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I just started throwing backhand this season, and have made some progress but am nowhere near what I want to be. I'm currently throwing around 300 pretty consistently, but my goal is 400. Any help would be appreciated. https://youtu.be/gJe5keUluI0
The link wouldn't upload, the original videos wouldn't either so I hope that works
Don't think of it as a "reach back", think of it as a "loading" stage. You are trying to get the disc way back there, and you are tipping your spine/upper body back past your back foot. This will lead to all sorts of angle issues throughout the rest of the throw, since your spine will keep drifting that means your swing plane has to move relative to it just to throw a flat shot.
Your rear foot is spinning in place, which indicates you are not transferring your momentum forward into the throw, into the brace foot. There isn't a shift happening, so the X-step really isn't helping you yet.
Finally, you are not getting to an elbow-forward position, so you are not getting full leverage/"snap" on the disc, rather your arm is swinging all at the same time. This, after grip, is very very important.
I like this video as a short one that shows a nice stacked reach/turn back in balance:
Thanks for the feedback, I've known for awhile i wasn't getting the weight transfer correct and I have been having a lot of issues trying to figure out how to do it, should my rear foot swing behind me? Like if I were bowling?
For the last month or so I have been trying to do a "hip twitch" to get my hips involved and my arm moving before I accelerate, but perhaps I'm not doing that correctly either since my elbow isn't driving forward.
Your rear knee should move forward, and be driven under your rear hip. Your rear foot (heel) will drive forward rather than just spinning in the same location. The leg may extend out and counterbalance like a bowler as well (after the shift), but the initial direction is targetward to indicate that the weight his moving forward toward your brace leg.
Ahhh I see what u mean. I'm going to work on this and driving the elbow forward from a standstill on Tuesday and post another video to see if I have the right idea.
It looks pretty similar to me. As you are about to put your right foot down you are opening it...you need to plant it 90 degrees to the target and keep your right hip a bit closed so that you have something to shift into. Right now you are opening the right side to begin the throw, rather than shifting forward to begin the throw. Also, if you pause the video just before release, at release, and just after, you'll see your left foot stays in the same place and your heel just rotates. It's not until well after you release the disc that your leg is coming forward. Again this is all due to you starting the throw by opening your front side, rather than shifting into it.
Imagine you are on a hardwood floor and have a sock on your right foot. If you want to slide sideways across the floor you have to push into that right leg so your body can slide in balance just on your right foot. This is kind of what the shift should feel like...getting into a dynamic balance onto your right side. If you did your throwing motion instead of sliding sideways you would just spin around your socked foot.
Ok i have a question. Am I suppose to push off the instep of my rear foot? I have read it both ways, but it seems to me like there is some force behind it when I watch some slow motion videos.
Yes you do have to push off of the rear instep to shift the weight, and this should be happening as/into the front foot heel-down position. The speed of the throw (stand still vs. walking X-step vs. fast X-step) changes how this looks a bit and the tempo, but the shift has to happen INTO the plant. If your plant foot is already on the ground with weight on it before your rear foot has been de-weighted...then that is an after the fact way to analyze that you didn't shift into the brace.
For example, if you pause your video at ~0:27 where your front heel is just touching down, your rear heel is just starting to rotate around your rear toes. No weight has moved into that heel-down position, and your rear leg does not move at all. This is tricky...I'm not saying to think about "moving the rear leg", it's just that if you shift the rear leg will have moved. Now look at this video in comparison:
At ~0:11 when their plant heels touch down, the rear heels are already off the ground and the rear leg is clearly moving forward. Another way to look at it is that their rear legs are continually moving forward as their plant foots touch down...they are shifting "into" the brace. Now the more smooth momentum you carry with an X-step it may not feel like a distinct "push" from the rear foot, but more of a gliding motion. I don't want to use too many "feel" words that people interpret differently and can apply the wrong feeling. Think about the sliding across a hardwood floor analogy I have a post or so up, that's how it feels to me to shift my weight into the brace.
Agree with all the above. If you watch your video, your posture is collapsing on/over your front leg during your swing and can see your center of gravity lowering. You should be stiffening your posture/front leg and maintaining your center of gravity or even rising up some during the swing. You are also spinning your front foot/leg open before your weight shifts and your stance is open.
Ok so after watching those videos and taking everyone's feedback I went and stood in front of a mirror and really concentrated on stiffening up the front leg and getting my rear leg heel up. This caused my hip to go skyward like what dave feldberg talks about in one of his videos.
I'm playing a round today and will probably post another video, hopefully with some progress this time Thanks again for taking the time to help me everybody.
Yeah some improvement but still moving around all funky and not flowing.
1. Don't move your rear foot going into the backswing - leverage killer. You are spinning out of leverage/torque as you move your rear foot going into your wind up/backswing/reachback. See The Move Part 1 above and Understanding Weighshift.
2. You need to turn your body more backwards into the plant to brace and "shift your weight from behind you" - see Best Downswing above and do exactly what he does at the top of your real backswing falling into the plant backwards. You are doing the opposite trying to shift from in front of you and you push your whole center of gravity up from your rear foot instead of leveraging forward and rising up from bracing your front leg. I'd also recommend doing the One Leg Drill and raising your rear foot off the ground a few inches/throw from a downhill lie(Crush the Can 2.1 drill at 3:20 below).
Yeah go through SW22's suggestions for the weight shift stuff...definitely an improvement but it looks like you're trying to stomp "down" on something instead of driving forward and then having the brace balance allow you to rise.
But I want to point out your throwing arm shoulder. I had issues with this for a long time as well. As you are swinging back things are fine (rotating your shoulders), but at the farthest back point you keep reaching farther and use your shoulder socket to try to reach even further...this helps nothing (since you aren't turning around your spine still), and it isolates your shoulder, as well as causing all sorts of plane issues for the rest of the swing (your planes are fine now, but once you get your elbow forward things could get messed up like they were for me). Just try to rotate your shoulders/upper body around the spine rather than using your arm itself as the reach back, keep the shoulders nice and level.
After I went for that round the other day and put up my posts I went out to my mom's house in the middle of nowhere and had absolutely no service, but before I got there I refreshed this page so I could read sidewinder22s feedback, unfortunately the service was nonexistent t so I couldn't watch those videos at the time, however I did take what u said in section 2 and went out to the field by mom's house.
What I ended up doing was keeping my legs bent and nose over toes, did the reach back to get my front foot on the toes then push of the instep of my rear foot to bring the front heel down. After that I started pulling through and pushed my front heel into the ground to spring the front leg up to stiffen it and brace. This had some pretty good results and it felt pretty good as well.
The question I have though is this. Should the front leg be stiff as soon as the heel is brought down or a little bit later like I was doing?
Slowplastic, I think I know what u mean. My shoulders should be completely in line with each other right? After seeing ur post I went through the motion and noticed I'm rounding my throwing shoulder forward, or pushing it out of socket. Didn't even realize I was doing this .
Seems as if I opened a giant can of worms haha. This form thing turned into an obsession for me aND I can't stop thinking about it
I should also add that in the last video I was consciously lifting my rear foot onto the ball and then dropping my heel of the front fooy instead of pushing with the entire instep of the rear foot. This is what made me rise and drop in the video.
Thanks again for taking the time to help me everybody.
