Slow In/Fast Out??

[Cruz Duck]

In various posts, I have read slow in/fast out or accelerate from the right pec. I think I misunderstood these tips. This seems like a stupid question and is probably obvious to everyone else, but I need to ask anyway.

I have always thought that it means that you want to bring the disc relatively slowly to the right pec area and then accelerate through the release. To achieve this I purposely kept a slow hip and shoulder turn and then tried to accelerate the arm pull from the right pec area. Recently, I have quickened my hip and shoulder turns and it has added some nice distance.

I am beginning to think that slow in/fast out talks about arm effort more than arm speed. In other words, you should turn your hips and shoulders quickly and still keep smooth. Your hips and shoulders get the arm moving as quickly as possible with little arm effort until you reach the right pec area. Then apply as much arm effort as possible from the right pec through the release.

So, what does slow in/fast out mean?

 

[Lithicon]

With a once over, seems you have the concept pretty well figured out. Basically don't use your arm to pull the disc into the pec. Body positioning does this for you, use the arm to pull the disc out of the pec, assisted by body positioning.

*Edit* What people mean by "Slow in, fast out." Is that you simply want the disc moving at a higher rate of speed from the pec out, than it was going into the pec. Because if it comes in faster than it goes out, well it's pretty simple, you wasted potential energy.

 

[MasterP97]

This makes more sense now, thank you for the clarification on that.

 

[JR]

Slow in applies also to the legs and hips plus shoulders. Basically for a controlled shot you would do well in going moderately from the reach back until the disc is at the right pec and from there go full tilt starting with the legs then hips shoulders and the elbow straightening. The leg to arm motion should be one fluid transition done so fast that it starts and is over about as fast as you can clap your hands twice. Optimally nobody is that fast in real life. So chest 180 degrees away from the target to chest 90 left of the target is mellow increasing speed slightly toward the 90 degree position where the disc comes to the right pec. From 90 to chest toward the target the motion needs to be explosive.

For absolute maximum distance you need to start faster from the left pec area and start the leg,hip,shoulder and arm a little more quicker and earlier accelerating. You need to master both control and distance shots for best scores on the course. Controlled shots are way way easier to learn.

 

[Blake_T1]

relaxed in, strong out is probably a better way of wording it.

people usually put way too much emphasis on arm speed and shoulder rotation speed. the result is that their disc speed peaks like 2' or more before the hit.

if you compare it to other sports, it makes more sense.

looking at a golf or baseball swing gives decent comparisons, but each of these are very different.

with a baseball swing you have reaching the point of contact and then the drive of the ball. you are relaxed until the point of contact and then strong as you hit the ball (and propel the ball with the bat by breaking your wrists and extending your elbows). for a powerful hit, your bat speed (assuming you hit the ball) should be highest near the time the ball leaves the bat.

golf is a bit different, since the point of contact and the drive are technically the same, but quite a bit different than a baseball swing. the golf equivalent to baseball "point of contact" is basically when the end of the handle of the club reaches its lowest point before the wrists have broken (it will stay at or near this level through the drive) and the "drive" portion happens upon contact with the ball. in golf you break your wrists to bring the club head into the ball. in a golf swing the peak club speed should happen at impact.

what slow in/fast out refers to is that you don't want your arm/disc speed to peak before you reach the "drive" portion of a disc golf throw. the hammer drill basically gets you to the point of contact. the "out motion" is the drive. the disc/arm speed shouldn't peak until just as the disc is leaving, which ideally happens like 18" beyond the right edge of your body.

when people have too much arm speed going in it's the equivalent to peaking in speed before the point of contact in baseball or before the point of impact in golf.

 

[JoshEpoo]

I've found the comparisons to other athletic motions useful. There is a lot of in depth analysis of big money making sports like golf and baseball and to a lesser extent martial arts. If you're not familiar with what Blake is talking about, there are a lot of good youtube videos. Taking some time to learn about the physiology of the throw is helpful as well. Plyometrics can help.

When you hear, "get the disc up to the right pec before accelerating", it means get it up there, with the lead elbow nice and relaxed so, when you throw your weigh into the shot and explode open with the hips and shoulders, the elbow will sling open super fast with minimal effort from the arm muscles (indeed the arm muscles can't even move the arm this fast, people who don't take advantage of this principle are the so-called "strong armers"). Then at the split second where your wrist breaks you clamp down and extend the wrist forcefully just a little bit. That's when the muscle tug happens and everything stretches out in the arm and chest.

The goal is to trigger the sling of the forearm with the rotation of your hips/core and the weight shift. That's really where most "arm speed" comes from. Then snap comes from having a loose wrist, a good grip on the disc, and good timing when you put that final burst of explosive power from clamping down and extending all the way through the hit. When you see pros taking warm up swings on the tee pads, they are often calibrating the sling with hip rotation and weight shift.

 

[JR]

I would say tremendous pinching. I just filmed myself with a Wizard with a two finger grip and got a bad slip. No pivot of the disc around the index finger and thumb. I loaned a weighted disc and had slips so bad that i felt them with two fingers. Four fingers got the disc out of the palm but not really pivoting around the fingers. Unfortunately i have the same exact problem when running with a normal disc. I only get the disc pivot if i start slow enough. Meaning very slow steps. Even though i have had my best distances with two finger grip probably thanks to muscle looseness and tendon flexibility i must retest and film my four finger power grips once i get traction outside. Before that i will try to analyze myself indoors without real distance from video only with varying grip strengths from different fingers. My grip is clearly insufficiently powerful so it's more practice time for me along with the return to practicing power grips.

The funny thing about fast out is that when you do it is feels so effortless. Unlike your shorter gritted teeth throws.

 

[masterbeato]

"With a baseball swing you have reaching the point of contact and then the drive of the ball." ~Blake_T
................................................ "IN" MOTION ..............................."OUT" MOTION

 

[JR]

"With a baseball swing you have reaching the point of contact and then the drive of the ball." ~Blake_T
................................................ "IN" MOTION ..............................."OUT" MOTION

In yet other words 1. wrist set up for the snap 2. wrist snapping the hand to the right

 

[Cruz Duck]

Thanks for the comments. Lots of good info. I find that I learn things best if I restate what I think the answer is, then someone can tell me if I am right or wrong. So here is what I think I have heard.

I was most interested in learning how fast my arm should be going at the "slow in" phase. Now I think that it is the wrong question. I should be concentrating more on being relaxed at the "slow in" phase. Use my hips and shoulders to get my arm moving towards the "slow in" phase. Don't try to accelerate the hip/shoulder turn. Don't try to slow the hip/shoulder turn. But use a smooth, relaxed hip/shoulder turn to get to the "slow in" phase. Did I get this right?

Going a little farther out on a limb. If I try to speed up or slow down my hip/shoulder turn, then I am not really relaxed or smooth. Furthermore, if I try to speed up the hip/shoulder turn, then the acceleration will peak before the release.

How did I do?

Once again, thanks everyone for your comments

 

[JR]

My previous post was a bit crypric. That would be the second level of out motion. The first one is accelerating the legs, hips, shoulders and arm from the right pec position. Before that your analysis is good cruz duck. When your acceleration peaks out depends on your muscles and nerves. The faster and stronger you are the earlier you can start to accelerate and the higher the speed you have barring slipped throws. The optimum acceleration point varies so you need to try different acceleration points and see which gives you the longest flights. The muscles and nerves change with practice so the longest throw acceleration point may change over time. That is why you should test yourself at least once a year.

 

[Monocacy]

There is a short video of Frank D driving that illustrates slow in / fast out very clearly. I am video-challenged, can someone embed?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLC36PYcqeI

This video helped me identify and fix a persistent flaw in my throw (pulling too early). Changing my drive usually throws everything off, but surprisingly I was able to incorporate a later pull without losing much if any accuracy (and at my distance, accuracy is essential).

When I got the timing right, drives did feel effortless. I hope this means that I am heading in the right direction, although I still need to improve other aspects of my throw.

Frank D, d'ya have any more videos you would like to post?

 

[Cruz Duck]

Thanks JR. Again, I will try to put it in my own words to ensure that I understand it.

If I am reading you correctly, you are saying that my description was right up to the point of acceleration. I have always assumed that the point of acceleration is in the right pec area. However, you are saying that the point of acceleration changes by person and by time. In other words, every person's point of acceleration is different and it can change over time. Thus people may want to experiment with their point of acceleration from time to time. Right?

 

[JoshEpoo]

The right pec is the area you start to accelerate your forearm. But you accelerate the disc through it's final phase with the wrist.

The the wrist is very important. It takes advantage of the length of your arm the most and gives you the most bang for your buck. Even a relatively weak pull from the pec with a strong snap of the wrist will cruise and glide for a long time. But the opposite is not true. If you pull really hard from your pec, but have a really tight grip on the disc the whole time and a flexed wrist, you get very little snap, i.e. you don't drive through the point of contact, you will not have good spin on the throw or much power.

I kind of visualize my reach back and throw as a colored line where the intensity of the color represents the power on the disc. It's basically white at the back of my reach back and stays almost colorless, a bit creeping in but hardly visible (this is from bringing my elbow forward to get the disc up to the power zone), until it gets up on or in front of my body's midline. At that point the color gets more intense rapidly (from my forearm whipping out) until it gets up to the point where I want my wrist to be before it opens and extends . At that point the color get's so intense so rapidly that it's so bright you can't look at it or so dark you can't see through it. If the way I visualize the line matches up with the way my body feels when I throw it, I know it's a good shot. Some mathy graphs of rate change helped me understand too.

 

[MasterP97]

I've found the comparisons to other athletic motions useful. There is a lot of in depth analysis of big money making sports like golf and baseball and to a lesser extent martial arts. If you're not familiar with what Blake is talking about, there are a lot of good youtube videos. Taking some time to learn about the physiology of the throw is helpful as well. Plyometrics can help.

When you hear, "get the disc up to the right pec before accelerating", it means get it up there, with the lead elbow nice and relaxed so, when you throw your weigh into the shot and explode open with the hips and shoulders, the elbow will sling open super fast with minimal effort from the arm muscles (indeed the arm muscles can't even move the arm this fast, people who don't take advantage of this principle are the so-called "strong armers"). Then at the split second where your wrist breaks you clamp down and extend the wrist forcefully just a little bit. That's when the muscle tug happens and everything stretches out in the arm and chest.

The goal is to trigger the sling of the forearm with the rotation of your hips/core and the weight shift. That's really where most "arm speed" comes from. Then snap comes from having a loose wrist, a good grip on the disc, and good timing when you put that final burst of explosive power from clamping down and extending all the way through the hit. When you see pros taking warm up swings on the tee pads, they are often calibrating the sling with hip rotation and weight shift.

I think you just made something click CP....I can't wait to all this GD snow melts so I can work on my drives more. I know I'm going to get another jump in distance this year.

 

[JR]

Thanks JR. Again, I will try to put it in my own words to ensure that I understand it.

If I am reading you correctly, you are saying that my description was right up to the point of acceleration. I have always assumed that the point of acceleration is in the right pec area. However, you are saying that the point of acceleration changes by person and by time. In other words, every person's point of acceleration is different and it can change over time. Thus people may want to experiment with their point of acceleration from time to time. Right?

Right. In FGCU clinic Climo shows a way later acceleration point than the right pec. Check it out on Youtube. There are a couple of FGCU clinics up there and both are must sees. A couple of local big arms swear by left pec acceleration being longer for them so ymmv. For the record those guys are way more muscular than most players. I think that you must have more power and nervous system speed than most to have an acceleration point that early.

 

[Blake_T1]

something to keep in mind is that it's easier to train the arm/wrist to behave on its own before trying to incorporate any larger motions.

that's why i try to isolate snap down to its bare components (e.g. hammer drills and some of the out motion work i've been going through).

bad footwork/hips can f this up.
bad shoulder rotation due to bad footwork/hips can f this up.

learn to do the arm correctly then re-develop leg work that makes the arm happen correctly.

the key is to draw from other sports/actions in order to develop the feel for the physics.

tennis/raquet ball - in motion = reaching the point of contact. out motion = when you try to launch the ball off the racket head with force and spin.

bowling - in motion = approaching the release point (beyond the bottom of the pendulum). out motion = when you snap the ball off your fingers and apply spin with the forearm.

hockey - a wrist shot is basically pure snap. for a slap shot the in motion is when the stick makes contact with the ice (and bends), out motion = the forward motion of the stick beyond that point.

there's tons and tons of things you've probably done that carry the same type of physics with it.

i mean, hell, even sawing a 2x4 in half with a hand-saw uses the same physics principles.

 

[JoshEpoo]

something to keep in mind is that it's easier to train the arm/wrist to behave on its own before trying to incorporate any larger motions.

that's why i try to isolate snap down to its bare components (e.g. hammer drills and some of the out motion work i've been going through).

bad footwork/hips can f this up.
bad shoulder rotation due to bad footwork/hips can f this up.

I know you've said it a million times but I'll testify. The feel is very important, particularly in the wrist. The problem I had, and see others have, with the ubiquitous right pec drill is that they are focused on the distance they get right away instead of developing the feel first. A lot of people try to force the disc out even harder than they would on a normal shot and have really poor results and just give up.

In order to develop the feel I had to get my forearm moving just a little bit with my shoulders (like Dan does in the video) so that I wouldn't try to force the disc out with my triceps and biceps right at the beginning of the out motion. When I flexed those muscles hard at the start of the out motion, the results were very poor indeed.

 

[josser]

I have been concentrating on snap for power levels in the 125' to 150' range. This only requires the slightest reachback and works from a standstill so I can focus on the proper arm positions, wrist extension and timing without other stuff getting in the way. I'm still having trouble getting the timing to work when I increase my power but I definately finally have the feel for a disc shooting out of my hand way faster than if it was powered just by arm speed.