4 Months playing...Am I on the right path here?

[Notrepidation]

Hi fellas. New to the forums as well as the sport. Although at this point (4 months in) I am completely and hopelessly addicted. I am at a point where I tape every tee shot of every round i play. Then I go home, watch them all on the computer and try and pick apart what I am doing wrong....then attempt to fix it the next time I play. Things that will allow you to give the best possible feedback.....

I am 38. Big guy....6"2" 260 Lb. Have been very athletic my entire life. Baseball was my main sport (collegiate level) but I played a ton of football and ball golf as well.....some tennis. No injuries with the exception of some scar tissue on my right elbow that restricts the full extension just a tad ( I was a pitcher). I was introduced to the game by a great friend back in "97"....played for a month or so but it never really "stuck". That is, I never got to the point where I NEEDED to improve....I had no intention of competing and only played because my buddy wanted a partner to throw with once in a while. Now, I can't put the disc down. This game has, for me become an obsession. It certainly is going to be a lifelong love for me now so I would really like to improve as much as possible.

I throw primarily RHBH but I do have a somewhat reliable sidearm/flick. The main plastic i throw from the tee is my Blizzard Wraith, MOLS, Star Echo Teebird, Star Sidewinder and once in a while my Champ Valk. Distance off the tee is a pitiful 300 to 350 depending. I can usually throw my sidearm further than my backhand which IMHO is unacceptable.

One of my main problems in the past was strong arming. I am assuming due to my history in baseball I had a tendency to use more of my arm and not use the core/hips/shoulders etc.

My main issues now....as I see them (some of you may see other things more important and please, by all means share with me) are my lack of distance and the fact that I have a horrid tendency to pull about 40 to 50% of my shots to the right. By that I do not mean grip lock or turning the disc over.....I mean the disc will fly straight but about 30 to 40 degrees to the right of where I am aiming/want it to go.

Enough talk....I hope I didn't lose everyone because I rambled before y'all got a chance to help me out a bit and watch the form. ANY and ALL advice/feedback is GREATLY appreciated. My main goal is to improve, to do so I know I must fix the myriad of issues I have with my form. Thanks again in advance!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPpmM19IBnI

[JR]

Hi and welcome to the addiction ant this forum Not being able to extend the elbow sucks but i can't do that either having naturally limited motion range. I wouldn't rush to a doctor just yet for a cleaning surgery (that did wonders for my ankle two weeks ago motion range wise).

The reason the discs rotates clockwise in the air is heave off axis torque. Meaning something forces the disc to rotate just as it is leaving the hand. OAT is the abbreviation and it's a FAQ often described here. Wrist rolling, arm dropping low in the follow through and unclean releases from the grip disc bottom scraping or sticking to the fingers. The hip and shoulder bones might be on unequal heights from the ground and that would tilt the disc sometimes in unintended manner. You might wanna check the technique repair section on the main page too.

The flipping is made worse by your varying final step landing position. The right leg lands left and right of the line you x stepped on. Landing left of the running direction tilts the body right or clockwise tilting the disc the same and it is the correct way to throw anhyzers and rollers. At times you put the right leg on the ground to the right of the line for a hyzer tilt and lo and behold on the second throw the disc flew on a hyzer so you already have that shot.

The place you start at and end up on in the tee and the place where the follow through step lands matter also for avoiding OAT. Annies start from rear right and depending on angle end up in the middle or the left of the front of the tee. Reverse for hyzer and straight down the middle for flat shots. The follow through landing step position should be a mirror of the plant step. Which is the final step of the right leg before the disc leaves the hand.

You don't reach back far at all and that is the major limiting factor to your backhand distance now. BTW. you have good forehand distance which sets the bar high for backhand so don't worry The reason you can't reach back ain't your physique it is because you don't point the feet and head 180 degrees away from the target. That allows you to almost double the arm stroke length. Since you are athletic and have experience of using your body balance shouldn't be an issue. Just make sure you always step each step without being flat footed to not twist the ankles, knees etc. Reaching back fully will be way different feeling and awkward and most feel they'll fall down and thus won't throw at all and lose distance at first. It is natural and can take months to get over. With your background i hope that your learning curve is shorter.

Check out Youtube channel mfranssila for throwing technique differences between yourself and some elite throwers. Especially the dual angle slow motion video of Avery Jenkins. There's also channel lcgm8 where there's a video 7 throws with Avery Jenkins and many other comparison slow mos in various vids such as Tali Open 2009.

Notice how you did not twist the hips to the right of resting position at all? That is the second largest source of power. The second major loss is lifting the left leg off of the ground before the disc leaves. You should not kick the left buttock with the left leg. At this rate you take a lot of power off of the arm motion forward. Sir Isaac Newton wrote something to the effect each motion has an equal and opposite force. That means that standing on one leg and throwing will put half of the power into turning your body to the left. No joy aiming and power generation wise. To rectify that you should either keep the left leg on the ground (see Avery for toe only on the ground to see how flexibility concerns are alleviated by the left foot being vertical at the rip) or doing what Dave Feldberg does to counter the arm swing counter force by kicking the left leg to the right and well forward.

Here's a great tip to help in not having the arm drop low in the follow through like you did: Right after the disc has left rotating the thumb to point down allows more freedom of movement for the shoulder blade which can stop the rising follow through motion for hyzers. If a flat shot arm swing drops below horizontal in the follow through that is a recipe for flipping discs and rollers.

All of these things are repeated in video critiques so if i were you i'd look at many of them for tips too. Have you seen this? : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nED7gcXobEo

[AcesAZ]

JR nailed it. I'll just add that your not turned far enough back, your butt and back should be closer to facing the target on the X step or left foot plant. Right foot plant is too far right causing pulls. Turn away from the target then fire from the ground up. I did this early on as well and picked up 30-40 feet easy just feeling more closed and trying to pull it.

[Notrepidation]

I appreciate the posts guys. Sorry it took so long to respond and give thanks. I certainly kno how much time such long and detailed responses must have taken and again, it is much appreciated. Took another video (who am I kidding, I record every round I play LOL) and wanted to know if y'all saw any improvement. After watching this most current video I saw several things myself that still require attention.

1. I am still pivoting on the ball of my foot as opposed to the heel sometimes....not always though. It appears that when I want to "take something off of it" or throw a flat or turnover/Anni I tend to pivot on the ball of my plant foot. Whereas, when I lay into one I almost always pivot on the heel. Is this normal?
2. snap requires attention still. I am assuming this will come with time and about 500,000 more towel drills.
3. Noticing that my reach back appears to not be reaching to it's full potential. I did a ton of pitching in baseball starting at age 7 and through college....this created severe scar tissue on my elbow and I can't fully extend my right arm. I would say I can get it to about 90% full extension. However, in the video it looks like I am not even reaching that....I am certain I could reach back further.....my only concern there is when I do I tend to get a little......what I can only explain as "out of control". It feels like a balance issue and it also feels like I am trying to rip the hell out of the drive......which is a bad thing when I am trying to stick with the "smooth is far" theory.

Thoughts?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uAdaCoDHuI

[JR]

No probs we are here to help and paying forward for the help we've gotten.

The left leg is still airborne as the disc leaves. That is a wrong direction in the motion of the left leg. In order to turn as fast as possible toward the target (=creating hellamuch power driving the arm lever) you need to push forward with the left leg and backward with the right leg.

There is way too much sole contact on the ground and that robs power repetition in accuracy and is dangerous for the health. Extremely dangerous even in the short term. Especially on dry hot concrete with rough surface and grippy soles. At this time your left leg rises down to up. The direction should be more back to front with both knees twisting to the right. See Youtube for Chubby Checker and the song Do the Twist.

The longer the final step and the faster the speed the more people will land and pivot on the heel. It comes from the length of the leg and anatomy. Nearing a spagat the only part of the foot that can touch the ground is the heel.

You are correct about not reaching back as far as you can. That may not be a problem at all at your experience level because it is great to drill into the head that disc golf is more about repeated accuracy than raw absolute distance. Ideally you need both but for every distance increase you need to maintain control to score any better. In fact many score worse ripping all out with lesser accuracy or the ability to repeat a full power rip. So it ain't a big deal right now that you don't reach back any farther because you do reach far enough for repeated control shots. In order to not lose a lot of accuracy reaching back farther people need good leg power, balance maintaining muscle power (core) and good control of the muscles=balance and timing.

You don't really move the hips and shoulders left of neutral in the reach back and that is something you can do without losing control. Mirroring the reach back you also don't move to the right with the hips and the shoulders prior to the elbow chop or even after that. That will show in snap once you incorporate it. The faster you run the more difficult it is to move to the right for me anyway. So slowing down is the time proven cure for that. Even i can use my hips and shoulders despite 3 vertebrae being damaged.

The things that you can start to train on but should do exclusively for added distance is to turn the back fully at the target along with the heels in the first two steps.

I don't think the elbow is a problem and what can you do about it other than getting a surgery? So i wouldn't spend time thinking about the elbow angle. I can't straighten my elbows either and sharing not twisting the hips enough to the right i still manage over 400'. After arm injury.

Being out of control or balance is usually a sign to slow the steps down and doing balance and leg plus core exercises. One thing that would help is to train flat shots only starting and ending up on the center line of the tee with each run up step, x steps and the follow through step landing on the center line.