Maxing out @ 300ft...

[patdabunny]

I'm still only scraping around 400' when I'm throwing well...and I think I have become quite good at the full reach back method. But for me to go further, the bent elbow is calling...I think a shortened motion with even more leverage applied to the pivot point of my index and middle finger tips is the way to go, and indeed the distance will eventually come. For the last 2.5 years I've been playing, I've been throwing farther and farther and farther, and I don't expect that to stop for a while!

I found that I must have been doing most everything else right EXCEPT the reachback. Keeping it close (thereby making the elbow bend to the fullest), pulling really late, etc. I even hear the massive "semi-truck going 75mph on fire" sound that Masterbeato describes the disc making as it leaves my hand. It has made me be almost in awe of what I can do now, as I've wanted this to happen for years. It's just great to reach a goal you've set, you know?

[DiscinLeopard]

Two facts:

Fact 1: 300 ft is about as far as most men can throw using primarily the strength of their arm to propel the disc. For women it is closer to 230 ft.

Fact 2: The fact that you get the same distance no matter how you do your step implies that you aren't getting anything out of your legs, which drive your torso, which is the platform for your shoulders...

The sum:

Fact 1 + Fact 2 = You're strong-arming, throwing with your arm, and you're not getting much of anything from your torso and shoulders.

Your arm is of order 10X less powerful than your legs/torso. Stop throwing with your arm! Your arm is only useful for positioning and gripping, other than that, it is purely passive. Your arm needs to be turned into a whip that is driven by the powerful motion of your legs/hips/torso/shoulders.

Here's an exercise I might suggest:

Stand still with your arms at your side, completely relaxed. Turn your hips and torso back slowly and then rotate your hips quickly to the open position. Your arms should be whipped out and around in a windmill motion, without you using a single muscle in your arms. That's the feeling you should be aiming for.

Next do the same thing, except extend your throwing elbow out sideways from your body and hold it there (as if you put a vice around your shoulder). Allow your lower throwing arm and hand to hang limp from your elbow. Do it as if your arm were asleep and some mechanical device was locked onto your shoulder to keep the elbow pointed out side ways from your torso. Don't allow your elbow to move forward or backward, nor up nor down. It is completely locked in place, as if you no longer even had a shoulder joint and your upper arm were fused into your shoulder so that it would always point out sideways.

Now slowly turn your hips and torso back, and turn them abruptly open again. Don't use a single muscle in your arm! Now you should find that you've turned your arm into a whip. Your lower arm should be whipping forward super-fast. In fact, you can whip your lower arm forward way faster in this manner than your arm muscles could ever dream of doing. Your arm muscle strength decreases rapidly as speed increases, so they are useless anyways...trying to use them will only slow down this motion. You'll find that whipping your lower arm forward in this manner, with the elbow "stopped," will feel relatively effortless in comparison to trying to throw with your arm as you've probably been doing before.

Practice getting this feeling for a while. (Later you can work on the grip and positioning in finer detail, but for now focus on using your legs/hips/torso/shoulders as the powerful motor for whipping your arm forward.)

I just got home from a great day of playing at my local course and applied this technique to my games and saw an immediate improvement in my game all day. Thank you JHern.

[patdabunny]

With wind/elevation, you could be as far as 450'-500'... Most of the long holes I see have some elevation. just sayin' I don't think you're as far off as you think.

Just to let you know, BU, you were right. All I had to do was have a local big gun point out that I needed to reach back further (I was only reaching back to my L shoulder). Once I did, I was reaching ~500'. BTW, that was my goal for the year, so now my new goal is 600'. We shall see...

One thing that Bradley said a while back in a thread (don't know which, I can't find it) was about the wrist and seeing how important it is in putting. I found that to be EXTREMELY important in straddle putting from outside the circle. If you keep the wrist straight and allow the "spring" (wrist) to compress (disc is accelerating) and then extend (disc is leaving your hand) simply due to the forces involved, you can get serious putting D and very good putting accuracy. Wanted to give props out to BW for this. I don't think I understood him the first time he said it.

I appreciate all the help you guys gave. It helped me tremendously.

[JHern]

...
Here's an exercise I might suggest:...

I just got home from a great day of playing at my local course and applied this technique to my games and saw an immediate improvement in my game all day. Thank you JHern.

You're quite welcome DiscinLeopard. By practicing this technique, I broke well over the 300' mark, even though I still wasn't getting a great deal of snap. By reaching all the way back, I was getting up to 370'. Keep working on it, but also think about returning to the right pec drill, and putting 2 & 2 together. Once you can put your body in the positions to gain power through your torso, all you need is to slow down/pause when facing 90 degrees to the target, get the disc into your right pec, and then channel all your body's power into the final whip, making sure you are getting your hand around the disc and opening the wrist before the disc rips off your pivot fingers.

Today I scored 13 birdies over 2 rounds of 18. I had 4 in a row during one hot streak. I was parking stuff at will, using a variety of discs and lines. But my putting sucks, and I had more bogies than birdies, caused when my drives went askew. I'm still shopping for a new putter (I'm between the Pro D Challenger and the Wizard right now), and totally out of the groove.

Anyways, I can reach 400' over flat ground most of the time I want to do so. I'm beginning to feel the real snap (though still not fully), and it is already a huge transition in my game, taking my drives to a whole new level.

[jubuttib]

Sorry for the wall of text.

So it's summer and I went to my folks. Been here for 3 days, will stay for a week. I have a field nearby that's never used by anyone, so I can practice every day. And I have, 5 hours per day for the first two days, 2+ hours today (slept in something severe).

The first day I decided to really try loosening myself up, because at the Feldberg clinic I saw that the disc just dangled between his fingers most of the time. So I grabbed as lightly as I could manage. My form felt looser and easier, I definitely wasn't overpowering with my arm, not as much as before at least. I tried to increase my grip strength towards the end of the throw, but kept misstiming it and never really hit it.

The second day I decided to really focus on strenghtening the grip at the hit. I kept scratching my forefinger with my thumbnail the first day, and remembered that Feldy was advocating 70/30 back/front grip pressure for driving, so I focused on my middle through pinky fingers. Started feeling a lot more pressure as the disc was leaving my hand. The good rips were also going around 30 degrees to the right, which was to be expected, I wasn't hitting it at all before. Timing work was needed.

Today I changed my grip a bit (using Feldy's grip) by positioning my middle and ring fingers a bit differently, also changed the angle so that there's pretty much zero pad touching the rim. This clearly helped me lock my grip tighter, and within two throws my fingers were completely numb to the touch, and aching something fierce. When I felt comfortable with the modified grip, I decided to add some wrist action. A little fiddling led to better nose down and more spin. My aim also got significantly better, discs launching where I aimed them, but turning over more than I'm used to and not coming back as soon as they used to either, so most throws still ended to the right of where I aimed.

The results? Lately I've been averaging about 320-350', with the occasional good rip going around 380' or so. Been in a bit of a slump. The first day I raised my average to 360-380', with good rips going 400' plus. The second day I raised my average to around 400', with particularly good one's going around 420+'. Today I was consistently hitting around 420' if I got my release angle right, and I'm starting to run out of space. Had to cut the session short because I was worrying about losing my discs; they're flying over the fence and into the woods when throwing one way, and landing on a road/people's yards when throwing the other.

Before I was worried I was doing something fundamentally wrong with my drive, turns out rethinking it a bit and going back to the basics (relaxation and only gripping at the hit) did more than I could have imagined. Otherwise I really haven't done anything to my form.

My two favorite shots today were back-to-back line drives with my Pro Destroyer and FR Nuke, both went where I wanted them to, landed within a few feet of eachother and never went above 10' in height. Distance was around 440-450'.

I should have listened when people talked about the importance of relaxation, throwing is more effortless now, and the main muscles I'm tiring seem to be in my forearm, due to my fingers finally doing the work they were supposed to be doing from the start.

Thanks to everyone who's contributed to the techniques, I've just been too much of an ass to fully acknowledge them. =)

EDIT: By the way, the distance I get seems to almost solely depend on where I feel the rip. If I feel like my pinkie, ring and middle fingers are being ripped out of my hand, the disc flies damn far with lots of spin and a clean release, also usually very nose down. If I feel the rip in my index finger, the disc doesn't launch nearly as fast, feels and flies like a slip every time, usually with nose up. I can usually tell where the disc will end up just by which fingers tingle after the release.

[Monocacy]

Firstly, congratulations on your progress. That must have been very rewarding.

I have also made some progress recently by focusing on relaxing until the hit. Loose grip, loose arm, and no active pulling until just before the hit. Consistency should come with practice, but I am seeing definite improvement (especially with slower discs).

Of course, my progress is your slump. Less distance, even. Oh, well, I’m old. Yeah, that’s it.

I need to try that 70 / 30 back / front grip pressure thing, too. If I can develop a consistent grip and hit, I want to try incorporating some active wrist action. One thing at a time, though.

[Smigles]

3. while directions can be dictated by body positions, power really isn't. in order to launch the disc down a target line you need to have visual contact with your target line. suggestion: make visual contact with your target line before you try applying any type of power to it.

This is from a few pages back, but it is the first thing that realy seems impossible to me.

When i reach back, i lose sight of the basket, and then there is a sort of blurry "give it all you got" phase and when i see clearly again, the disc is way in the air, certainly 50 feet away. How can you keep sight of the basket during the x-step and while reaching back ?

Or do you say that you should come out of the reach back and dont apply power till you see the basekt again ? Is this what you mean by only use your arm for disc positioning ?

[JR]

Two different possibilities. One is what I call approach drive where the reach back is just so long that you can see the target from the corner of your eye. Keep the head turned as far right as you can and turn the eyes far right too. For accuracy the head must lock onto the target and once your legs etc. start to turn toward the target the head won't move until far in the follow through if even then. The neck must move fluidly under the head so that the motion is not jerky and won't move your stance off.

For more potential power generation you do reach back far and break eye contact but you can get a clear albeit brief look at the target and aim visually too if you keep the head and eyes turned as far right as possible until you gain eye contact and then again lock the head into place allowing neck and everything down from there to rotate underneath freely without friction and jerkiness.

[Smigles]

Hmm, i will have to work on that ^^ The way i drive at the moment, my eyes are on the disk, not on the target

[garublador]

For more potential power generation you do reach back far and break eye contact but you can get a clear albeit brief look at the target and aim visually too if you keep the head and eyes turned as far right as possible until you gain eye contact and then again lock the head into place allowing neck and everything down from there to rotate underneath freely without friction and jerkiness.

I'm working on that, too. It's difficult but way worth learning.

[Blake_T]

When i reach back, i lose sight of the basket, and then there is a sort of blurry "give it all you got" phase and when i see clearly again, the disc is way in the air, certainly 50 feet away. How can you keep sight of the basket during the x-step and while reaching back ?

Or do you say that you should come out of the reach back and dont apply power till you see the basekt again ? Is this what you mean by only use your arm for disc positioning ?

you are starting your pull too early. you shouldn't try to apply force until you have visual contact.

most pros don't even complete their reachback until after their pivot foot hits the ground.

[gretagun]

This has probably been answered 100 times, but does the pivot happen after the hit? Sometimes I feel like I start pivoting too early, and lose power by the time I get to the hit. If I try to not pivot until right after the hit, I get more power and then my body can't help but pivot and follow through. I think I'm still rushing things when I drive, but on short approaches, I can really slow it down and get a much better follow through and a more accurate throw.

[cfair]

I'll take this one because I've asked it so many times myself. The pivot should happen because of the follow through that comes with the hit. So you could say it is after the hit because a proper hit will result in a follow through. It happens in a moment and this is one of the best examples you'll see of it.

Right at the beginning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHSZyYAVPbs

[Blake_T]

This has probably been answered 100 times, but does the pivot happen after the hit? Sometimes I feel like I start pivoting too early, and lose power by the time I get to the hit. If I try to not pivot until right after the hit, I get more power and then my body can't help but pivot and follow through. I think I'm still rushing things when I drive, but on short approaches, I can really slow it down and get a much better follow through and a more accurate throw.

the final part of the hit... where the disc is launching... basically that's the "final tug" with the arm and that's when the pivot happens.

basically, the pivot happens right around the time the disc is leaving.

[gretagun]

Thanks for the info Blake and cfair! I'm hoping to get a new video up soon. Some of those hammer drills have really started helping me and I'd like to get some feedback to see if I'm on the right track.