Nick Carroll
Par Member
I look at the upper and lower body relationship as symbiotic. Even in a standstill throw, people are using more than their arm to throw the disc, and some people will step through as they follow through after the throw.
I don't think there's a spectrum, per se, of arm to body usage that people need to find what works for them. I think you need to use both, and they're additive, and it would be really hard to perform a good backhand throw only with the body - or only with the arm.
I'm not sure Josh or Mikey ever threw with no arm whatsoever, as Josh said in that video. But they probably minimized the use of the arm as much as possible.
Out-in-out has never been wrong, in my view. Even if you somehow paralyze the upper arm to 90 degrees, in relation to their shoulders, that forearm is still extending, curling, then extending.
So what Josh seems to imply is the level of horizontal abduction varies, and I think that's incontrovertible, but there's a range, and I don't think it's 0 degrees to 180. It seems to be a much more limited range than that.
I agree with him that you want no less than 90 degrees between the upper arm and shoulder, because you start to impinge when that is reduced, and that also contributes to rounding. Even some pros do this to some extent, and clearly some more than others, but when developing the "Good Swing" I think 90 degrees is the advised minimum.
So what's the upper limit? Well some great folks here have spent a lot of time on that, and at least from what I've observed here, the biggest outlier identified is Garrett Guthrie on some of his insane distance throws, which some images show about 165 degrees at the hit. How much of a spectrum is that? Not a full one, but a partial one at least. That's maximum extension though.
What most people seem to talk about with this angle is what is the minimum achieved during the swing, and then the maximum at the end of the swing. Garrett doesn't seem to get to 90 but he does horizontally abduct from the power pocket to the hit like everyone else.
I don't think there's a spectrum, per se, of arm to body usage that people need to find what works for them. I think you need to use both, and they're additive, and it would be really hard to perform a good backhand throw only with the body - or only with the arm.
I'm not sure Josh or Mikey ever threw with no arm whatsoever, as Josh said in that video. But they probably minimized the use of the arm as much as possible.
Out-in-out has never been wrong, in my view. Even if you somehow paralyze the upper arm to 90 degrees, in relation to their shoulders, that forearm is still extending, curling, then extending.
So what Josh seems to imply is the level of horizontal abduction varies, and I think that's incontrovertible, but there's a range, and I don't think it's 0 degrees to 180. It seems to be a much more limited range than that.
I agree with him that you want no less than 90 degrees between the upper arm and shoulder, because you start to impinge when that is reduced, and that also contributes to rounding. Even some pros do this to some extent, and clearly some more than others, but when developing the "Good Swing" I think 90 degrees is the advised minimum.
So what's the upper limit? Well some great folks here have spent a lot of time on that, and at least from what I've observed here, the biggest outlier identified is Garrett Guthrie on some of his insane distance throws, which some images show about 165 degrees at the hit. How much of a spectrum is that? Not a full one, but a partial one at least. That's maximum extension though.
What most people seem to talk about with this angle is what is the minimum achieved during the swing, and then the maximum at the end of the swing. Garrett doesn't seem to get to 90 but he does horizontally abduct from the power pocket to the hit like everyone else.