Help with the backhand technique

[sacred]

Hi,

I am in the sport for slightly over a month and I would like to get comments, critique and analysis on my backhand throwing. Currently I only throw mid-range discs and I get around 200 feet with really unreliable accuracy. All the feedback on the form or anything is highly appreciated!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsz6wHhQqDU

 

[Dan Ensor]

You're not getting your weight forward. You end up throwing off your rear leg. Try the front side drill (toward the end of this film).

 

[sidewinder22]

Agree with above, except you need to do both parts of that vid. You lean back past a braced rear leg instead of turning/loading/coiling into the rear leg. Then you never get forward because you leaned past good posture.

 

[sacred]

You're not getting your weight forward. You end up throwing off your rear leg. Try the front side drill (toward the end of this film).

Thanks for the tip and a good point! I realise that also now when I watch the film again. I guess I can do the drill quite similar than in the video?

 

[sacred]

Agree with above, except you need to do both parts of that vid. You lean back past a braced rear leg instead of turning/loading/coiling into the rear leg. Then you never get forward because you leaned past good posture.

Thanks for the comment!

Could you elaborate a little on the "lean back past a braced leg"? I'm not sure I quite get it. I over reach back with the disc?

 

[Mocheez]

Keep your head centered above your hips at all times. As you reach back, look down at the ground in front of you and don't turn your head. At full reach back, your chin will be directly above your right shoulder. Your shoulders should turn 180 away from the target, not your hips. If you rotate your hips 180 degrees along with your shoulders, you lose the coiling/uncoiling effect.

 

[Asian Style]

I made a quick picture that may help you understand what sidewinder22 and Mocheez are telling you.

http://i.imgur.com/nZZtW7K.jpg

 

[sacred]

Thanks for the advice's!

After reviewing the footage with your comments I realize what I am doing wrong and know what to work on.

The picture was really helpful on this!

 

[Squirrilah Fish]

ive just started to develop my technique, but one thing that helped me see a huge difference was going through the motion, reaching all the way back through my core, and then imagine the drive like your pulling on a lawn mower chord. Of course weight transfer and follow through are important. but imagining it as pulling the disc across my body, vs throwing it helped me alot.

 

[sacred]

Howdy again!

After couple of weeks of throwing and thinking about the comments on my last video I decided to take a new one and see how it has changed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xSyPqMorWs

I do still throw around 200 feet but have managed to get much more stable on the accuracy, but I would like to get more distance on my shots.

So what I can see from the video is that I don't stay as much on my back leg as I used to, but still a little. Am I moving towards right direction?

Any comments, critique and suggestions are more than welcome!

 

[Tpro]

Looks like your strong arming and chopping down on the disc.. Are all of those shots flexing like an S-curve? If so try to throw something more understable and try not to get on top of the throw. Flat hyzers if you will. Dont be afraid to use your legs and clear your hips.

 

[sidewinder22]

The pic on the right is just as the foot is landing. Your stance is too wide and knees straight and balance/head behind your heels, no hip turn. You should be slightly bent into an athletic position so your head is toward the toes. That will naturally lower your shoulder and arm in the backswing while turning your hips and shoulders further into the rear leg/hip. Also note your arm is curling around the disc so your muscles are tensed. My arm is straight and loose, so the disc moves much further back and loose muscles are faster.

Middle pic shows the power zone position. Your off arm is lagging behind, slowing down rotation and keeping your weight back. Notice how much further forward my hips and elbow are and my rear heel has moved forward ahead of the toes. It's hard to see some things from this angle, but my balance is tilted toward over the toes while your head is well behind your heels.

Left pic is the finish position. Your front foot is flat as your balance is behind the heel and the knee is straight, so you are putting a lot of torque on the knee there. Notice my rear heel is ahead of the toes while your rear heel has spun out and moved behind your toes indicating your weight is/was back and your spine tips over the front leg and your upper body has over rotated ahead of the hips/lower body. Your arm finishes low, so you are coming over the top which would be ok for a roller or high anhyzer, but not good for hyzer or flat throw. You can see my posture is still athletic with bent knees and knees are stacked below the hips and shoulders. If we both had 500lbs over our shoulders I could maintain balance, while your posture would collapse or fold over like a lawn chair.

Check the videos in this thread for drills and more info:
http://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108182

 

[sacred]

Thanks for the deep analysis again!

I'll check the other thread and start working on these!

ps. Did some throwing today by starting under my right pec and realised that I get the exact same distance than I do with reach back. Definitely some work to do

 

[sacred]

A small update again. While I am still working on the previous comments and realise that I have not fixed those issues yet, I wanted to post a new video from today where I managed first time to get over 270ft! I also would like to get new round of feedbacks for this and see if my insights are correct.

The knees are no longer as straight as they were, the stance is slightly narrowed and I have been trying to bent my self towards the toes a little.

For the powerzone position I think I am still not moving forward enough. If I compare the current video to your sidewender22's middle picture, my elbow is not forward enough and I open my shoulders too early thus making the motion slightly rounded in the end. Also I might still be holding my balance too much behind my heels.

Today I also started to feel the rip when the disc left my hand, but while this rip feeling was introduced I noticed that the discs started to do two things:

1. When the disc left my hand, they turned really heavily to right (anhyzer?) without much of distance and became rollers in the end.
2. Left nicely from my hand, but instead of fading to the left they started to elevate and turning right even though they should be stable/over stable discs.

For this reason on the video, when I do the reach back I turn the disc to hyzer to counter this, but the results were very poor

Could it be that I am gripping too tight when this happens? I am using power grip always on these throws.

http://youtu.be/7pSvMBpuu1Q

Again, all the comments are welcome, they have helped me tremendously so far!

 

[teej21012]

Since you are feeling the hit (what you called the rip) that means the disc is coming out properly. What usually happens is exactly what you are experiencing: the disc starts to turn over. You now need to work on keeping that shoulder closed to prevent rolling further. Here is a video demonstrating that:


Also, changing your target line from center to slightly left of center will help. In your new video, the disc looks like it will be coming out anhyzer. From this angle, for a hyzer release, we should see the face of the disc.

On release, it looks to be coming out anhyzer (as expected from your reachback) and nose up.

Do the closed shoulder drill as well as holding the correct line from reach back to release and you should see some instant results on flight path. Keep it up!

 

[sacred]

So, couple of weeks has gone by and I still struggle opening too early. When the disc reaches my left pec I am already starting to open, thus making the throw to become slightly rounded and I feel like I am losing power because of it. I have better control of the disc now and don't get (at least not so often) those huge annie bombs where the disc just goes where ever it wants. Now I would really appreciate any tips on how to teach my body not to open too early. I have tried to do the closed shoulder drills etc but I think I am not fully grasping their idea.

One example video with runup:

http://youtu.be/bW7o4BgEZFw

All the tips for eliminating the early opening + run up feedback is much appreciated!

 

[turbine712]

Nice video. Looks alot better than the first photo's.
Do you notice any improvement?

 

[sidewinder22]

Your posture and balance is so off throughout the x-step and finish. You lean back over the rear leg and never get loaded back properly against the inside of your rear leg as your leg is so extended before you land, and then never loaded/braced against the front side on the forward swing. Your rear heel spins out behind the toes so your leverage is lost and weight stays back.