RHBH 300 Ft Max

[Brychanus]

I'm a fellow long time weightlifter with struggles. Keep in mind that the dynamic posture for many lifts (even if you were/are doing them ideally, which many of us don't) are good at bearing load in some movement directions that aren't as good for ejecting/swinging the disc or something heavy out and away from you. Using that Cobra posture idea to bear the load to throw has turned out to be a more formidable problem than I thought - can take time to change something so fundamental.

I still see shades of the posture/ball kick issues from before, and the spine is maybe a little better but in a similar pattern. Swing is still fairly flat in terms of the path/parts of body relative to each other.

I would be working on that rear foot and getting leveraged off of it like the Ball Kick correction SW mentioned (maybe Hershyzer too) + the posture tweaks. You might try throwing right out of the ball kick drill (like SW's Double Dragon) as well to get used to the feeling of your CoG swinging forward ahead/under you to power the swing. It feels totally different and changes your whole approach to generating power from purely muscular to gravity/posture-based.

 

[sidewinder22]

You are trying to throw from immoveable horsestance/power stance(power of posture) with both heels flat on ground simultaneously, feels powerful, but is not athletic/quick/efficient.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxnhM5amro0#t=1m14s

 

[DWhitt]

So should I consciously make sure to get my left heel up before fully crushing the can?

 

[bryantlikes]

So should I consciously make sure to get my left heel up before fully crushing the can?

Just to chime in here, I'd say that your left heel NOT going up is a symptom that means you're in the power stance (which is what you don't want). If you're in the stance that SW22 is demonstrating you won't have to even think about your left heel, it will go up on its own. Just try crushing the can from a wide stance and then keep going more and more narrow (repeating the drill) and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Brychanus]

So should I consciously make sure to get my left heel up before fully crushing the can?

Do the drill Pratt shows in the video. I did not fix the big parts of the horse stance until I did that a ton, then did more of it in the context of the Ride the Bull drill. I also had issues with the pelvis and spine (weightlifting) that made it harder to get into DG posture. The way your head balances over the feet is very different and hard to get without a lot of repetition.

 

[DWhitt]

No rain today, so I got to do some more field work!
I tried only focusing on 3 things: getting my feet more parallel, keeping my posture more upright, and keeping my back more rounded.
https://youtu.be/hNG68E2RocE

 

[Brychanus]

It's really easy to get in a "positional" frame of mind and miss the idea that even though we talk alot about posture here, it's for the sake of getting you moving.

To that end, not sure upright is the goal here. Or at least it's not beating the stance issue. Need to do the Pratt drill and learn to beat the stance.

You still have everything squeezed in between the feet in a power/horse stance. High effort for low rewards.

Notice how your rear heel stays glued and "peels" off in response to the swing rather than deweighting abruptly to swing in under you.



Notice how Eagle's weight is collected forward with the rear heel way off the ground (don't try to force it - beat the horse stance). It's because he is not using the horse stance:

 

[DWhitt]

I'm confused about how to keep my weight on the back foot until I suddenly shift.
Pratt shifts his hip left and head right while McBeth is keeping his hip right and head left (See attached).

 

[DWhitt]

In my field work yesterday, I was trying to follow the "Power of Posture" video by torqueing as hard as I could around that back leg to keep my weight there. It put me into a position closer to the McBeth image than the Pratt image in terms of body position.
It also forced me to turn my plant leg really far away from the target, which seems like it could slow the whole thing down even though it's more hip action.
I tried shortening my plant step as suggested, and I think that added significantly to me facing backwards when my toe hit. Should I try to resist the turn more by turning in my left knee or something? Full torque into pushing off is rotating me awkwardly.

 

[Brychanus]

I'm confused about how to keep my weight on the back foot until I suddenly shift.
Pratt shifts his hip left and head right while McBeth is keeping his hip right and head left (See attached).

Good questions. But did you do the drill? Post it.

The Pratt drill is about defeating the power stance. Ignore the other things until you get it. Then you need to find that stance in your DG swing and posture.

You're almost certainly still in the power stance in that single frame. Once you get your body to defeat the power stance reliably, Pratt and you should be able to turn their head toward the target or away from the target and still find the correct head pendulum like Paul. That's why golf and dance and disc golf all produce dynamically stable, fast, effortless swings despite other differences in posture. It's about the balance from the top of the head to the foot in the context of the rest of the stance. Based on what I see around here most people don't get it without isolating and drilling it (including me).

The Ride the Bull drill is also excellent for the shift, but I guarantee it won't work in the power stance

 

[DWhitt]

Here's my understanding of what Pratt was doing. Let me know if I should change it; it feels like a yoga pose!
https://youtu.be/2O2R7X0fzKk

 

[Brychanus]

Here's my understanding of what Pratt was doing. Let me know if I should change it; it feels like a yoga pose!
https://youtu.be/2O2R7X0fzKk

I promise the main sources of power will feel more like a yoga pose than a barbell lift for sure just like a golf swing. Everyone's path is different but figuring out how to beat the power stance is a victory you want.

Make sure you get your whole body in the shot; where the feet are matters. But based on that video here's what I see with an educated guess about where your supporting foot is. I think you are still hiding part of a power stance in there.

1. your knees are both cheating back and trying to counterbalance you. You might have the pressure in your supporting foot too near the instep. You want to feel like you're balanced more toward the outstep.

2. See how your rear/unsupporting knee is hanging right under your head rather than collected forward/toward the target.

3. Your pelvis I think is still pointing away from the target whereas Pratt's is more toward the target. Watch for this action as SW moves both directions here. He's getting everything inside that front leg when he plants, but like Pratt his posture is all aggressively swinging toward the target, whereas yours is biased back and leaning away trying to keep you in balance. This is the real source of effortless power when you land in the plant.

4. relax your shoulders and let them protract/hang forward a little more.

Don't worry too much about copying the posture/still frame - we want you moving back and forth relaxed and fluid ultimately.

I see you've got a golf club there, you might also try these drills. You want to get everything swinging nice and easy back and forth with your weight shifting.
https://youtu.be/7IFO7J3AV5Y?t=24

 

[DWhitt]

I think I'm starting to feel what you've been getting at with this drill. If it's not helping my disc golf form, at least I'm getting a hell of a hip/glute stretch. Feels great!
While I'm drilling this with your advice, I'm watching the linked SW videos and the Mcbeth throw. As I contemplate merging the drills into an applicable throwing pattern, it feels a bit like I'm trying to sneak sideways under a limbo bar with only one step.
Is that a helpful queue or am I getting off base?

 

[Brychanus]

I think I'm starting to feel what you've been getting at with this drill. If it's not helping my disc golf form, at least I'm getting a hell of a hip/glute stretch. Feels great!
While I'm drilling this with your advice, I'm watching the linked SW videos and the Mcbeth throw. As I contemplate merging the drills into an applicable throwing pattern, it feels a bit like I'm trying to sneak sideways under a limbo bar with only one step.
Is that a helpful queue or am I getting off base?

Yeah - I've had many serious flexibility/some strength limitations in the hips glutes & hamstrings that get better with some changes in my workout routine and just by doing drills regularly. Part of progress is just getting those parts of the body flexible enough so that they don't get in the way of the preferred postures and moves. The big throwers are all enjoying very loose flexible movement. In hindsight (and still sometimes now), the biggest barriers to my progress were often not letting new strength and flexibility build up in the right places. Or overdoing it too much too early, and then reverting to bad habits when the body retreats to familiar terrain due to aches/stiffness etc.

On limbo: My favorite movement analogy is that it's more like swinging something heavy like a medicine ball or battering ram or shoveling snow and marching it forward through an x-step, but with a one-arm swing (the one arm part makes it especially challenging to learn IMO). If you think about a limbo bar it's a little like sneaking sideways under the limbo bar, but making sure that you're doing it like moving in a snow shoveling posture.

 

[sidewinder22]

I think I'm starting to feel what you've been getting at with this drill. If it's not helping my disc golf form, at least I'm getting a hell of a hip/glute stretch. Feels great!
While I'm drilling this with your advice, I'm watching the linked SW videos and the Mcbeth throw. As I contemplate merging the drills into an applicable throwing pattern, it feels a bit like I'm trying to sneak sideways under a limbo bar with only one step.
Is that a helpful queue or am I getting off base?

Kind of like the Slip Rope...

Man, you extend your spine/hump the goat, so much going into the throw. You thrust your hips so hard your shoulders go behind your hips so you are leaning way back/limbo, instead of being in a shoulders ahead of hips athletic cobra posture position/shoveling/battering ram/lumberjack. You want to get lower during the transition into the throw, not taller or doing the limbo.

 

[azplaya25]

Pratt drill makes more sense and feels less like a yoga pose if you combine it with the wall push

 

[DWhitt]

I'm getting more feel for the weightshift and balance, but I think I'm still opening up my lower body early and using my torso for most of the power.
Will trying to maintain the exact mid/lower body angle I achieve from the X step until it's literally impossible help to keep me from releasing my torque prematurely? Or am I missing a queue between the X step and full right heel plant?

 

[Brychanus]

I drilled this little move (in golf posture) literally 1000s of times to help codify the "shift from behind," or staying closed at the hips into you plant to swing. This whole video is in my top 10 faves for DG because it's all applicable to your 1-arm backhand.
https://youtu.be/0CSHqnYNijw?t=100

The other part is the transition off the rear leg. If you can't do that well it will often tend to drive the leading hip open early. I also had a lot of trouble with moving off the rear side to "shift from behind" and had to do various drills (hershyzer, sideways running with the booty "preset", battering ram and now kettlebell/medicine ball/hammer swings and tosses). IMO for upper body musclers its worth the effort to get gravity and your legs working for rather than against you as soon as possible.

I'd worry a little about trying to force or maintain an exact angle because overall you want the body to be moving freely and flowing into the plant closed to the target. It's a flow of torque building in the backswing and releasing in the swing, so trying to force positions or sequences can lead to freezing up or missing narrow timing windows. Focusing on slowing it down but still flowing Clement or Seabas style usually means that you can uptempo it with more control overall.

 

[DWhitt]

I stumbled upon your Ace It videos on youtube. You should be linking the series all the time because it's so concise and curbs the sidetracking topics/myths! I wish I had found it sooner.
Hopefully I can make the changes to use more ground force and get some footage with actual progress.

 

[Brychanus]

I stumbled upon your Ace It videos on youtube. You should be linking the series all the time because it's so concise and curbs the sidetracking topics/myths! I wish I had found it sooner.
Hopefully I can make the changes to use more ground force and get some footage with actual progress.

Thanks, you're too kind - always giving credit where it is due:

Almost 100% percent of that is attributable to Seabas/DGCR content. SW/seabas made his drills as supplements to chatter on DGCR, so I wanted to take what I learn and make it more linear as a "backbone" guide and people can move between the sources as needed.

Part of why I don't share it too much around here is that seabas almost universally moves better than me in his videos than my current videos. I don't like contributing examples of bad movement. At this point I'm pretty self-conscious about some of my poor movements in that series and considering remaking some of the core videos now that I'm able to move better overall. Your positive feedback is encouraging me to give it a shot. I'm never sure when my movement will be "good enough" but I might just suck it up and do it this spring/summer if my form is serviceable.