Tech disc test driven development

[Brychanus]

So far I'm not yet seeing anything that refutes the hand/thumb arc + ground force/hip hypothesis (I guess we could call it the Hip-Grip Hypothesis lmao).

Sidewinder's vertical/straight in the air test also maybe suggests that the arc/plane of the arm motion relative to the hips and legs resisting the ground creates a form of control system for nose angle that is trainable.

Since @sidewinder22 's form is pretty centrifugal-vertical and he has very good posture control, I kind of wonder what will happen if you compare a 2x2 grid (if safe) like:

1. Feldy pendulum + try to fully pronate like your test here
2. Feldy pendulum + allow supination
3. Low backswing (Buhr/Aderhold) + try to fully pronate
4. Low backswing (Buhr/Aderhold) + allow supination

 

[Brychanus]

Testing Jake Hebenheimer style "precoiling". Didn't reduce power but more harder to run up with more pace with it, especially on the left step.

View attachment 337817
View attachment 337818

Any subjective body impressions from the two? Evidence of pain/jerks etc.? Anywhere in the chain more emphasized? Wouldn't generalize from it, just curious.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Just did a second quick test with TD in my dungeon, still a little sick and didn't video, but I am able to at least semi-consistently get nose down hyzers with pronation all the way to finish. I'm starting super supinated like Eliezra and pronating thru(at least that is the feel). So I'm thinking it to be like I had originally thought and that is not the action of rolling the arm one way or the other or last point of contact/precession that affects the nose angle, but has more to due with the position/orientation at the moment of release. I can also do the opposite starting pronated and supinating and end up with nose up.

Just tossing the disc straight up in the air and rolling the arm either way has about zero consistency of nose angle and didn't matter if the thumb was on the disc or not.

I do find it very challenging to maintain focus on changing a single variable while throwing. I'm sure my tiny air mattress target/net doesn't help either.

Pronated finish:
View attachment 338101

Wow, that's super interesting. Maybe like me you naturally adjust your swing plane to match the disc plane so while it's pronated your arm adjusts to swing aligned with the rim (negating nose up from pronation). However it's much more likely of course to be throwing anhyzer if doing that with pronation but it's also possible to extra hyzer lean to still get hyzer, but you'd probably know if you did that since it feels like a mismatch.

Yeah it's so tough to change a single thing. That's why I was doing so many tests with a 1 leg standstill all weight on front leg and no rocking weight transfer on ~20 deg hyzer lean, I felt like it was easiest to hold more stuff constant that way but I feel stuck on a vertical axis if I do that.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Any subjective body impressions from the two? Evidence of pain/jerks etc.? Anywhere in the chain more emphasized? Wouldn't generalize from it, just curious.

What do you mean from "the two"? Impressions of seeing the two forms (Connor & Jake) or impressions of how it felt to try precoiling?

I just watched this tee shot side by side frame by frame (duplicated the video in two windows). In frame by frame Jake's doesn't look Jerky, just more explosive / faster and with more effort. Explosiveness can easily look jerky though in real time since it's a sudden acceleration, but of course slow motion makes things look smoother even if they aren't, I guess.

I noticed before that Jake's off-elbow is kept close and when it moves away it doesn't get move that much away from the body, but I just noticed for the first time now that after precoiling and during the runup he actually puts the off-hand on his thigh too! This is basically exactly what I envisioned my testing of the off-hand-holding-thigh to turn into after I build up the muscle memory with it then let it become more natural--it moves around a little bit naturally for balance but stays really close.

The biggest differences I see other than the precoiling are

1:50

1. Pump differences and initial off-arm positioning
   1. Jake keeps off-arm close, Connor holds off-arm on disc with disc further out from chest.
   2. Connor kinda pumps away from chest while Jake looks like he pumps with a little more forward / subtle upwards rock and of course the arm is already in more of a power pocket position.
   3. Both pump kinda early, before the X / during the X it seems.
2. Jake looks a bit more crouched. Kinda funny the first time I saw his form I kinda imagined him as a animal on the hunt, lol. Something about the precoiling + crouching + hyzer bending looks like he might be about go onto all-fours and chase down his prey
3. Mid runup off-arm positioning differences are still there during X step
4. Jake maintains a bit more downward reachback while Connor's looks like it levitates up a bit more
5. Jake has an extra-closed brace
6. Jake looks like he has quite a bit more sidebend coming into the brace and just looks a bit more coiled overall, also with more upper body targetward lean. In this position I've often had the thought that it looks like Jake might be about to break down a door by slamming his upper back into it if he wasn't doesn't brace.
7. Connor brings the off-arm in with a more rotational look to it, keeping the off-elbow bent whereas Jake looks to be explosively punching down the off-arm
   1. I would not be surprised if Jake actually does think about forcibly punching down the off-arm since it seems in-line with other high-effort views he has (bracing HARD, gripping HARD)
   2. It looks to me like the extra side-bend + the more aggressive off-arm helps explode into the power pocket with more acceleration and bring the back leg off the ground quickly
8. Bad example of Jake's follow through because I think after he pivoted on the brace the toes were off the front of the tee so he had to dynamically adjust and rotate on the side of the brace foot.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Preemptively close off-arm maintained test:

It seemed to give me more frequent access to my highest speeds, including matching my previous max speed but with a walk up instead of during a runup which I only hit once before and it's been a while since.

There's some cool tech disc simulator stuff in this vid and playing with some of the throw stats to see how the full-flight could've been optimized.

It feels like this is an easy way to develop close-off arm muscle memory virtually for free so that later on after the muscle memory is deeply ingrained you can ease up on forcing it close and it will want to stay close like you see with many pros where the off arm and elbow are already close before the brace has touched the ground.

I played a full round with this preemptively close off arm, including all approach shots, and it felt good, I didn't notice any downsides, another upside was never being tempted to think about my off-arm timing.







Had I done more throws with my normal form I think the average speed might've gone down a bit since I would've accumulated some lower 60's throws as well without enough higher 60's to keep the avg up.

 

[Brychanus]

impressions of how it felt to try precoiling?

This!

 

[disc-golf-neil]

This!

I didn't feel any increase risk of injury or jerkiness but it felt like I was getting a deeper coil and had some increased soreness in the lower right area of my back, not sure which muscles. I don't took this mostly as indicative of getting more coiling than I was used to and using the muscles there more than I was used to rather than it being a bad thing (unless you go too hard too soon when you aren't conditioned enough).

I think I might've been able to get a deeper coil because when I wait to coil until the normal time, as I come out of the X step, I rotate-coil faster to try to finish the coil in a shorter period of time and then my body natural tightens to slow down that rotational coil momentum so it doesn't bottom out too forcefully (hitting the end of the ROM with too much momentum). Whereas when I precoil, I have more time to do the remaining coiling and therefore can stretch into it more deeply.

The downsides as I in the vid were just that it's makes the footwork more challenging than it already to be even more turned away and harder to keep an eye on the target, and this difficulty increases when running up more, but if my runup style was more like longer faster strides instead of a crow hop I think it wouldn't be as much of a difficulty increase for the runup.

I didn't feel an increase in jerkiness but one could definitely accidentally jerk into the precoil like if I had noticed in the footage I wasn't getting as much precoiling as I thought and tried to exaggerate it I could've definitely ended up jerking into more precoiling, but I don't think there's a huge risk of doing way too much of that since you aren't close to throwing yet so there isn't much temptation to go really hard.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Just did a second quick test with TD in my dungeon, still a little sick and didn't video, but I am able to at least semi-consistently get nose down hyzers with pronation all the way to finish. I'm starting super supinated like Eliezra and pronating thru(at least that is the feel). So I'm thinking it to be like I had originally thought and that is not the action of rolling the arm one way or the other or last point of contact/precession that affects the nose angle, but has more to due with the position/orientation at the moment of release. I can also do the opposite starting pronated and supinating and end up with nose up.

Just tossing the disc straight up in the air and rolling the arm either way has about zero consistency of nose angle and didn't matter if the thumb was on the disc or not.

I do find it very challenging to maintain focus on changing a single variable while throwing. I'm sure my tiny air mattress target/net doesn't help either.

Pronated finish:
View attachment 338101

I'd be interested to see your results if you throw 45-50mph mph starting in a lot of pronation, maintain the pronation into the power pocket, then focus on supinating on the way out of the power pocket.

When I do this I get ridiculous nose down numbers pretty easily and reliably and immediately on the first time I actually feel like I've done it, which is why I suggested 45-50 mph because it's much easier to do it and verify you've done it at a lower speed (~65-70% effort).

The only way I can imagine getting nose up this way is if you finish the supination too soon before release and then swoop up before the release.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Tested presetting the throwing arm elbow's more extended kinda like Jeremy Koling (but I didn't hold the disc as low)


The results were unremarkable. So far it seems like I can change a lot of stuff without it having a big impact as long as it doesn't mess up something fundamental like causing rounding or swooping. The only big surprise so far was a handful of throws at my max runup speed but during a walkup during the preset off-arm close test.

 

[Nick Carroll]

So far it seems like I can change a lot of stuff without it having a big impact as long as it doesn't mess up something fundamental like causing rounding or swooping.

Yeah I think that speaks to the value of getting the fundamentals right. From there, there seems to be a lot of leeway people can do that are individualistic to them. Everyone should get those fundamentals down and then tweak the minutia from there to make the throws more effective.

 

[itlnstln]

Tested presetting the throwing arm elbow's more extended kinda like Jeremy Koling (but I didn't hold the disc as low)
View attachment 338465

The results were unremarkable. So far it seems like I can change a lot of stuff without it having a big impact as long as it doesn't mess up something fundamental like causing rounding or swooping. The only big surprise so far was a handful of throws at my max runup speed but during a walkup during the preset off-arm close test.

View attachment 338466

Not terribly surprised at the results. I personally don't think there's a ton in the setup and backswing that will influence the throw all things being equal. The business end of the shot is really the power pocket and out. Everything up to that is to get the thrower setup to get to the power pocket and sling out and how that is most efficient can vary by person. There's some momentum from the run up and coiling things that will help with speed and distance, to be sure. If your "out" motion is solid, it probably doesn't matter much whether you're a bent elbow thrower, pre-extended, pre-coiled, etc.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Yeah I think that speaks to the value of getting the fundamentals right. From there, there seems to be a lot of leeway people can do that are individualistic to them. Everyone should get those fundamentals down and then tweak the minutia from there to make the throws more effective.

Yeah, probably true for most cases. Although I tested a lot of different things from the start but I was probably able to get away with more of that from having more of a sports background. I always maintained a "normal form" but was constantly testing different things because I didn't want to fully commit my muscle memory to my normal form too deeply really quickly before seeing if there were some potential big improvements to be had from something I hadn't tried yet that was relatively simple to try. Also, since I got used to trying a lot of different things from the start, I think that's helped me be able to change things more easily now since it's become more of a normal experience / process. I definitely miss the mark on some of these tests for what I'm trying to change but I'm only doing a handful of warmup throws trying it for the first time and then filming so not much practice.

 

[sidewinder22]

Threw the TD some with Sewerbill Sat night after playing first round and building a new teepad (may have been intoxicated). Sewerbill can throw about 500' LHBH, generally throwing 50-100' further than me. He maxed at 65mph and I maxed at 61mph.

My initial prediction that I'd have higher spin rate than Sewerbill was correct. In general my spin rate and ratio is slightly higher and I have more nose down at release. He never got below -1 nose. I was again able to consistently throw nose down pronating thru up to -6.

We both laughed at some of the distance predictions and wing angles and have a hard time believing some of them.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Threw the TD some with Sewerbill Sat night after playing first round and building a new teepad (may have been intoxicated). Sewerbill can throw about 500' LHBH, generally throwing 50-100' further than me. He maxed at 65mph and I maxed at 61mph.

My initial prediction that I'd have higher spin rate than Sewerbill was correct. In general my spin rate and ratio is slightly higher and I have more nose down at release. He never got below -1 nose. I was again able to consistently throw nose down pronating thru up to -6.

We both laughed at some of the distance predictions and wing angles and have a hard time believing some of them.

The distance predictions are based on some default flight numbers that you can change in the sim to get a prediction that matches the stability of disc you would normally use for the angles you are throwing.

E.g., my default flight numbers are more stable than a destroyer, it's like 0 turn 3.5 fade. Of course that's going to go nowhere if I throw it on hyzer flip angles which are my default angles. So I go to the swim and change the flight numbers to something I'd use for the angles I'm throwing to see a more realistic distance projection.

In the sim you can get -1 nose to go pretty much as far as -4 with the launch and hyzer angles optimized for each nose.

What are you launch angles on the nose down with pronation?

 

[sidewinder22]

What are you launch angles on the nose down with pronation?

Probably average around 8.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Probably average around 8.

Would love to see the pronation in action on some nose down throws when you get a chance.

And I wonder if it's harder to get nose down with a really low launch angle with the pronation. Not because you'd ever want to do that but just to reveal more info about the mechanic. Nose down is normally easier to achieve on lower launch angles but does your pronation make that any harder compared to throwing up nose down?

 

[sidewinder22]

And I wonder if it's harder to get nose down with a really low launch angle with the pronation. Not because you'd ever want to do that but just to reveal more info about the mechanic. Nose down is normally easier to achieve on lower launch angles but does your pronation make that any harder compared to throwing up nose down?

I've had the suspicion that if you try to throw flat or level, pronation won't go nose down, it seems to work better on higher trajectory hyzers.

 

[Sewer bill]

Threw the TD some with Sewerbill Sat night after playing first round and building a new teepad (may have been intoxicated). Sewerbill can throw about 500' LHBH, generally throwing 50-100' further than me. He maxed at 65mph and I maxed at 61mph.

My initial prediction that I'd have higher spin rate than Sewerbill was correct. In general my spin rate and ratio is slightly higher and I have more nose down at release. He never got below -1 nose. I was again able to consistently throw nose down pronating thru up to -6.

We both laughed at some of the distance predictions and wing angles and have a hard time believing some of them.

I'm still perplexed about how what felt like a burning over anhyzer was still hyzer.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

I'm still perplexed about how what felt like a burning over anhyzer was still hyzer.

It's surprising but also not that surprising when you combine it with the fact that many people, including pros, feel like 15-20 degrees of hyzer is a flat throw. Because after so many discs turn too much and don't go straight when actually throwing closer to flat, you repeatedly learn to throw a little bit of hyzer for flat shots to cancel out the flip, so then 15-20 degrees starts to feel "flat" to you. Combine that with if you don't look up prematurely to watch the disc, by the time you look up, it's already flipped up from hyzer to flat so you get constant visual reinforcement of having "thrown flat". So a 5 degree hyzer will feel like a big difference.

I've been trying to reconcile this so that what I feel I'm doing and what I'm actually doing are more closely matched together. So when I want to throw a "flat" straight shot shape, instead of thinking to myself "throw flat release" I now think "throw a small hyzer" because I know I'm lying to myself otherwise and when I actually end up throwing flat it turns over too much and then I lie to myself and say, "DAMN, I threw on way too much anny!"

Everyone I've had whose thrown my tech disc who hasn't thrown one before is surprised either in this same way (more hyzer than they thought), or they are habitual anny throwers and they are surprised when they try to throw hyzer that they barley get any hyzer and then realize that's why they so often burn over their less stable discs because closer to flat to them feels like 20 degrees of hyzer. I'm so glad I practiced hyzer as my default angle from the start.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

I've had the suspicion that if you try to throw flat or level, pronation won't go nose down, it seems to work better on higher trajectory hyzers.

This is why I'm still suspicious about you getting nose down with pronation. I suspect there is something else masking the nose up of pronation and allowing you to throw nose down still, but I still want video proof of pronation being maintained late into the throw.

E.g., maybe when you are throwing your ~8 degree launch angles with pronation, but when compared to the angle the rim is pointing due to the pronation, your swing plane is still steeper (above) that so you can throw nose down which is why it would be much harder to throw nose down on closer to 0 degree launch angle with pronation because you don't have a steep enough launch angle to mask the pronation. If this is true though, throwing on 8 degrees launch angle without pronation would be more nose down than with pronation.

I've never actually tried pronating with the tech disc but I'm convinced I'll get massive nose up when I do it from a few tests of it with approach shots where it was clearly way more nose up.