Wrist involvement in the throw

[ELItheICEman]

My backhand mechanics have been evolving for the last 2+ years, and I feel like I'm starting to feel what all the drills and advice here and all over the internet have been trying to teach. However, I've arrived at a bit of a crossroads and I need some input from others to see which way to go with wrist involvement. Personally, I've found that I could not "feel" any leverage on the disc until I started using my wrist. I'd wager a guess that I should probably continue forward using my wrist if it helps me really lever the piss out of the disc; however I'm second-guessing myself because of all the folks who advise to keep the wrist fairly stiff, or even locked.

So help me out here. How do you use your wrist, and/or how do you think it should be used ideally?

 

[JR]

I tried to lock my wrist straight two years ago vs a normal tension throw without active wrist extension. Locked wrist with my muscle power meant a full effort which tensed up my arm muscles so much that the arm speed too probably suffered. The distance loss of the locked wrist for me was 50' on average. So discs i could throw 400' now went 350' and 350' flying discs went 300'. I did not use mids for this test.

What i would do if i were you is test out locked wrist throws vs non locked passive wrist extension alone vs non locked wrist with passive plus active wrist extension for distance and spin. Spin might be detectable with less turn and fade.

 

[Stringbean]

Yeah, I think it is kind of an in between thing. You don't want your wrist to be floppy loose and you don't want it to be locked tight either. If it's too loose, power transfer will be lossed as the wrist flops around. Too tight and you lose the tendon bounce.

 

[andrewv]

I've been working on this, too. Watch the wrists in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrZdp_vOuxc

Upper right seems to keep pretty stiff, while lower right (Lizotte) really moves it in and then snaps it around.

 

[JR]

Juho Parviainen said in a round commentary of his 1055 rated round in Finnish championships 2013 that like rhe stopped image of his throw shiws he curled his wrist almost 90 degrees prior snapping. Actively it seems to me. Lizotte and former masters Euro champion Stephan Mueller, sorry for the incorrect spelling my phone lacks umlauts from non Finnish letters, waggle the wrist back and forth. It helps in focusing on the timing of the wrist movements and all that is involved while ensuring the widest possible arc and giving momentum forward from the wrist plyometrically unloading from the waggle back energy giving a boost to the beginning of the wrist forward movement.

Things get hairy when you try to detect the half an inch or less wrist movement forward of the players that keep their wrists fairly stiff and immobile. It also happens in a super short time interval so unusually high frame rates and slowing down factor is needed to see it. While the camera has a good enough resolution and is zoomed close enough to show the wrist action. It is a difficult and expensive proposition. On Youtbe channel mfranssila mafa and i filmed Avery in slow motion abd it is hard to see what is going on. My camera filmed 300 images per second and it is borderline or not good enough.

 

[Stringbean]

Last summer I experimented with using a quick plyometric twitch of the middle and ring finger just before release. It was an easy increase in distance and spin but my accuracy suffered.

 

[Star Shark]

Schwebby does that waggling, also.