Rocking the Hips

[flatflip]

If that's agreeable (it may not be), the remaining Q is whether I should call what the PLANT leg does a drive, or resists/pushes/leverages ground, etc.

I think most of us are calling it a brace.

 

[Brychanus]

I think most of us are calling it a brace.

Good. It seems ok to talk about leveraging the ground as the swing completes in that context. Can avoid referring to anatomical extension in that case too.

 

[SocraDeez]

Yeah there's some kind of dynamic interplay between into the ground/away from the ground, or between compression/ extension. Sure, we can't allow ourselves to crumple into the Earth when we step forward. I don't know how to iron out the terminology exactly, and I think that what we're beating around is probably the most mysterious/ hard to explain/ hard to grasp part of the lower body mechanics of the disc golf swing.

It's the thing that comes after the Waltz step/ extension during the x-step. You're totally right: our body has to get to the other side of the rear/ drive leg in that ankle>knee>hip position before we can really produce some good force against the ground. Then, the load into the backside of the swingframe happens with that coiling/ hinge of the hip as it clears around the backside femur and back toward the target. This load/ compression happens very late in professional players, and much too early in amateurs.

Check out Steve Brinster's hop here. Touches down in the Waltz step position, and then the heel drops a bit as he loads/ pushes into the ground on the backside of the swingframe w/ his back hip clearing.

Is Steve driving his weight forward with his back foot? Or is he loading into the backside of the swingframe? Are these things even different or separable? I don't know.

 

[SocraDeez]

If that's agreeable (it may not be), the remaining Q is whether I should call what the PLANT leg does a drive, or resists/pushes/leverages ground, etc.

Re: the plant/ brace leg & what it does. I like the constellation of resists/pushes/leverages. I would just try to avoid emphasis on the active phraseology. It just happens. I know that's not a terribly satisfactory explanation for instructional intents and purposes. But it's true.

It's a similar feeling to: stand on your plant leg and just drop into it/ pump against the Earth similar to a skateboarder at the bottom of a halfpipe drop. All I'm trying to do actively is catch myself from falling. Sure, my weight bounces right back up, and the knee does a flexion>extension motion pattern it seems. I didn't necessarily try to send the weight back up, though.

The weight/pressure shift is the last active lower body thing for me in the swing. Everything that happens on the front side of the swing frame is inevitable at that point.

 

[lostDoughnut]

my favorite explanation that clicked with myself was 'rear leg creates momentum for the front leg to post up against'


12-13 min marker (everything up to that adds to the conclusion)

 

[Brychanus]

Yeah there's some kind of dynamic interplay between into the ground/away from the ground, or between compression/ extension. Sure, we can't allow ourselves to crumple into the Earth when we step forward. I don't know how to iron out the terminology exactly, and I think that what we're beating around is probably the most mysterious/ hard to explain/ hard to grasp part of the lower body mechanics of the disc golf swing.

It's the thing that comes after the Waltz step/ extension during the x-step. You're totally right: our body has to get to the other side of the rear/ drive leg in that ankle>knee>hip position before we can really produce some good force against the ground. Then, the load into the backside of the swingframe happens with that coiling/ hinge of the hip as it clears around the backside femur and back toward the target. This load/ compression happens very late in professional players, and much too early in amateurs.

Check out Steve Brinster's hop here. Touches down in the Waltz step position, and then the heel drops a bit as he loads/ pushes into the ground on the backside of the swingframe w/ his back hip clearing.

Is Steve driving his weight forward with his back foot? Or is he loading into the backside of the swingframe? Are these things even different or separable? I don't know.

I think I'm with you. From a coaching perspective, describing the "pogo" mechanic seems like a good starting point because there are several ways to fail to achieve it, and correcting each one might require different triage & follow up. Some people might already have it from elsewhere or get it right away, others just need to feel the rock with Battering Ram, some get it with Hammer X-Step, others need Waltz steps, etc.

For instance, the Waltz step got me to get that rear hip clearing & leveraging forward, but over days of practice I'd say it becomes more "pogo-like", quicker, and fluid into the plant stride the tighter my mechanics get & especially as I focus on standstills. Same with the plant leg.

I think Brinster vs. Oman are good case examples that emphasize a big range in variability in how exact positions vary entering the drive phase. I'm sure folks here have thoughts about differences in efficiency, but in the end they're both finding leverage against the ground of some kind.

I still recall SW22's post about Ken Jarvis' "stiffest & quickest 3X spring", and it seems reasonable & consistent to focus on the "spring" action of the mechanism. I'd love to see muscle-wise electromyography data on the muscle chain from foot to hip to see how the contractions flow to get that mechanism.

Re: the plant/ brace leg & what it does. I like the constellation of resists/pushes/leverages. I would just try to avoid emphasis on the active phraseology. It just happens. I know that's not a terribly satisfactory explanation for instructional intents and purposes. But it's true.

Totally happy to avoid "active/passive" distinctions. I got all tangled up in that. In the end finding better positions/postures/moves while learning to stay in balance is teaching me much faster (with good coaching). It's hard to avoid people wondering "Is it active or passive?" sometimes, but the more I learn, it seems like that is not a meaningful question. And it seems to easily lead people astray. I mostly want to know (1) how to describe whatever makes it coachable and (2) meanwhile hope we get better data for observing/modeling the system more deeply than can be done solely by eye.

It's a similar feeling to: stand on your plant leg and just drop into it/ pump against the Earth similar to a skateboarder at the bottom of a halfpipe drop. All I'm trying to do actively is catch myself from falling. Sure, my weight bounces right back up, and the knee does a flexion>extension motion pattern it seems. I didn't necessarily try to send the weight back up, though.

The weight/pressure shift is the last active lower body thing for me in the swing. Everything that happens on the front side of the swing frame is inevitable at that point.

The halfpipe pump/spring is part of what I believe I was missing in both of my legs when I said I was "sagging" into them, in addition to putting the "hinge" for the swing in the wrong place. Those issues were related to each other. Doing the halfpipe/baseball swing/golf swing/hockey slapshot all get some version of the spring mechanism with slightly different balance & ground pressure points. And in each one of those exercises, I agree that there is no effort/thought to "send the weight back up."

If the leg is too saggy, the swing is weak/unbalanced. If it's too stiff, there's no compression & reflex. If you overdo it and focus on the plant leg forcing the hip up/open, you get a "knee snap" and weird/jerky torque in the hip socket.

So maybe half-piping or practicing these other swings with a stick/bat/club hopefully evokes that mechanism in most people. Once you practice the connection with the ground to facilitate the weight shift and lagged swings like those other sports, it makes it clearer (to me, at least), how that force naturally propagates up the chain. Even in a person who never played those sports seriously.

my favorite explanation that clicked with myself was 'rear leg creates momentum for the front leg to post up against'

Nice - I like this too, and I'd plug that video for anyone who hasn't watched it yet & esp. who is struggling with the idea of getting more ground forces into their chain. To map it to DG, I suggest others watch this vid from Sw22 first:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2koyglf-j4&t=16s&ab_channel=seabas22

Then watch that Be Better Golf vid, then watch the same McBeth vs. Am. vid again. It completely changed how I use my feet & weight. I started messing around with drills again afterwards and could get much more leverage from the ground into golf, baseball, hockey, and DG swings.

 

[timothy42b]

Re: the plant/ brace leg & what it does. I like the constellation of resists/pushes/leverages. I would just try to avoid emphasis on the active phraseology. It just happens. I know that's not a terribly satisfactory explanation for instructional intents and purposes. But it's true.

That's how I understood the brace. It passively stops momentum of lower body, and because the center of mass is slightly off center that induces rotation. I think the discussion has been in that direction for several years, if I understood correctly.

But maybe that's wrong. The Dr Kwon videos talk about an active "kick" with that plant leg that forces rotation. And that lines up a bit better with the stomp. The Dr Lynn videos with the force plates talk about three forces: lateral, rotational, and vertical.

 

[Brychanus]

That's how I understood the brace. It passively stops momentum of lower body, and because the center of mass is slightly off center that induces rotation. I think the discussion has been in that direction for several years, if I understood correctly.

But maybe that's wrong. The Dr Kwon videos talk about an active "kick" with that plant leg that forces rotation. And that lines up a bit better with the stomp. The Dr Lynn videos with the force plates talk about three forces: lateral, rotational, and vertical.

I the context of the "pogo"/spring way of thinking, I believe what Dr. Kwon is talking about is the same half pipe pump/slapshot leg action mentioned above. If you just "sag" on that plant leg, you don't have the spring reflex. When I focus on getting power from the ground you can feel the toe-heel action of the leg getting force, and it moves up the chain.

 

[timothy42b]

I'm not sure. See Dr Kwon:

 

[Brychanus]

I'm not sure. See Dr Kwon:

Yeah, I think this is part of that Gordian knot in talking about leg/hip action. I'm assuming part of what's happening in the ball golf swing and our "pogo/spring" talk is that when a leg absorbs weight in certain postures, it triggers reflexes you can leverage a swing against, like leveraging forward when walking. I'll let wiser minds get any feet out of my mouth. But some of us need to practice getting into that correct posture to leverage/hinge with to drive a ball golf swing/hockey slapshot/baseball swing. If you're in bad posture or too saggy, hinging wrong, or too tense/straight, you can't get the effect.

Sorry if posted before & not sure how credible this guy is, but I found this one timely in thinking about hips & mapping ground forces into the swing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cJxgXJglKo&ab_channel=EricCogornoGolf

 

[drk_evns]

 

[RocHucker]

Active vs Passive Brace

I believe that all of the discussion on here about the brace leg catching/rebounding/extending/etc. is correct, but is it the wrong thing to focus on? The point of the brace is to get the left hip (for RHBH throwers) to come through the shot, right? And as the outside of that left hip comes forward relative to the right hip, it pulls the throwing arm through the throw via the posterior oblique sling, right? And if our swing thought is "come through late and fast with the outside of the left hip", then our body will naturally achieve this by bracing with the right leg?

Sorry if the above is either too simplified to be helpful, or just plain incorrect.

I've started playing around with this swing thought, and I've achieved my prior max distance (~375 golf line) with less effort, though I haven't yet increased my max distance. I've had that feeling at various times before, but they all ended up being false breakthroughs, so I guess I'm asking if I seem to be on the right track?

I've been off-and-on trying to change my technique for years, and I'm currently in an "on" phase of having that itch. I've always struggled with properly powering my throw from the ground up, and I think that this active vs passive brace thing may be a large part of it.

From all of the discussion on here centering on "the brace", I think I'd always focused too much on it during my drives. Not that the discussion about "the brace" is wrong, but just that the way that I personally was focusing on it was causing me to stiffen up too much and have a "jamming" feeling, when in fact I'm guessing/gathering that the brace should feel natural and balanced and fluid?

 

[RocHucker]

...And if our swing thought is "come through late and fast with the outside of the left hip", then our body will naturally achieve this by bracing with the right leg?
...

To clarify, when I describe the left hip as "coming through late", I mean "after the front foot plants" or "late relative to the footwork", NOT "after the arm starts coming through" or "late relative to the throwing motion".

My understanding is that the arm should not move forward independently of the left hip coming through (until the follow-through, when it is allowed to swing around naturally).

 

[sidewinder22]

I believe that all of the discussion on here about the brace leg catching/rebounding/extending/etc. is correct, but is it the wrong thing to focus on? The point of the brace is to get the left hip (for RHBH throwers) to come through the shot, right? And as the outside of that left hip comes forward relative to the right hip, it pulls the throwing arm through the throw via the posterior oblique sling, right? And if our swing thought is "come through late and fast with the outside of the left hip", then our body will naturally achieve this by bracing with the right leg?

Sorry if the above is either too simplified to be helpful, or just plain incorrect.

I've started playing around with this swing thought, and I've achieved my prior max distance (~375 golf line) with less effort, though I haven't yet increased my max distance. I've had that feeling at various times before, but they all ended up being false breakthroughs, so I guess I'm asking if I seem to be on the right track?

I've been off-and-on trying to change my technique for years, and I'm currently in an "on" phase of having that itch. I've always struggled with properly powering my throw from the ground up, and I think that this active vs passive brace thing may be a large part of it.

From all of the discussion on here centering on "the brace", I think I'd always focused too much on it during my drives. Not that the discussion about "the brace" is wrong, but just that the way that I personally was focusing on it was causing me to stiffen up too much and have a "jamming" feeling, when in fact I'm guessing/gathering that the brace should feel natural and balanced and fluid?

To clarify, when I describe the left hip as "coming through late", I mean "after the front foot plants" or "late relative to the footwork", NOT "after the arm starts coming through" or "late relative to the throwing motion".

My understanding is that the arm should not move forward independently of the left hip coming through (until the follow-through, when it is allowed to swing around naturally).

I agree the brace should be natural and fluid, but I don't think that is correct about the left hip. The left hip coming thru doesn't really do anything. Wiggins left hip counters behind as the sling contracts. The sling loads or stretches in the backswing while the left foot is on the ground.

The brace allows the slings to catapult the right shoulder from right hip.

 

[RocHucker]

I agree the brace should be natural and fluid, but I don't think that is correct about the left hip. The left hip coming thru doesn't really do anything.

First off, thanks for the feedback! I'm having a hard time accepting that the left hip coming through doesn't do anything, but maybe I'm just not being precise enough with my language. Would it change your response if I'd said that the *outside* of the left hip moving/rotating counterclockwise through the swing is powering the throw? Aka your left pocket (as opposed to the core of the left hip joint, which doesn't necessarily in all shots finish closer to the target than the core of the right hip joint).

Take, for example, the David Wiggins Jr video that you posted a screenshot of. I took screenshots from the same video (see attachments) at peak reachback and at release point. His left pocket has, very quickly, rotated over 90 degrees about his axis of rotation. His torso and throwing arm have moved this same rotational distance over this same period of time.

In this particular throw, Wiggins is throwing on a steep hyzer, and his left leg must extend behind his body in order to counterbalance his spine tilt that is achieving this steep hyzer. This impedes his hip rotation to an extent, but he still seems to have gotten the greatest hip rotation that the body positioning necessitated by his shot shape would allow.

Wiggins left hip counters behind as the sling contracts. The sling loads or stretches in the backswing while the left foot is on the ground.

So to check my reading comprehension here: you're saying that the muscles of the back ("the sling") contracting is what powers the throw? And the primary purpose of the reachback (coinciding with the final stride, per your doorframe drill), is to stretch those back muscles, then the brace simply establishes an anchor point about which the back muscles can contract in order to pull the disc? What, then, is the purpose of the run-up? Shouldn't a guy with huge back muscles be able to stand-still drive further than string-beans like Eagle or Simon using a full run-up?

The brace allows the slings to catapult the right shoulder from right hip.

I don't think that I understand the mechanism that you're describing here. How can the right shoulder catapult from the right hip?

Thanks again for your feedback. I'm not trying to be contrarian, but just thinking things through out loud in order to try to understand.

 

[sidewinder22]

First off, thanks for the feedback! I'm having a hard time accepting that the left hip coming through doesn't do anything, but maybe I'm just not being precise enough with my language. Would it change your response if I'd said that the *outside* of the left hip moving/rotating counterclockwise through the swing is powering the throw? Aka your left pocket (as opposed to the core of the left hip joint, which doesn't necessarily in all shots finish closer to the target than the core of the right hip joint).

Take, for example, the David Wiggins Jr video that you posted a screenshot of. I took screenshots from the same video (see attachments) at peak reachback and at release point. His left pocket has, very quickly, rotated over 90 degrees about his axis of rotation. His torso and throwing arm have moved this same rotational distance over this same period of time.

In this particular throw, Wiggins is throwing on a steep hyzer, and his left leg must extend behind his body in order to counterbalance his spine tilt that is achieving this steep hyzer. This impedes his hip rotation to an extent, but he still seems to have gotten the greatest hip rotation that the body positioning necessitated by his shot shape would allow.


So to check my reading comprehension here: you're saying that the muscles of the back ("the sling") contracting is what powers the throw? And the primary purpose of the reachback (coinciding with the final stride, per your doorframe drill), is to stretch those back muscles, then the brace simply establishes an anchor point about which the back muscles can contract in order to pull the disc? What, then, is the purpose of the run-up? Shouldn't a guy with huge back muscles be able to stand-still drive further than string-beans like Eagle or Simon using a full run-up?

I don't think that I understand the mechanism that you're describing here. How can the right shoulder catapult from the right hip?

Thanks again for your feedback. I'm not trying to be contrarian, but just thinking things through out loud in order to try to understand.

I'm assuming you meant clockwise, not counter.

The core powers the swing. Weightshift and lag/inertia stretches the core. A 1" weightshift can be very effective and you typically get diminishing returns on efficiency on longer weightshift/runup.

The purpose of a run-up is to increase the torso stretch and also helps aiming linearly and also helps to keep you from maxing effort. If your "standstill" is efficient then a run-up will typically only add about 25% distance.

Try this:
1. Stand on front leg only and feel how your front glute pulls everything else thru for a BH throw. The rearside gets pulled thru by the frontside into the finish.

2. Stand on rear leg only and feel how that doesn't really do anything to the BH throw. You can't really pull the frontside or push it very efficiently from the rearside rotation.

Now if you put both feet on the ground and make a backswing it should pull your lead hip and lead heel off the ground away from target chasing the shoulder/disc/backswing. Now when you go to transition forward and plant the lead heel it pulls the lead hip and shoulder/arm/disc. You should really feel this in the Double Dragon Drill.

500' Standstills:

 

[Brenzo44]

I'm assuming you meant clockwise, not counter.

The core powers the swing. Weightshift and lag/inertia stretches the core. A 1" weightshift can be very effective and you typically get diminishing returns on efficiency on longer weightshift/runup.

The purpose of a run-up is to increase the torso stretch and also helps aiming linearly and also helps to keep you from maxing effort. If your "standstill" is efficient then a run-up will typically only add about 25% distance.

So I just wanna put this in layman's terms so I can understand this a bit better: You're saying that once the heel is down and your weight is shifted, the core/back is the "power" of a throw? Rather than, say, trying to power through with the hips like the other guy is saying?

 

[sidewinder22]

So I just wanna put this in layman's terms so I can understand this a bit better: You're saying that once the heel is down and your weight is shifted, the core/back is the "power" of a throw? Rather than, say, trying to power through with the hips like the other guy is saying?

Correct.

Watch how Eveliina loads her right shoulder back and slings her right shoulder forward like bow and arrow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLvKQ3-oOOA

 

[Sard0nyx]

Correct.

Watch how Eveliina loads her right shoulder back and slings her right shoulder forward like bow and arrow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLvKQ3-oOOA

How does the core/shoulder power the throw? Is it through rotation of the upper half? Or is it getting the core out front being pulled by the weight?

 

[seedlings]

How does the core/shoulder power the throw? Is it through rotation of the upper half? Or is it getting the core out front being pulled by the weight?

Get a 5 gallon bucket half full of water. Do a motion that throws all the water out of the bucket and over a fence (while still holding the bucket). You'll use your legs, core, shoulders… all the groups.