natural gift/talent, so not being able to produce good disc drives is almost maddening.
I am to the point that I may try switching to RHBH for my drives. I feel like the footwork and timing are almost more inportant to a successful disc drive than the dexterity and grip pressure control I have in my left hand. It's a very strange sensation, knowing my body mechanics are superior in one direction and being very aware & "in-tune" with my control, and my hand strength/dexterity/control being superior in the other direction! I have actually been able to throw the disc better than I thought I would be able to RHBH, but my right hand feels almost numb in comparison to the awareness I have in my left.
I, of course, don't have the power RHBH that I do LHBH yet, but I feel like that could come with more practice, because I feel better about the hip clearence and ability to not strong arm the disc.
Its frustrating because I feel like I make big gains in distance, and then a new problem arises and I take two steps back. I made a few throws last week that went very near or over 400' , but I'm talking maybe 2-3 out of 20 that were good and the others were all OAT anhyzers.
I feel like I just did a complete brain dump here, but I've been trying to work through this on my own. I am just at a loss at this point on which direction to go from here. I apologize for the loooong first post.
If there are any other former baseball players who have had success with this transition please offer your advice on how to translate the form either to a switch hitting approach or throwing with your off hand???
Seems like a great group of helpful folks on this forum, and I have really enjoyed reading the information I have found thus far.
Thanks for any help!!!
-Justin
