Maxing out @ 300ft...

[JHern]

I like that drill JHern wrote up, and I tried to illustrate it

This doesn't show the hands being pulled behind the shoulder or elbow, which is key to the whipping action. But that'd be hard to show in 2D. OK step 3 should have the hands lagging behind in rotation.

Lemme know what else is off -- maybe we can get a diagram outta this thread

Wow, nice, fast work! I'm impressed with what you threw together so quickly. I like the concept of the arms dangling like strings. Very useful.

A few things:
- It would be nice, actually, if the view were from in front (as it is) as well as a bit above the figure (so some perspective view involved), so that the circular motion could be better illustrated. Also the limbs lagging the torso twist, or being led by the torso twist, would be easier to illustrate from above. This might be tricky though. Maybe a separate series showing the motion from directly above would do? And might be much easier.
- One more frame to the right showing the follow through (torso rotated past neutral) would also be great.
- Another series showing the non-throwing arm kept tightly in to the side of the torso would also be cool, since we don't really want to fling our off arm out; it would slow the rotation/whip. Or maybe this can be done in the second series already, since we don't need to lock our off arm elbow out, only the throwing arm elbow is locked out to the side of the torso. Either way this implies the same amount of work.

Cool stuff!

 

[DiscGolfTeeSigns.com]

agreed on all. rather than a single perspective shot, i think it could use an additional view from above, to show all the positioning and motion.

 

[ReDisculous]

This is old, and I've posted it a few times, but I think so far all the illustrations/descriptions have skipped a step, or at least haven't really covered body positions, so I thought it was relevant.

during the first rotation, make sure the upper arm moves WITH the shoulder. it sounds like you are letting it lag behind which causes a narrowing of the angle between the shoulder and upper arm. you want to guide the disc with your arm. the arm shouldn't be tense, but it shouldn't be absolutely limp either.

my elite art skills diagramming the 3 stages of the throw across 4 panels.

the way you are throwing skips panel #3.

BU: what you are describing is exactly why step 3 usually gets bypassed by players. the hips don't go from closed to open, they go from closed to neutral to open.

1 to 2 = your hips go from closed to "neutral". if your right foot sets down ~90 degrees away from the target, your upper body is in alignment when the right shoulder is pointing at the target.

2 to 3 = the hips don't really do anything here.

3 to 4 = the hip opens.

your focus should be on driving your body forwards with your legs. the pivot should take care of itself, assuming your timing is working.

 

[scoopa]

This visualizations of "punching towards the target", "slinging the head of the hammer", and "snapping the towel" are helping me with the elbow stop.

I have a question though. There is a conflict in my head. MB says from the right pec go like hell and punch toward the target. Bradley says once the disc is coming away from the right pec and into the "apex" accelerate and sling the head of the hammer. With JHern it is sling the forearm out with the power created from the lower body and leave my arm muscles out of the equation. To make matters worse there is a post by Blake where he says don't accelerate the arm until the very last second.

I don't know if I am misinterpreting ,having major brain-fog, mixing throwing techniques, or what. But, I am royally confused!

I know from personal experience watching a guy at my local course you don't need much acceleration at all. He pulls straight across at his belly-button and snaps the ever living holly s#!t out the disc. He throws like Lundmark. Snap is all his throw is. and it glides foooreverr.

 

[Beable]

Interesting thread, guys, thanks. I'll try these drills. I have to admit that I've been very lazy about getting my lower body turning properly, because I assumed that after I get decent at standing still drives, I'd put a runup in, which would help with the lower body.

 

[JR]

I think JHern has gotten something wrong and I noticed it earlier but have been too busy to post a correction so now it's spreading.

In order to late accelerate the forearm, wrist and hand you do actually consciously use forearm muscles to backhand a midget. AKA punching toward the target first with the elbow getting into the right pec position then giving all you've got to remove a whig from the midget by chopping the elbow straight. And the arm should move fastest just after the disc left the thumb lock. This means hitting the muscle power around 6-8" before the arm becomes straight. Prior to that the torso and legs are doing what JHern has described throwing around the string that is the upper arm of your throwing side.

Full arm power is used but only at the very end of the throw.

 

[mafa]

In order to late accelerate the forearm, wrist and hand you do actually consciously use forearm muscles to backhand a midget. AKA punching toward the target first with the elbow getting into the right pec position then giving all you've got to remove a whig from the midget by chopping the elbow straight. And the arm should move fastest just after the disc left the thumb lock. This means hitting the muscle power around 6-8" before the arm becomes straight. Prior to that the torso and legs are doing what JHern has described throwing around the string that is the upper arm of your throwing side.

Second this. From what I've learned from here and tried to conclude myself:

There definitely should be active elbow extension involved. There's also passive extension happening due to the "stopping elbow". They combine for the "late acceleration". _Timing_ the passive and active extension is really the key to powerful finish. That's also the hardest part.

What comes to "stopping " of the elbow, getting into the right pec position (in a way or another) does it more or less automatically for you. When the disc comes into the right pec position, there's no shoulder extension left and upper arm/elbow stops (relative to the shoulder).

I'm not saying here that right pec is the only way to go. In the video I posted in VC section, basically 2 of the 6 players get into the right pec before elbow chop. They all have their timing down to whip the hell out of the disc. If you look at Feldberg, he seems to be very non-DGR-approved in his style but still bombs seemingly effortlessly.

Matti

 

[JHern]

This visualizations of "punching towards the target", "slinging the head of the hammer", and "snapping the towel" are helping me with the elbow stop.

I have a question though. There is a conflict in my head. MB says from the right pec go like hell and punch toward the target. Bradley says once the disc is coming away from the right pec and into the "apex" accelerate and sling the head of the hammer. With JHern it is sling the forearm out with the power created from the lower body and leave my arm muscles out of the equation. To make matters worse there is a post by Blake where he says don't accelerate the arm until the very last second.

I don't know if I am misinterpreting ,having major brain-fog, mixing throwing techniques, or what. But, I am royally confused!

I know from personal experience watching a guy at my local course you don't need much acceleration at all. He pulls straight across at his belly-button and snaps the ever living holly s#!t out the disc. He throws like Lundmark. Snap is all his throw is. and it glides foooreverr.

Don't let all the info frighten or confuse you. The exercise I'm talking about above is only about feeling the torso drive the whip, and getting used to that feeling, which is especially useful for those who are strong-arming and forever stuck at 300 ft. Because no matter what other details might be floating around, throwing well is all about feeling your core power, first and foremost. As Dave Dunipace's advice on Innova says: "...you have to throw, not recite."

And I can't emphasize this point enough: Previously (not too long ago) I was getting my body into all the right positions at the various times and such (after getting bogged down in details on this site, like yourself), and I was still stuck at 300'. Occasionally I would bust out much longer throws, and they would feel effortless, but I never knew why. The fact is that I was still throwing with my arm effort most of the time, and not harnessing the power of my core. If you watched me throw before I figured this out, and then watched me throw after learning to harness my core (too bad I lost my camera!), you would be hard pressed to tell the difference in how I was going through the positions and everything (except the speed result is different, of course). None of those details really changed at all. The difference is all feel. And no amount of information on positioning, starting this or that motion, when the arm is held here or there, etc., is going to make you feel the power of your core and use it to throw the disc instead of trying to use the arm.

The rest is details, mostly. Don't get too bogged down in this stuff, stick to the essentials at first. Strive for positions that give you the right feeling of power from your core. Mostly they will end up being similar to the things described here, sometimes not exactly. Other times you'll have a revelation and say "aha, that's what they meant by ....!" There are a lot of perspectives and ideas floating around here, and people can't always explain what they're thinking in the exact terms that will make sense to you at the moment. And many are speaking from hindsight.

A lot of advice here isn't meant to be construed as the holy script for how to throw, but rather are drills designed to get you into good habits. These drills are especially useful when those habits are not already incorporated, and you'll see dramatic improvements by using them. E.g., the hip-twist drill above is just a drill, designed to get the feeling for harnessing core power. This drill is designed for people who are strong arming their throw. There is no description of an ideal throw that has string arms...so be careful to not miss the point. The right pec drill is a drill, designed to help you get the most whip (after the elbow stop and torso neutral) possible starting from the disc in at the right pec, which helps your body remember the "feeling" of getting into the best positions. Do that drill too, I strongly recommend it, it has done wonders for me.

And even then, there are different throwing styles as well. Maybe 1000 different ways of throwing will get into the 400' distance range. The differences might seem small sometimes, large in other instances. But not all of them will work for you personally.

I played with a guy the other day who could crush his drives 450', and the whole time his throwing arm was held way far away during the entire pull. His elbow was nearly straight the entire time! Talk about a disconnect between what you might read here or there, and actual reality! What I noticed, however, is that he was throwing with his core. He wasn't throwing with his arm, and that's why he was able to get the disc out there farther than just about anyone on the course. This is an illustration, to me, of the supremacy of feeling over details about positions. Positioning may very well be important, but without the proper feeling of harnessing the core, it won't matter at all.

As for whip/punch, it may be possible for somebody to develop the fast twitch arm muscles able to contribute to a 50-60 MPH motion. But even if you have that capacity (which is genetic), it will take time for that to develop. And the only way this will develop is if you give your arm a great deal of help to get up to speed first, and get used to operating at those speeds. And the only way to do that is to get your strongest muscles (not your arm) involved to drive the whip. Period.

I've arrived at this perspective by looking into some well-known physical laws that govern how muscles work. There are two main principles...
-Position dependence of strength: The muscle can apply its greatest force when the limb is near its rest position.
-Speed dependence of strength: The force a muscle can apply diminishes rapidly as the speed of the resultant motion increases.
If you think about it, these make perfect sense. If they weren't true, then people/animals would be able to learn to run faster and faster without any limit from their muscles. The fact that the strength diminishes as the motion speed increases implies that there is a maximum speed.

Same with throwing: the faster your arm moves, the weaker it is. This isn't idle speculation, it is well-accepted fact of biomechanics. That's why you need to get the slower but more powerful motion of your core into it. Use your arms as levers and pivots that channel that power into various positions, instead of thinking of them as the primary instruments for achieving the throw.

Anyways, enough for now. Huge windstorm here, and my home sounds like it is about to blow away.

 

[black udder]

This visualizations of "punching towards the target", "slinging the head of the hammer", and "snapping the towel" are helping me with the elbow stop.

I have a question though. There is a conflict in my head. MB says from the right pec go like hell and punch toward the target. Bradley says once the disc is coming away from the right pec and into the "apex" accelerate and sling the head of the hammer. To make matters worse there is a post by Blake where he says don't accelerate the arm until the very last second.

They're all saying the same thing with different words. When you are in the right pec position, you're in the area when you want to think about pulling hard and fast. If you pull from the back of your reachback, then you'll lose speed by the time the disc is coming out.

Thus, you want to pull late. The ideal place is as the disc is bouncing out from the right pec position and is coming out and away from you (only a bit). At that point, when you pull, you are still accelerating after the disc is gone, thus, you're achieving max acceleration. That's the "last second" that Blake talks about, it's the "right pec" that MB talks about and it's the "as it's coming away from the right pec" that Brad talks about. It's hard to believe that you're not really going to pull hard and fast so late, but the fact is, it's true. You're moving the disc prior to that, but it's not the same hard/fast pull that you do late.

I know from personal experience watching a guy at my local course you don't need much acceleration at all. He pulls straight across at his belly-button and snaps the ever living holly s#!t out the disc. He throws like Lundmark. Snap is all his throw is. and it glides foooreverr.

That's late acceleration happening.

As for stopping the elbow, just define a spot in space, typically elbow towards the target, but it can be the tip of your elbow with the disc in the right pec area or the back of the elbow with the upper arm 90 degrees from your chest (like a backwards L - or if you're a lefty, just an L).

If you practice just stopping in space for a brief second (in a normal throwing angle, but reduced power motion), you'll see that your lower arm will swing out automatically. Once that's happening, then you'd want to work in the timing for pulling when you feel the lower arm coming out.

 

[black udder]

Something to consider when thinking about pulling late.

Stand like you have a disc, reach back, lean back a little so your weight is on your back foot. Then really think about how much raw power you can exert from that position. It's not much. You can *start* a motion, but you have no real raw power because your weight is back and your arm is extended.

Now, stand in the position where you'd want the disc to come out. Weight forward, disc a little away from your chest in the right pec area with your elbow still bent. Now feel what kind of power you can generate from this position. You'll see that with your weight forward there's a better feeling of power. With your arm bent, you can really exert your muscles to pull with power.

The transfer of weight from back to front is what will generate additional momentum for you to power the throw.

The movement of the disc from the back of your reach back up to the right pec area is going to be your running start. It's easier to drive a moving disc out further than a disc in a static position.

To prove that basic theory. Hold a disc in a standing position and throw just with a minimal reach back and throw vs standing with the disc a little out of the right pec position and throw. You should get more accuracy, a better throw and more distance (not talking 100' here), but with the same effort I imagine a flatter flight and probably 20' or better.

Throwing a disc a significant distance is all about mastering the timing of the basics of a throw. The better your timing, the more distance you can achieve.

 

[ManU]

is it possible for someone to take the video of Avery throwing that is taken in slow motion and from a top perspective and break it into actual individual frames?

if we could lay out each frame sequentially (vertically in the post) and write the explanation of what is happening, why it is happening and when it is happening...i.e. the conceptual ideas Leopard, JHern, JR and the others are trying to convey it might be easier to understand

plus rather than a hand drawn diagram that has it's limits we can actually see and understand the process in relation to a Pro's throw

e.g. a frame of Avery with the disc at the right pec but with an explanation of what happened to get it there and what happens next and the timing of same

it could be done from reach back to follow through...probably quite a few frames mind you

hopefully I am being clear

EDIT: the explanation of the mechanics and concepts would be next to each frame so we get the explanation and picture in a vertical sequence

 

[JHern]

A couple of quick things:

- 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.

 

[black udder]

is it possible for someone to take the video of Avery throwing that is taken in slow motion and from a top perspective and break it into actual individual frames?

if we could lay out each frame sequentially (vertically in the post) and write the explanation of what is happening, why it is happening and when it is happening...i.e. the conceptual ideas Leopard, JHern, JR and the others are trying to convey it might be easier to understand

plus rather than a hand drawn diagram that has it's limits we can actually see and understand the process in relation to a Pro's throw

e.g. a frame of Avery with the disc at the right pec but with an explanation of what happened to get it there and what happens next and the timing of same

it could be done from reach back to follow through...probably quite a few frames mind you

hopefully I am being clear

EDIT: the explanation of the mechanics and concepts would be next to each frame so we get the explanation and picture in a vertical sequence

One problem with that is that Avery and a few other long throwers don't pull the disc into the right pec - they stop around mid chest (it's in tight to the chest though) and that's where their elbow stops. Some of the european throwers come further in before their elbow stops. Check out this video and you can see it clearly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhQzVIX4cVs

The video slows down further and further so you can see normal speed, then slower and slower.

It's easy to see in the first pairing of Feldberg and Markus - just freeze the video as soon as you see their lower arm start to move. You'll see that Markus' elbow is much further along than Dave's, that's where they are stopping their elbow and forcing the disc out. That's also around where they start to pull, too.

The next one is Avery and you can see clearly how close the disc is to his chest but that he's not bringing it as far across as Markus. You should also be able to see where Markus actually pulls hard vs just pulling softly to get the disc into position.

 

[mafa]

Avery shoots from the left pec but anyways...

Matti

 

[SkaBob]

holy wrist roll, batman!

that throw started anny and ended hyzer

 

[ReDisculous]

holy wrist roll, batman!

that throw started anny and ended hyzer

Interesting you should point that out. I know a guy that can throw in the upper 400' range and once he tried explaining me how he snapped his wrist and what he showed/described was really a massive wrist roll, the disc held vertically, then snapping it to horizontal at the last minute. Aaron_D throws similarly (at least he used to), I think it may be to get the disc closer to the chest too.

 

[Timko]

holy wrist roll, batman!

that throw started anny and ended hyzer

Interesting you should point that out. I know a guy that can throw in the upper 400' range and once he tried explaining me how he snapped his wrist and what he showed/described was really a massive wrist roll, the disc held vertically, then snapping it to horizontal at the last minute. Aaron_D throws similarly (at least he used to), I think it may be to get the disc closer to the chest too.

I'm pretty sure MDR throws like that too. Most people aren't talented enough to put the disc back on plane correctly, but I find my wrist muscles are less loaded on an anhyzer. Meaning that pushing into that position would create an enormous amount of resistance and potential power.

 

[Star Shark]

One of the more exaggerated throwers with that style is Timmy Gill... take a look

http://stickitdg.com/gallery/albums/Pro-Men-Drives/timmy_gill.avi

 

[JHern]

One of the more exaggerated throwers with that style is Timmy Gill... take a look

http://stickitdg.com/gallery/albums/Pro-Men-Drives/timmy_gill.avi

That's a broken link.

 

[JHern]

I'm on the fence about going down the path of dissecting Avery Jenkins' drives. That should probably be another thread, eh?

We do this all the time on this forum: watch some video or whatever, and discuss details of positioning, what is moving where and when (but more rarely how and why, which are more important), the disc is this close or that close to the pec, the wrist rolls over/under, using this or that grip, etc.. But we rarely ever talk about the "feel" of the throw, and how to develop the proper feel and rhythm on their own terms. Masterbeato and other jedi masters are always talking about how important "feel" is, but the discussion always gets derailed by tangents about this or that aspect of form alone.

You can watch Avery all day, and you're still not going to know what it feels like to him. You can see his elbow stop (yeah, it stops pointing more forward from his torso than sideway), you can see the disc close to the pec, etc.. And you could go out in a field and put your body into exactly the same positions as he does going in sequence through the throw, but your throw will probably be total crap.

I never thought the best way to do anything well was to exactly emulate somebody else in terms of just "going through the same motions." No, that's not how it works. You have to find out what it really is that makes the other person do that particular thing really well, and dig deeper. And for sure your optimal way of doing things might be different in terms of the motions, but the same underlying principles will be there in common.

That's not to say studying form is not useful. It is! And its also really fun too! But for me it can be a distraction, and has been in the past, and I should warn others of that pitfall before they go off and miss the point of the direction this discussion was previously headed.