- Joined
- Sep 3, 2013
- Messages
- 161
When I throw, I shrug my lead should up high, really high, and it's driving me absolutely crazy. It seems like such an easy thing to fix ("just relax" or "don't strong arm the disc") but it's not that simple... my shoulders ARE relaxed. Or at least, they feel relaxed to me, and so I can't relax anymore than they are. :wall:
(Sorry for the blur, iphone video. Ignore the disc being high, it's a byproduct of the shrug.)
Trying to keep my left arm tight to my body, and even doing the "swim" to accelerate my throwing arm through the hit, seems to have made this worse of late. I think that the negative consequences of the shrug are it slows the movement of the disc into and through the power pocket, and also causes the disc itself to move on an uneven plane (as you can see in the picture, the disc swoops if I do it badly).
Please understand before commenting that when I throw, I swear I'm not doing it. I check a video, say "I'm not going to do that", try to compensate in any number of different ways, think "yeah that was better", check the video, and get angry because it's still there and maybe even worse now. The obvious answer would be that I'm using my shoulder to initiate the throw, or pull it into my body, but I swear to you I am not. I'm working on keeping my upper arm at a fixed 90 degrees to my shoulders, and only using my forearm to go out-in-out during the throw. There's some break in my shoulder off 90 degrees still, but for the most part, I feel I've really transitioned towards hips/core/shoulders and am not an arm-based thrower anymore. I can get in the 400-425 range, though I honestly couldn't tell you if I'm completely not shrugging when I do that or it's still there.
My own theory at the moment is that it's not a problem with the way I'm pulling the disc forward (towards the target), it's actually something about the way I pull the disc towards my body for the power pocket. Like... I naturally want to pull the disc to my sternum, maybe I'm aiming too high and subconsciously 'choking up' to get the disc higher? Maybe I'll try pulling through lower tomorrow and seeing what happens?
Anyway, does anyone have any experience with this? How did you address it?
(Sorry for the blur, iphone video. Ignore the disc being high, it's a byproduct of the shrug.)
Trying to keep my left arm tight to my body, and even doing the "swim" to accelerate my throwing arm through the hit, seems to have made this worse of late. I think that the negative consequences of the shrug are it slows the movement of the disc into and through the power pocket, and also causes the disc itself to move on an uneven plane (as you can see in the picture, the disc swoops if I do it badly).
Please understand before commenting that when I throw, I swear I'm not doing it. I check a video, say "I'm not going to do that", try to compensate in any number of different ways, think "yeah that was better", check the video, and get angry because it's still there and maybe even worse now. The obvious answer would be that I'm using my shoulder to initiate the throw, or pull it into my body, but I swear to you I am not. I'm working on keeping my upper arm at a fixed 90 degrees to my shoulders, and only using my forearm to go out-in-out during the throw. There's some break in my shoulder off 90 degrees still, but for the most part, I feel I've really transitioned towards hips/core/shoulders and am not an arm-based thrower anymore. I can get in the 400-425 range, though I honestly couldn't tell you if I'm completely not shrugging when I do that or it's still there.
My own theory at the moment is that it's not a problem with the way I'm pulling the disc forward (towards the target), it's actually something about the way I pull the disc towards my body for the power pocket. Like... I naturally want to pull the disc to my sternum, maybe I'm aiming too high and subconsciously 'choking up' to get the disc higher? Maybe I'll try pulling through lower tomorrow and seeing what happens?
Anyway, does anyone have any experience with this? How did you address it?