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What am I doing wrong with my drive

I'm sure there are quite a few people on here who can point to more specifics than I can. I know what I've read on here that's helped me though. It looks like you're trying to strongarm your throws. I'd work on keeping your elbow up and working from the hit back, ie the beato drills. You have to keep everything in motion with the disc on a singular plane. I started throwing farther just working from the pec out, and working on grip/snap, than I had been by just trying to muscle the disc as far as I could. Work on being more smooth and fluid with your motion. Also, it looks like the disc is too far away from your body before your release.
 
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Its kind of hard to tell from that angle and distance. The more angles you give, the better feedback you'll get. From that angle, your reach back looks a little weird. Looks like your trying to reach around your body. You basically want to reach straight back on your pull.
 
First, you have no hip rotation. You are stiff as a board from your shoulders through your waist; this is resulting in you only using your shoulder and arm strength for your throws. Your hips should turn toward the target first, and this forceful motion will then open your shoulders toward the target without any effort from your shoulders. There are a couple threads on DGR in the Technique Forum that describe what I am talking about in more detail; I'd recommend reading some of those thread and the attached videos.

Second, you don't seem to accelerate through the throw. From the limited camera footage, you appear to maintain the same velocity from the beginning of the pull from the reach-back to the release. Start the motion "slow", and accelerate throughout until the disc rips from your hands. This point will be negated when you begin rotating your hips (which should also accelerate through the movement), and also snapping open your elbow from a flexed to extended position at the end of the motion.

Third, your X-step isn't helping you at all. It's more of a stumble step and you'd be better off stepping obliquely 1 step with your right foot than what you are currently using. I view the purpose of the X-step as twofold: first, it allows the thrower to begin the correct "timing of the drive" that he has engrained in his/her muscle memory. Second, it allows the thrower to create momentum leading up to the rotation of the torso, thus causing the torso to rotate faster and more forcefully, and subsequently the shoulders, arms, and disc will move faster and more forcefully from your hand. Make the X-step faster, and cover more ground with it as well. Watch the Beto or "More Snap" demonstrations for a proper example.

Fourth, your disc is not traveling in a linear line from the beginning of the reach-back through the release. In fact, you are bringing the disc behind your left shoulder during the reach-back, which is causing you to create an arc-like path during your driving motion. Do you ever turn your drivers over to the right during the high speed portion of the disc's flight, even though the drivers are supposedly overstable?

Are you snapping your disc (which I'm betting you either aren't, or it's inconsistent and unintentional when it does occur) at the "hit" of your motion? If not, it's most likely secondary to the lack of linear motion ripping the disc from your grip. An arc motion will not produce the force necessary to rip the disc from your hand, and therefore will not allow a good "snap".
 
Your wrist orientation appears to be wrong, too. Put your hand in a handshake position and then tilt your hand downward. This is the orientation you need to keep your wrist in throughout the throw.

Reworking your throw from the hit back will help solve a lot of the major problems you have. Rather than trying to work on each one individually it might be easier to just start from scratch and do the drills from the Dan Beto video. I'd recommend starting with 3/4 of a reach back and taking one step to get the feel for it and then do the drill from the right pec. Sometimes it's hard to do that right pec drill off the bat.
 
You are what I call fanning the disc, meaning your arm is acting as a fan blade going around your body. You begin to extend your elbow after your front shoulder is opening. The proper steps are to get you elbow in front first, then open you right shoulder, then last is your hips. Does this make sense? Just try keeping your eyes on the disc, not your target, and throw it in a straight line past your waist not around your waist. This means holding it away from you then pull it like a lawn mower to you right hip, and continue it behind your back. Force yourself to not turn around.
 
like jodabro said the disc is looping around your body. try the reach back with the disc a little further away from you body, not much. it looks like you doing a hybrid bent elbow throw. the disc is definitely not pulling straight forward. to hell with, it just learn a monster sidearm.
 
Jodabro said:
You are what I call fanning the disc, meaning your arm is acting as a fan blade going around your body. You begin to extend your elbow after your front shoulder is opening. The proper steps are to get you elbow in front first, then open you right shoulder, then last is your hips. Does this make sense? Just try keeping your eyes on the disc, not your target, and throw it in a straight line past your waist not around your waist. This means holding it away from you then pull it like a lawn mower to you right hip, and continue it behind your back. Force yourself to not turn around.
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You've got this backwards. If you open your elbow, then shoulder, and lastly hips, you'll be severely limiting your distance due to completely mitigating the power your hips and torso are supposed to add to a drive. Read any technical instructions by players that can drive very long distance (Dan Beto, Blake T, etc), and they will all say to open the hips first.

JHern (from DGR) describes in better detail what I'm talking about:

Two facts:

Fact 1: 300 ft is about as far as most men can throw using primarily the strength of their arm to propel the disc. For women it is closer to 230 ft.

Fact 2: The fact that you get the same distance no matter how you do your step implies that you aren't getting anything out of your legs, which drive your torso, which is the platform for your shoulders...

The sum:

Fact 1 + Fact 2 = You're strong-arming, throwing with your arm, and you're not getting much of anything from your torso and shoulders.

Your arm is of order 10X less powerful than your legs/torso. Stop throwing with your arm! Your arm is only useful for positioning and gripping, other than that, it is purely passive. Your arm needs to be turned into a whip that is driven by the powerful motion of your legs/hips/torso/shoulders.

Here's an exercise I might suggest:

Stand still with your arms at your side, completely relaxed. Turn your hips and torso back slowly and then rotate your hips quickly to the open position. Your arms should be whipped out and around in a windmill motion, without you using a single muscle in your arms. That's the feeling you should be aiming for.

Next do the same thing, except extend your throwing elbow out sideways from your body and hold it there (as if you put a vice around your shoulder). Allow your lower throwing arm and hand to hang limp from your elbow. Do it as if your arm were asleep and some mechanical device was locked onto your shoulder to keep the elbow pointed out side ways from your torso. Don't allow your elbow to move forward or backward, nor up nor down. It is completely locked in place, as if you no longer even had a shoulder joint and your upper arm were fused into your shoulder so that it would always point out sideways.

Now slowly turn your hips and torso back, and turn them abruptly open again. Don't use a single muscle in your arm! Now you should find that you've turned your arm into a whip. Your lower arm should be whipping forward super-fast. In fact, you can whip your lower arm forward way faster in this manner than your arm muscles could ever dream of doing. Your arm muscle strength decreases rapidly as speed increases, so they are useless anyways...trying to use them will only slow down this motion. You'll find that whipping your lower arm forward in this manner, with the elbow "stopped," will feel relatively effortless in comparison to trying to throw with your arm as you've probably been doing before.

Practice getting this feeling for a while. (Later you can work on the grip and positioning in finer detail, but for now focus on using your legs/hips/torso/shoulders as the powerful motor for whipping your arm forward.)
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and....

- I don't like the word "pull" at all. To me, at least, it implies pulling back hard with the arm and shoulders, the kind that makes your elbow move back behind your torso, as in a rowing motion, tug-of-war, or two-man saw. This is most definitely NOT the right idea for a the late effort that goes into the throw. That's what gives a strong arm throw. This was a big hang-up for me. Also, I didn't understand what it meant to "stop the elbow" before either, but now I associate it with the plaster cast holding the elbow out sideways down to the elbow analogy.

- When the arm is nearly extended, it is near its rest position (the position of the arm when relaxed), and it has more strength in that position. It has very little strength in the fully bent elbow position. So trying to throw with your arm early on, before it has uncurled most of the way, would anyways be futile. But Blake is right that when the arm gets closer to full extension that you can apply force. But more importantly, you need to get the arm swinging forward fast using your core muscles in order to get your arm there at top speed, and you also need to bring the elbow opening to a solid steely stop just prior to full extension.
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And finally from Blake_T:

what differs from strong arming vs. someone "throwing with arm" is that strong arming implies that the necessary fluid bio-mechanics do NOT happen at the right time (or at all).

the greatest feature of strong arming is that more power in = less power out.

throwing with a relaxed arm helps some of the natural timing mechanisms to happen. it can help all of the ones necessary ones to happen assuming that initially they are not.

for people not throwing 350', but pretty much listed the most common culprits:
Quote:
1) Not pulling tight enough
2) Not stopping the elbow
3) Nose up throws
4) No wrist extension
5) Pulling too early
6) Not weight forward
7) Not finishing


these people will have a set of drills to get them to a certain baseline, which is a consistent 350-410' line drive power with modern technology.

the reason i am making this stipulation is because many of the recommendations given so far will work for someone throwing below 350', but are not really applicable to those who are throwing that far or farther.

i have had approximately a 1% success rate with teaching people how to truly "hit it." more like 4% if you consider "hitting some of it" (some of it = 430-450' with a wraith/destroyer).

for those chasing the brass ring, here's a few things:
-legs do less than you really want to believe they do. i have a feeling many people think that leg power is responsible for a large amount of throwing power. it is responsible for roughly 5-20%. you can meet someone with craptastic footwork/leg power that knows how to hit it and they'll be able to break 400' with a 1 step throw. huge run-ups, 360 turnarounds, etc. do add benefit, but it's not by a huge margin. however, if you are throwing in a distance contest, you want to use the technique that will milk out every potential bit of power. piss poor footwork can ruin a throw, but great footwork doesn't ensure a good throw.

-disc golf throwing is the one inch punch. to throw really far, you must throw really hard. knowing when/how to deliver force is the key of this. most players decelerate entering (and through) the power zone and the end result is a slip (even if it goes straight and decently far). hitting it requires acceleration through the power zone. for those unfamiliar with dv/dt, basically it means: as you get closer to the rip, your hand (and the disc) must be moving FASTER than it was at every point before that. you have a better chance of hitting it if you enter the power zone at 30mph and reach the rip at 40mph than you would if you entered the power zone at 60mph and reached the rip at 50mph. i developed the right pec drill to attempt to isolate the power zone while still using full body motions.

here's where things get tricky...

-there's a 2 stages of extension (in other sports these are similar to releasing the club head or releasing the barrel of the bat, but because joint release will get confused with disc release, i will call them extension). the abrupt stop of the elbow moving forward allows the forearm to extend (with whip-like inertia). at some point the forearm can no longer move forward and it rapidly changes direction from forwards to sideways... at this point the wrist extends (also with tons of inertia).

the difficulty in timing occurs because:
-the forearm/elbow must be relaxed at the beginning of the extension but should be firm/strong near the end of the extension.
-the wrist/hand must be relaxed at the beginning of the extension but should be firm/strong near the end of the extension (and subsequent release of the disc).

the reason you teach all the other crap outside of just this is because people need the coordination/skills to have all the other pieces in place in order to allow this to happen correctly. you can prevent these things from happening with poor body positions, but again, good body positions don't cause these things to happen, a better way of putting it is: good body positions ALLOW for the correct things to happen.

if you look at any/all of players who throw 450'+ line drives, they all have the same important things happening. i find it less useful to contrast differences than to look for similarities.

my point in writing all that?

what happens with the disc/arm during the final 12" of the throw is exactly the same for everyone throwing 500'.
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So, like I was saying, the hips are the biggest determinant of the amount of power in your throw, and the second largest factor is the forceful acceleration of your forearm in the last part of the elbow extension (and this part, as stated above, is critical). Don't throw with your shoulder, or your arm only.

As Chubbs stated in Happy Gilmore, "Its all in the hips.... Its all in the hips...."
 
"legs do less than you really want to believe they do. i have a feeling many people think that leg power is responsible for a large amount of throwing power. it is responsible for roughly 5-20%. you can meet someone with craptastic footwork/leg power that knows how to hit it and they'll be able to break 400' with a 1 step throw. huge run-ups, 360 turnarounds, etc. do add benefit, but it's not by a huge margin. however, if you are throwing in a distance contest, you want to use the technique that will milk out every potential bit of power. piss poor footwork can ruin a throw, but great footwork doesn't ensure a good throw."


Legs are about 50% of your throw. A 1-step throw of 400 feet can still use most of your legs. It is called weight tranfer. I would agree that the run up gives you a small percentage of your distance, but saying your legs don't give you that much of your throw is ridiculous. Hitting a baseball for power is mostly leg power and weight tranfer, so I can't see throwing a disc using less of your legs.
 
volmed10 said:
So, like I was saying, the hips are the biggest determinant of the amount of power in your throw, and the second largest factor is the forceful acceleration of your forearm in the last part of the elbow extension (and this part, as stated above, is critical). Don't throw with your shoulder, or your arm only.
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I agree with everything you said except for this. The last 12" of the throw is the most important part of the throw. It's just that 99% of the people don't get it right. That's what the last sentence of Blake's post is getting at.
 
imoser_me said:
"legs do less than you really want to believe they do. i have a feeling many people think that leg power is responsible for a large amount of throwing power. it is responsible for roughly 5-20%. you can meet someone with craptastic footwork/leg power that knows how to hit it and they'll be able to break 400' with a 1 step throw. huge run-ups, 360 turnarounds, etc. do add benefit, but it's not by a huge margin. however, if you are throwing in a distance contest, you want to use the technique that will milk out every potential bit of power. piss poor footwork can ruin a throw, but great footwork doesn't ensure a good throw."


Legs are about 50% of your throw. A 1-step throw of 400 feet can still use most of your legs. It is called weight tranfer. I would agree that the run up gives you a small percentage of your distance, but saying your legs don't give you that much of your throw is ridiculous. Hitting a baseball for power is mostly leg power and weight tranfer, so I can't see throwing a disc using less of your legs.
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I don't know that I agree with that. I'm about to throw some numbers at it (and mind that they are approximate) but I would say that for me, legs are about 12-17%.

With an x-step I can consistently hit 400-420. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, but that's about average.

With no step (not 1 step) I can hit about 350 pretty consistently with a TL. I can describe this in greater detail if need be.

The difference is between 50 and 70 ft. and accounts for 12-17% of my power.
 
garublador said:
I agree with everything you said except for this. The last 12" of the throw is the most important part of the throw. It's just that 99% of the people don't get it right. That's what the last sentence of Blake's post is getting at.
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You're probably correct after thinking about it more in detail. When I use strictly my hip/torso rotation and the distal forearm extension isn't added, I'll get my TB's out to 350-375' consistently. But when I do have the forearm acceleration as part of the drive, the drive is extended to 400-410'. I've been incorporating this acceleration for some time, but I had forgotten the difference before and after this incorporation. I've been adding more power from my torso lately which is why I believe that hip rotation is such a integral part, but the acceleration of the forearm is what really puts the finishing aspect on the proverbial cake and creates the difference between a good drive and a bomber throw.
 
Legs are definitely about 50%. When you take no step, are you bending your legs and shifting your weight from front to back? If you are, then you are still using your legs in your throw.

To find out how much distance you can throw without your legs, try and throw with your legs in place and your knees totally locked out. People don't seem to understand how much of your legs that you actually use. That is because you don't notice when your legs are doing a lot of the work. You don't have to have huge legs to throw far, but you have to use your legs to tranfer your weight.

I would just like to know the kind of distance people can get stiff legged. This might even be something for a new thread.
 
i see alot of people trying to figure the x step, and what they are usually doin wrong is 'goin through the steps' instead of 'flowing through the motion', from start to finish it should be fluid


for a straight shot you want a straight line, so think of a clock, the pin is at 12:00 the tee is 6:00. in your video,you are throwing around your body in an arc, try pulling your disc in a line across your chest from 6 to 12,only moving your body slightly out of the way, so pull is on/along that imaginary line
 
Everyone that says legs, when he says hips. Are all backwards. And, it has nothing to do with the "LEGS." generating power; you're generalizing hips into legs. The X step is just steps; which just allows the legs to put the hips into the positioning for the hips to generate power. So that the hips and core of the body do the work generating the power. It all has to come together into a fluid motion. But, none of this matters until you can get the last 8-12" of your throw correct. Work from the hit back as Garu and Volmed have so said in so much detail.
 
Lithicon said:
Everyone that says legs, when he says hips. Are all backwards. And, it has nothing to do with the "LEGS." generating power; you're generalizing hips into legs. The X step is just steps; which just allows the legs to put the hips into the positioning for the hips to generate power. So that the hips and core of the body do the work generating the power. It all has to come together into a fluid motion. But, none of this matters until you can get the last 8-12" of your throw correct. Work from the hit back as Garu and Volmed have so said in so much detail.
Click to expand...

You look like you need to generate more snap too...right Lithi?
 
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