Push Putt Issues

[SirRaph]

Since I started this thread, I played a lot with the push putt. Then moved back to the spin putt in frustration. Now, after a lot (and I mean a lot) of home basket practice, I'm getting confident with a putt that looks a lot like Nikko Locastro's.

At its core, it's still a push putt. In fact, I'd say that if what you're looking for in a putt is to reduce the number of moving parts, Nikko's is the way to go. By having the full swing of the arm by straddling, you get a lot more power out of little effort. So I don't use any knee bend or spring at all. All I move is my shoulder and my wrist, and my back/core to some degree. So all that damned weight shift and wrist pop and blah blah blah is gone. It's also a little more natural for me to use for a jump putt. Lastly, it's relatively easily adapted into a spin putt for low-ceiling situations. Just toss it on a lower, faster arc.

Three quick tips for anyone who wants to give this thing a shot:
1) Release the disc well before you think you should. It should be released almost before it passes your knees. The elevation comes as the disc continues upwards after the release. Think of granny-ing a basketball, but forward instead of up.
2) The amount of hyzer angle that video shows this putt having is deceptive. I pop my wrist at the release, to bring it closer to flat. However, it'll still have some hyzer on it. But fear not, it'll go straight long into its arc. Dead-nuts straight. For longer putts and jumpers, pop it to completely flat.
3) There's a reason Nikko uses Magics for this putt. I've tried it with KC Aviars, Wizards, even a Voodoo, and it's just not the same. More stable/overstable putters fade much more quickly with this putt, and you end up having to account for the fade. Magics work great for it, Aviars aren't bad, you want something stiff and straight or even flippy. I also find that a domey putter makes it a little more difficult as well. Once you get a feel for this putt, it's more akin to tossing a ball than it is throwing a frisbee, so a flatter disc seems to mess with the arc less than a domey one does.

 

[xeroxed44]

I didn't notice anything about this question earlier in the post, excuse me if it was mentioned already..... I use a hybrid push putt/spin putt, if thats even possible to say. Its the same technique that Feldberg teaches in the putting clinic, but with a slight snap/wrist extension at release. I currently use a 164g Soft Wizard as my goto putting putter.

Now to the question, I'm having a lot of problems with nose down, as in I can't see the top of the flight plate at all. I get alot of bounces off of the front of the basket between 20-30 ft.

Whats my malfunction?

 

[cornelius]

i have been push putting for about a year and i also have had the nose down problem from outside of 25 ft. the problem is you are trying to muscle the disc to account for the distance and releasing later among other things. the solution is to just pretend you are putting from 15 ft and just stay loose throughout your putt.

 

[mark12b]

yeah, on longer putts what's helpful sometimes for me is to remember "trust the pop" -- iow release close to the body and let the "pop" action send the disc flying. reaching for the basket can cause aim problems and/or too much nose-down (since nose down comes from releasing toward the rear of the disc).

to control the nose angle on putts, work with your release point. closer to 12:00 will give nose up while closer to 6:00 will give nose down.

 

[xeroxed44]

yeah, on longer putts what's helpful sometimes for me is to remember "trust the pop" -- iow release close to the body and let the "pop" action send the disc flying. reaching for the basket can cause aim problems and/or too much nose-down (since nose down comes from releasing toward the rear of the disc).

to control the nose angle on putts, work with your release point. closer to 12:00 will give nose up while closer to 6:00 will give nose down.

If i'm following you correctly, release the disc with my hand closer to 12:00 vs 6:00?

 

[mark12b]

If i'm following you correctly, release the disc with my hand closer to 12:00 vs 6:00?

yep, and for a flat putt it'll be somewhere around 3:00. play with it and you'll see... e.g. you can do a high, super nose-down putt by lofting upwards and releasing at 6:00, but if you want high and nose up, the only way to make it work is to release more from the front of the disc.

 

[jubuttib]

What helped me with nose down issues (when I remember to do it, which I often don't) was to focus on my grip pressure and what my fingers do in the follow-through. I have a bad habit of applying about 30%/70% F/R pressure on the disc when putting, which leads to a lot of nose down. Feldberg said in his clinic that it should be more like 70/30, and focusing on that usually helps. I should do it more though, so that I don't have to focus on it too much.

The follow-through is another good point he mentioned. He said that you shouldn't keep your fingers pointing down in your follow through, but to let them turn up. This also does wonders for nose down issues for me.

 

[xeroxed44]

I'll give that a try later tonight and see what happens.
Thanks

 

[biodarwin]

The follow-through is another good point he mentioned. He said that you shouldn't keep your fingers pointing down in your follow through, but to let them turn up. This also does wonders for nose down issues for me.

This made the BIGGEST change in my putting game. Fingers up, weight forward, palm at the basket, pretty much automatic.

 

[masterbeato]

if you aim to not put it into the basket you are successful 100% of the time. if you aim to put it in the basket, you should be successful 100% of the time.

 

[Smigles1]

Ooooook.

So i started almost a year ago. I was totaly stomped by putting because it is so different to throwing ( ultimate background ). The few good players in my hometown have all very very "special" putting techniques, and i didnt realy want to learn from them because IMO they do it wrong. The more videos i watched, the more i felt that Nikko has the perfect putting style. It looks exactly like what i think would be best, arm is straight all the time, the nagle at which the disc hits the basket is perfect etc. Theoreticaly, i understand why the push put is superior to the spin put. I feel comfortable at the stance, i like rocking back and forth, i came almost by myself to the conclusion that this must be the best way of putting.

Problem : I can not generate enugh power behind my throw. it works great up to 20 feet, and i am happy about that because a year ago i wasnt even sure about 10 feet puts, but I dont have enugh power for 30 or more feet. As soon as i go to these larger distances, i automaticaly start bending my elbow or my wrist to spin it in. I need more info on where that power comes from. What do the fingers do exactly ? How do you get the power from your legs into the throw ? Would it help if i upload a vid of my putting ?

 

[JR]

Power comes from the weight shift back to front, unbending of the knees, raising of the torso, pushing forward of the hips, jumping forward, raising of the arm from partially behind the rear heel(or less reach back for shorter distances -you need to bend the knees out to the sides to fit the arm between the legs) and the finger spring. Think of pointing at something with your index finger. Multiply that by pinky, ring finger and middle finger extending straight at the same time and the thumb pointing up like hitching a ride. Do it very fast and you've got finger spring when you point the other fingers than thumb toward the target. I haven't checked how far I can throw with jump putt Nikko style but it is approach shot distance. I'm thinking at least 130' but since I haven't really tried it out that could be way off.

 

[Smigles1]

After watching the entire Dave Clinic vid ( at work ) and then heading out to the fields for almost 4 hours of putting, i kinda think i know what he tries to tell us. That finger-pushing actualy works !

Much more practice ahead, but for the first time in a year i feel like i could get to grips with putting finaly

 

[uNicedmeMan1]

yeah at the clinic I went to he spent about 10 mins on driving and the rest about the push putt. which was a slight letdown to me considering that is the main reason i went. Jubuttib, what did he teach you guys at the clinic about driving?

The grip, of which the new part to me was that pinky to middle finger should have 70% of gripping power and 30% on index and thumb. He taught a run up which is better what I used to have. He mentioned wrist extension and such. Pretty much the same stuff people teach you here, reach back, pull tight and such.

I KNEW IT. All this time I've been trying to do like a 60/40 index&thumb to Pinky&Middle thinking I was ripping off the wrong fingers. I should have known better. Feldberg's breakdown of power % is just about exactly the grip weighting I've used since I learned about different grips. I think it was a big part of why I was able to learn to throw 400' much faster than the guys who introduced me to the sport.

Really? So the rip point on a drive is more in the back (middle to pinky) than the front (index and thumb)? This is contradictory to what I've always thought.

What helped me with nose down issues (when I remember to do it, which I often don't) was to focus on my grip pressure and what my fingers do in the follow-through. I have a bad habit of applying about 30%/70% F/R pressure on the disc when putting, which leads to a lot of nose down. Feldberg said in his clinic that it should be more like 70/30, and focusing on that usually helps. I should do it more though, so that I don't have to focus on it too much.

The follow-through is another good point he mentioned. He said that you shouldn't keep your fingers pointing down in your follow through, but to let them turn up. This also does wonders for nose down issues for me.

So the opposite of the driving pressure?

 

[JR]

Cliff notes: I speculate that with enough late acceleration of the arm a delayed beginning of the disc pivot would add snap, D and straighten the flight. In order to delay the disc pivot a rear heavy power grip is needed like Dave suggests. And that is a timing issue again one which i don't recall Dave touching. I speculate that the rear of the hand needs to tighten up from just tight enough to not drop the disc during the elbow chop at the latest you test it for yourselves. Rear heavy power grip is really unpracticed for me so i don't have solid experiences of it. That needs to be practiced to give a more meaningful results based analysis vs the everything loose until the finger pinch during in the thumb lock in the final stage of the disc pivot.

I'm not sure if Dave went into enough detail. I recall he gave those numbers for grip strength but i don't recall him specifying when to to use that power. Is it initially before the arm moves, right pec, at the onset of wrist extension, at the beginning of the disc pivot where? Dunno. Avery Jenkins has a different take. If both are going for maximum disc pivot then i imagine that the point of Dave is to have the stronger rear of the hand pressure delaying when the disc starts to pivot while not impeding the pivot with too much finger pinch strength until the disc has had an unopposed motion from the center of the palm to where only the tips of the thumb and index finger touch the disc. And quoting masterbeato then pinching like a mothe... This kind of approach would seem logical if one can't delay the separation of the disc from the palm until the last inches of the arm pull before the arm is straight pointing at the target.

A stronger player like Avery Jenkins maybe able to delay the beginning of the disc pivot better with the Jenkins grip. I can't say if Avery is right about his analysis of his way having less friction between the disc and his hand. It is correct if the disc doesn't rip out off the base of the thumb and pinky through middle fingers so violently that the shape of the disc and the centrifugal force (is this the appropriate term here?) rips the disc cleanly and frictionless off the initial placement in the hand. A big if. There is certainly a lot of force on the disc with pro power and the disc does rip off of the thumb and the index finger but is the base of the thumb plus pinky to middle finger rip as clean as well? And the biggest question is is there a time difference between AJ and power grip and rear heavy (har har) and front heavy (tee hee) power grip. Of course the hand and finger strength of the player needs to be on the high side for best results. Why one may ask? Newton. Sir Isaac Newton or rather the laws of nature that he managed to describe. You generate more force from the disc pivot if you get it to equally high speed and spin rate in a shorter amount of time.

This is purely speculative now please feel free to enlighten me. I'm going from the assumption that if a theoretical player had near inifinite amount of hand and finger strength the the body mass x speed vectors generated kinetic energy and acceleration and speed would be transferred to the disc efficiently. Unlike for most if not all real players. Mafa said that he calculated what distance an adult would need to move in order to launch a disc at 30 meters per second if all the motion of the body could be transferred to the disc with perfect efficiency. He didn't quote the numbers he used but the magnitude is illuminating enough if he was right. He said that it took only two inches of body movement transferred perfectly to the disc to get the disc flying at 30 m/s. If correct that alone proves that the throw is made during the final inches of the arm motion and hand and finger strengths are keys to achieving distance. With those bases one could imagine that an infinitely strong handed and fingered player could delay the onset of the disc pivot ridiculously late in the arm swing. Because there would seem to be a lot of excess power being generated to make the disc fly at well over 30 m/s it seems that there is indeed a lot of force in a disc breaking the base of thumb plus pinky to middle finger lock which initiates the disc pivot. So i think it is indeed possible to have a clean and _later_ rip with the rear heavy power grip that still allows a (at least relatively) friction free disc pivot. How much does one gain from the delay of onset of disc pivot and how much the possible friction actually is is beyond my capabilities to measure or predict accurately.

Newton said that if in our case there is plenty of excess power being generated for getting a disc to fly fast and that we could increase the force on the disc by having the disc pivot occur later yet possibly (i can't prove that it would really happen physicists help please) achieving the same speed=accelerating more. Then the generated force would be higher force F=mass m(unchanging in our case) times acceleration a. Acceleration being the rate of change at which the speed increases. That would be the disc pivot for this small portion of the throw that i'm speculating on. I'm sure i used the term generated power wrong from physics stand point sorry. I mean the amount of work that the moving thrower generated prior to the disc leaving the base of the palm and everything added to that until the disc rips out of the thumb lock

None of this has touched on anatomy which changes things considerably in practice if more tendon bounce and mobility and looser muscles until later in the throw can be achieved with a larger radius of the disc pivot. I have with a different grip. Disc wing to rim corner at the outermost joints of the index and middle fingers thumb at a very unintuitively rear placement on top of the disc. Not easing up nose down issues. Proper thumb placement and strength has wild variations in nose angle. Too much power too early and the nose rises high easily. I imagine that this grip won't delay the onset of disc pivot as long as the rear heavy grip but it has a larger arc to travel so it may equal things out or rather acting as a longer lever my arm plus a few cms of the fingers magnify the rotating motion of the torso with a little longer lever. Adding power and speed the throw. In practice it is longer technique than a loose power grip back and front initially thumb locked late in the disc pivot with 0/100% back to front pressure once the disc has ripped off of the pinky to middle fingers.

Did you guys visiting Dave's clinic outside Helsinki hear more about the reasons for and timing of the 70%/30% rear to front power grip? What exactly did Dave tell about the which fingers pointing to which direction at the follow through at which time? I think you got more info than we at Helsinki did. I have nose down issues so more info would help. When i get the discs flying front below rear the apex is so low that the disc dives forward without fading at great speed to the ground at 300-340' usually. Front to rear height equal at similar or slightly higher apexes go beyond 400' with best throws plus skips.

yeah at the clinic I went to he spent about 10 mins on driving and the rest about the push putt. which was a slight letdown to me considering that is the main reason i went. Jubuttib, what did he teach you guys at the clinic about driving?

The grip, of which the new part to me was that pinky to middle finger should have 70% of gripping power and 30% on index and thumb. He taught a run up which is better what I used to have. He mentioned wrist extension and such. Pretty much the same stuff people teach you here, reach back, pull tight and such.

I KNEW IT. All this time I've been trying to do like a 60/40 index&thumb to Pinky&Middle thinking I was ripping off the wrong fingers. I should have known better. Feldberg's breakdown of power % is just about exactly the grip weighting I've used since I learned about different grips. I think it was a big part of why I was able to learn to throw 400' much faster than the guys who introduced me to the sport.

Really? So the rip point on a drive is more in the back (middle to pinky) than the front (index and thumb)? This is contradictory to what I've always thought.

What helped me with nose down issues (when I remember to do it, which I often don't) was to focus on my grip pressure and what my fingers do in the follow-through. I have a bad habit of applying about 30%/70% F/R pressure on the disc when putting, which leads to a lot of nose down. Feldberg said in his clinic that it should be more like 70/30, and focusing on that usually helps. I should do it more though, so that I don't have to focus on it too much.

The follow-through is another good point he mentioned. He said that you shouldn't keep your fingers pointing down in your follow through, but to let them turn up. This also does wonders for nose down issues for me.

So the opposite of the driving pressure?

 

[uNicedmeMan1]

Hmmm, interesting food for thought. I'll stick with the fork grip for now as it gives me a much more consistent release than I could ever get with the power grip. This may come at a loss of power but o well, what good is power if you spray everything? And if Climo and MJ use a fork grips, it can't be that bad.

I was also working on putting last night and sucking pretty hard on 15-20' putts (like always). I decided to change my grip up a little bit and put the disc back in my hand so it butted up on my palm, this gave me a much more consistent release. Before trying that grip I would have the disc resting more in my finger tips which lead to some inconsistent releases.

Does anyone else putt with the heel of their hand on the disc?

 

[JR]

Sometimes i forget it and revert back to older grip. But yeah i do use the bottom of the palm to push the disc and it's increased my accuracy.

 

[whiz]

I definitely agree with JR that the disc should be against the palm of your hand when putting and you should push the disc off your palm. I would stress having grip pressure for a push putt 80% in the pinky, ring, middle fingers and 20% index. A clean push putt release is almost entirely dependent on how you spring the last three fingers off the disc (pinky, ring and middle).

 

[JR]

Pinky is at 80% of what? For push putting it probably ain't as big of a deal but for laser putters it's huge. 80% of the total grip strength means little to scores of a laser putter if the grip is so loose that the index finger (i use only the index under the flight plate all other fingers curled into a semi fist under the disc) slips off early and the disc misses low and left. So my percentage of grip strength _distribution_ is like 1 % rear and 99 % index finger while thumb and the index finger are the only ones with any tension forearm being as loose as possible. To maximize short acceleration and accelerating rate of acceleration. I imagine the index finger _grip strength_ to be around 40 % of maximum with the thumb at 20 % and the rest at 2-5%. Total strength is as important to throwing as distribution of that strength along front/back of the hand suiting the grip and throw you're making.

I live and die in putting with the short acceleration of the arm so if i'm tired my putting make rate drops dramatically along with distance. Unless i change form to gain more distance or jump putt. Make rates fall dramatically then anyway.

 

[whiz]

I guess I can be corrected by someone with more knowledge but what I have picked up from Dave Feldberg's description of the push putt is that the index finger should not be controlling the release and you should definitely not be trying to get a pivot around the index/thumb pinch on a putt of this type. I think springing all of the fingers off at the same time is key and have been told by pros who use this style that the index finger should not be touching the flight plate. If that is the case then the pop created by the finger spring should be generated by the pinky, ring and middle fingers combined with the thumb all springing off together. I do not spin putt unless I am outside normal jump putting range and do not consider that style/technique to be at all similar to what is needed in a push putt. I believe that Blake advocates having the pinky against the rim of the disc which I have not had success with. I find a better/more consistent release is obtained with a fan grip with all fingers other than the index touching the flight plate but not the rim of the disc.