"When I fixed X, Y hurt less"

[Brychanus]

Hey DGCR,

I've begun to notice a lot of patterns between movements and discomfort, pain, or injury in my own development and others' reports. I thought a dedicated thread could help collect researched and anecdotal reports as such. This post was triggered because as my motion pattern has gotten better, little differences in motion seem to reveal important patterns, and sometimes the cause of pain can be far away from where it's located. Using those signals as cues to massage your form is important and can save you from serious acute or chronic injuries. I think it's especially important as you gain power in a swing, but it's still pretty "raw" and variable like mine currently is.

E.g., my favorite current example involves the Drive Phase/leg sets up the plant and all the swing to follow. In the 3-step pump thread Sw22 made a callback to lacking calf flexion in the Drive foot can cause injuries in the throwing shoulder - an effect very far up the chain from the earliest part of the Drive leg action.

I also noticed that poor posture and/or muscle mechanics in the Drive phase can lead to:
-Localized tightness in the drive-leg side sacroiliac region (where the pelvis and tailbone connect), possibly due to "dragging" the rear leg weight.
-Compensatory action in the plant leg action, leading to calf cramping and more jerk-like plant leg action overall. I found that this occurs from coming in from too high in the drive phase into the plant without enough "spring" off the drive leg - the compensatory action is the plant leg gets too much vertical decompression, and compensates with a "jerkier" action. This is hard on front hip and front leg overall.
-Coming in too horizontally into the plant from too low, and shanking drives up w/ some elbow tension
-Coming in too 'diagonally' into the plant, spraying wide w/ some shoulder issues.

Each time I bump into one of these "referred" pains, I stop and back up to work on the cause, which is typically somewhere in the chain well prior to the pain.

Please share any observations & references!

 

[lee76007]

18 months ago I had arm pain from strong arming. I have progressed from a standstill, one-step, and now working on a two-step or cross step. Eventually leading up to a 3-step by the end of the year, and maybe a 4-step next year? I've watched a ton of SW22 videos, and several over again. Focusing on a deliberate pump, reach back, crush the can, bring the lever forward and I've been told I have snap, and follow thru. Just trying to keep it simple. This morning rounds is the second visit using the two step with putters and mid's on the course the results have been good! Watching the mid's cover distance where my lower speeds fairways now take me on a one-step.

The best news is my 58-year old body feels no pain with less than three years playing. Perhaps next week I'll work on the fairways with the two step on the practice field, I've been very patient in the process. If SW22 reads this thank you!

 

[Brychanus]

Findings from slow swings today:

With drive foot firmly planted, a better backswing heave against that foot automatically keeps the weight high heading into the drive phase, and helps prevent the shoulder from collapsing in transition into the plant because the posture is better and CoG shift causes more separation.

This also allows more time and space for the off arm backswing before the drive, and a more natural swim move heading into the drive phase.

Result is less plant knee, elbow, and shoulder strain, easier and more fluid swing.

 

[Brychanus]

When I adjusted my posture to have a more "posterior" chain load, my lower back, lower abdominals, and throwing shoulder hurt less.

 

[Sheep]

The main reason I got into form and form theory is because of injuries.

I have 2 blown out knee's and a really bad shoulder.

Got tired of throwing out my shoulder having no idea what I was doing.
Not a whole lot you can do about knee's other than learn slower more methodical steps.

Muscling is one of the largest issues I see doing form reviews and watching people on the course, and I believe most of that is due to poor language describing the disc golf swing.
So, my betterment contribution is language in teaching to describe the actions better and proper to trigger your brain to properly engage in the swing. vs actions that dictate to your brain to do the wrong things, which is how we have been teaching disc golf for 30-35 years now. Which are.. well, almost all wrong.
The fundamentals are correct if you do what youre supposed to be doing, but nobody is describing what to do correctly. And that in turns causes frustration.

 

[Brychanus]

Around here I appreciate the distinctions between mechanics vs. drills & coaching point discussions. Sometimes knowing the mechanics helps, other times it can get people focused on too many minutiae when actually learning to throw.

The main reason I got into form and form theory is because of injuries.

I have 2 blown out knee's and a really bad shoulder.

Sorry to hear that, I'm here because of injuries & a few close calls too.

Got tired of throwing out my shoulder having no idea what I was doing.
Not a whole lot you can do about knee's other than learn slower more methodical steps.

I agree, plus better control of where your posture & balance are overall.

Muscling is one of the largest issues I see doing form reviews and watching people on the course, and I believe most of that is due to poor language describing the disc golf swing.

I agree & that a lot of the "catchphrases" that people pass around can be helpful at best but very misleading at worst.

So, my betterment contribution is language in teaching to describe the actions better and proper to trigger your brain to properly engage in the swing. vs actions that dictate to your brain to do the wrong things, which is how we have been teaching disc golf for 30-35 years now. Which are.. well, almost all wrong.
The fundamentals are correct if you do what youre supposed to be doing, but nobody is describing what to do correctly. And that in turns causes frustration.

Would only raise an eyebrow at "nobody" - it'd be strange that any one person has it "all figured out" without real scientific methods, but I do think there has been a form of "progress" in understanding the mechanics and how to teach them. But I'd agree that it's hard to find and distinguish the gold from the coal a lot of the time, which is really unfortunate. I also don't yet know what the "correct" mechanics manual will look like, but on the other hand I think it's fair to say that some people know more than nothing.

 

[auzcar]

When I fixed my putting my heart stopped hurting. Just kidding, my putting still stinks and my heart hurt every time I hit the band from 5m.

 

[Sheep]

Would only raise an eyebrow at "nobody" - it'd be strange that any one person has it "all figured out" without real scientific methods, but I do think there has been a form of "progress" in understanding the mechanics and how to teach them. But I'd agree that it's hard to find and distinguish the gold from the coal a lot of the time, which is really unfortunate. I also don't yet know what the "correct" mechanics manual will look like, but on the other hand I think it's fair to say that some people know more than nothing.

"generalisms"

Easier to say "nobody" vs saying only a small handful of us are making an effort to use better language.

I see some of what I'm doing is catching on with some people though who have youtube presence.

I'm really enjoying being in here though and chatting, I should have done this a long time ago.
I hate editing, so I rarely make video's.
Or I dont have time and dont make video's.

So you get into these larger channels now, like overthrow, who puts out great content, but has 0 desire to talk like we are about theory and in depth unless you have some huge subscriber base.

I had to call him out in his comments for basically doing one of sidewinders drills on a video but not giving him credit.
They popped it out into the comments section afterwards.

But the more people we can have discuss terms and come up with better ways. the faster things will evolve.
And I think they are on a good track, but I'm not going to pay into his patreon to try and have conversations with him that he's not even interested in.

Heck, I've talked to danny for a long time and even played a round with him. But getting him to talk about form theory. hahahahaha. Nope.

Back to nobody.
So many of our terms are really really bad, but they keep getting used. Even by people who are really good with form.

But, things like "backswing" is finally catching on vs saying "reach back" which is incorrect.
Pull is a hard one to get rid of, but it needs to go.

I try to not use the word "throw" whenever I can, but that one is hard.
Throw and pull encourage muscling.
Swing encourages "body" and "dance."

It's also great to see people out there making content, but the part that gives me the cringe is they are teaching something they dont fully understand yet without the caveat that "i dont fully understand this yet"

I spent the last 2 years trying to figure out the off arm mechanics before even trying to teach it to others. It baffled me why what others were explaining wasn't working for me, and then I started trying some things and... it's not anything like people explain on the internet.
the "double move" is ... not a thing.
That guy just figured out what works for him, but has no idea how to explain what he's doing.

And the more I learn about it from personal study, the more I realize that if you want to truly teach off arm mechanics into the drive, you need to do it in person to help them with the timing.
IE, for example.
I have to do the off arm when the disc hits the power pocket. If I do it when everyone else explains to do it, I round and the disc comes out ungodly late.

 

[hisdudeness47]

"generalisms"

And the more I learn about it from personal study, the more I realize that if you want to truly teach off arm mechanics into the drive, you need to do it in person to help them with the timing.
IE, for example.
I have to do the off arm when the disc hits the power pocket. If I do it when everyone else explains to do it, I round and the disc comes out ungodly late.

What exactly do you mean when you say "do the off arm"? Punch the sky? Slap my face? Seems too general/not specific enough. Going forward I'd appreciate better effort out of you so we don't all get in a tizzy trying to figure out what you mean. This is why it's so hard for people to learn. Just a heads up.

 

[Sheep]

What exactly do you mean when you say "do the off arm"? Punch the sky? Slap my face? Seems too general/not specific enough. Going forward I'd appreciate better effort out of you so we don't all get in a tizzy trying to figure out what you mean. This is why it's so hard for people to learn. Just a heads up.

uhhhhhhhhh......?

 

[Fris-beer]

Mid back and drive side hip tightness here. Classic over the top thrower here. Starting to feel like giving up this sport after many years. Really hate being tight after throwing. Fellas throw like crazy and the back is never sore. I can do the catch the weight compactly with my right hip and leg part on the putting green. That feels very effortless and easy but cant get the same feeling when I throw. Any suggestions or tips?

 

[Brychanus]

When I began to correct my backswing and downswing posture to better "trap the disc with my chest," I reduced strain on my braced plant leg, throwing elbow, and throwing shoulder.

 

[Brychanus]

Mid back and drive side hip tightness here. Classic over the top thrower here. Starting to feel like giving up this sport after many years. Really hate being tight after throwing. Fellas throw like crazy and the back is never sore. I can do the catch the weight compactly with my right hip and leg part on the putting green. That feels very effortless and easy but cant get the same feeling when I throw. Any suggestions or tips?

Could be a lot of things - hard to know without video, but here are a few "lessons" learned.

Most of the time I've experienced hip jamming/hip tightness, back issues, or issues or leg stress it's because of posture + how I bring my weight into the plant step. A combination of the Clement "Shift from Behind" video and Kettlebell posture vid and then applying them to the backhand are helping me clean those up. The weighted swings with two hands are really effective at helping you find "Sweet spots" in good posture. It's trickier to get it to apply to the disc, but it's what you're after. These were more intuitive in terms of how they applied to disc golf after a lot of preceding form work, but I wish I spent a lot more time with them early on.

 

[twistedraven]

Last Tuesday I woke up in the morning, and my left knee (my drive knee) was aching and felt very unstable. The area around the kneecap felt loose, if that makes sense. At first I thought it might have been because I somehow slept weird on it (which very well still might be the case). But it also got me thinking, maybe the combination of my getting older-- currently sitting at 33-- combined with the over time stress of throwing 5-7 full rounds a week for the last 3 years, plus suboptimal form, have lead to strain in the ligaments on my drive knee. I was theorizing that perhaps I don't get off my drive leg the cleanest, and do a little inward jerk with my drive knee to cheat hip rotation. When I try to do this in my house with no disc in hand from a standstill, I definitely feel a lot of pressure on my knee in its current state. After I give my several days of rest from disc golf, I'm going to hit the field and see if I can remedy my drive leg, and try to get off of it as fast and smooth as possible, by really focusing on lifting my drive heel up earlier, so I can fall into my plant.

Has anybody else experienced drive knee pain due to bad mechanics?

 

[Brychanus]

Last Tuesday I woke up in the morning, and my left knee (my drive knee) was aching and felt very unstable. The area around the kneecap felt loose, if that makes sense. At first I thought it might have been because I somehow slept weird on it (which very well still might be the case). But it also got me thinking, maybe the combination of my getting older-- currently sitting at 33-- combined with the over time stress of throwing 5-7 full rounds a week for the last 3 years, plus suboptimal form, have lead to strain in the ligaments on my drive knee. I was theorizing that perhaps I don't get off my drive leg the cleanest, and do a little inward jerk with my drive knee to cheat hip rotation. When I try to do this in my house with no disc in hand from a standstill, I definitely feel a lot of pressure on my knee in its current state. After I give my several days of rest from disc golf, I'm going to hit the field and see if I can remedy my drive leg, and try to get off of it as fast and smooth as possible, by really focusing on lifting my drive heel up earlier, so I can fall into my plant.

Has anybody else experienced drive knee pain due to bad mechanics?

Timely. Yes. Usual "I am not a physician" disclaimer but this is what happened to me:

Before I joined here for form rebuild, I had weird load and torque off the drive leg (also my left) that eventually led to almost "crunching" as the soft tissues would aggravate/take shearing force, which led to why I ended up in PT last year. Diffuse mild-moderate trauma to ligaments/tendons in both knees. I continue to build up the tissues with exercise, but the mechanics were clearly very wrong and causal.

I'm still having a hard time fixing it mechanically for DG now, but might be making progress. SW22 and SocraDeez are trying to fix how I load and unload my drive leg in my Form Critique. I think it's possible to keep the load too "interior" on the leg and "thrust", which sounds maybe like what you're describing, and it's bad since it puts shearing force on the knee. Or you can keep the load too high and "exterior" on the drive leg without flowing through the action that gets the correct foot eversion, which is "functional" but considerably less forceful (this is what I have been doing recently and it is hard to change since the knees are so sensitive to putting any kind of force through them now). I'm sure there are other "danger zones" for your leg action but video review is best.

I'm not quite sure I'm doing the drive action correctly now so I'll wait for them to weigh in before I bump what I learn there to general threads, but I wanted to affirm that unfortunately it's apparently pretty easy to get bad loading on that rear leg and it can catch up with you :\

FWIW, on the bright side, after giving it time to heal and building it up it has gotten much better. I am careful to back off any actions that feel like they put stressful load on it.

 

[twistedraven]

Timely. Yes. Usual "I am not a physician" disclaimer but this is what happened to me:

Before I joined here for form rebuild, I had weird load and torque off the drive leg (also my left) that eventually led to almost "crunching" as the soft tissues would aggravate/take shearing force, which led to why I ended up in PT last year. Diffuse mild-moderate trauma to ligaments/tendons in both knees. I continue to build up the tissues with exercise, but the mechanics were clearly very wrong and causal.

I'm still having a hard time fixing it mechanically for DG now, but might be making progress. SW22 and SocraDeez are trying to fix how I load and unload my drive leg in my Form Critique. I think it's possible to keep the load too "interior" on the leg and "thrust", which sounds maybe like what you're describing, and it's bad since it puts shearing force on the knee. Or you can keep the load too high and "exterior" on the drive leg without flowing through the action that gets the correct foot eversion, which is "functional" but considerably less forceful (this is what I have been doing recently and it is hard to change since the knees are so sensitive to putting any kind of force through them now). I'm sure there are other "danger zones" for your leg action but video review is best.

I'm not quite sure I'm doing the drive action correctly now so I'll wait for them to weigh in before I bump what I learn there to general threads, but I wanted to affirm that unfortunately it's apparently pretty easy to get bad loading on that rear leg and it can catch up with you :\

FWIW, on the bright side, after giving it time to heal and building it up it has gotten much better. I am careful to back off any actions that feel like they put stressful load on it.

Thanks for reply. Here is a a throw from a several months back. My form is relatively the same these days-- about the only difference is I have a forward pump now timed just before my crossover step, as I found it helped me add 10-20 feet of distance. My form's all kind of jacked up as I learned it my own way without watching videos, but I'm really only concerned about my drive leg and knee. Do you see red flags?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0XCxkkaCRBc

 

[Brychanus]

Thanks for reply. Here is a a throw from a several months back. My form is relatively the same these days-- about the only difference is I have a forward pump now timed just before my crossover step, as I found it helped me add 10-20 feet of distance. My form's all kind of jacked up as I learned it my own way without watching videos, but I'm really only concerned about my drive leg and knee. Do you see red flags?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0XCxkkaCRBc

Looks like a posture issue and how you load your drive side might be loading your knee with some shearing force. Here's you vs. Paul at roughly the moment when each of you drops your weight into the drive leg:

Notice how you have more of an S-curve in the spine than Paul, and your rear femur is more vertical. As a result, when you put a load on that leg it will add a vertical stress down into the knee that isn't diffused into the ground the way Paul's is in his more natural, athletic bend. You can see more spacing between the feet toward the camera in your plant stride because your right (plant) leg is counterbalancing your relatively targetward-tilted posture - that is why you don't fall forward when you load the drive leg in that posture.

So I think you found a way to stay in balance and get your CoG forward, but it probably loads your drive knee with a lot of unwanted stress.

 

[Sheep]

The ole "leaning into the shot to catch yourself" throw vs the weight shift and driving with rotation.

I sometimes wonder if this is why my right leg hurts.
Probably.

 

[twistedraven]

I'll see if I can get that upper body more upright and leaned back when I practice the drive foot heel raise. I used to have a super small crossover step as well, but it seems over time it has kept getting larger and larger.

 

[Sheep]

I'll see if I can get that upper body more upright and leaned back when I practice the drive foot heel raise. I used to have a super small crossover step as well, but it seems over time it has kept getting larger and larger.

slow, methodical and relaxed = easy.

Stiff, fast, overly mechanical = difficulty


The relaxed part is the MOST difficult part.
But when we dance, we are relaxed and flowing.

We are not lifting an engine block onto an assembly line. Gotta think like Bob Ross on this stuff. Happy little brush strokes.

I believe when we slow down and relax and focus on less things, but more "key" things, our body will naturally go where it needs to go. But you have to be relaxed to let your body "flow" from position to position as you do the dance and pain the picture.

The thing is always remembering those key points, and focusing on them and reflecting as best we can when we can, to build some of those more natural instincts in the throw that in turn let us later on, crank the volume.
Cause while I love classical music and waltz, I like that big band beebop and happiness.

My internal rage wants to scream and head bang to heavy metal.
And...
We want heavy metal.
But no no, Heavy metal isn't crazy.

It's melodic, gripping and flowing.