Get a grip -successful grip experimentations

[JR]

ZJ1002 and I have tried to futz with this and variations and have talked about it in a thread derail over at I only throw 430' with Ions thread at video critique section. So I brought it over here.

I tried variations yesterday. Meaning stealing from Chris Voigt, Feldy, ZJ with a traditional bit from the power grip. It is too early to tell but the results were good enough to try out later if only I could get no wind to really see what's what. Well it's too cold anyway for that. Given the cold I'm throwing fairly far for me but that can be the wind alone. Muscle looseness isn't wind dependent So I'll describe the feelings and flight attitudes for now.

I kept my index finger outer joint under the rim to wing corner with the outer part in neutral position. That is the loosest position for the muscles and allows an easy trigger pull from the outer part of the index finger. It probably isn't the most powerful addition to the grip but I get the timing and position right with good confidence. Consistency shouldn't be hampered by grip because there are so many other things that can go awry so a fundamental issue shouldn't be dangerous to try ever.

The middle finger is in the power grip position to support the disc in the right attitude throughout the throw for now. Ring finger is under the wing stacked on top of the pinky which is pushing up the ring finger against the wing -the side of the ring finger lies under the wing. The ring finger thumb side lies as a direct extension of the rim so the finger can push the rear of the disc up. The thumb so far is regular power grip but I gotta try Jenkins type of push down too. I also plan on trying stacking the middle finger under the wing.

So far the benefits of the middle finger in the power grip position with the thumb on the flight plate is no fear of slipping due to the cold weather and my dry skin and having leverage of the thumb being forward of the middle finger pushing the nose down without resistance from the index finger. The index finger ain't in the way for this because it's so loose that it bends out of the way without resistance and tensioning up the muscles so that I could feel it. They may tense up somewhat under the detection threshold but I still feel extremely loose like never before. Until late in the throw during the trigger pull and the pinch of course.

I stacked the ring finger and the pinky for supposedly less resistance of the fingers on the disc. Which is why I want to try out the Jenkins thumb grip too. There might be a problem of hand size and finger shortness for keeping up the Beto style of rear of the disc raised to the side of the base of the thumb. I think there would be few discs I could grip like this but have yet to try out.

With the version I tried yesterday I could push the wrist down a few degrees further down before I started to feel tension in the forearm muscles. And it doesn't do me any good done in a pre throw routine. I confirmed that so late in the session that I had too few throws left practicing pushing the wrist down late in the throw. And unfortunately my legs were giving out under me so I had real trouble shifting my weight forward. Weight back or neutral planning for a rising arm pull from thigh height dominates over anything I can get from added wrist down even when I time and power it right to have the wrist down at the rip. When I got weight forward and wrist down I still couldn't get extreme nose down on high lines before I had to stop. The few attempts that I had were head height front under the rear of the disc that dove down too early or higher nose flat ones with not enough weight forward. I didn't manage to get high enough throws that were front below rear. The good thing is that the D was good even on high throws. But that may be the direct rear wind from nil to fairly fast.

The trigger pull from just the outermost joint of the index finger was easy to time right every time. I didn't have to think of it from the get go. Phew I count myself lucky. There are too few free lunches. I had no grip locks and can't really say that I got any better pinching strength at least every time. Sometimes I may have been either late or off with the pinch power but it didn't seem to show up in distance and it felt like a normal or slightly lower pinch power compared to normal power grip.

The best thing about this version of trigger pull grip I tried is that I seemed to spend less effort from the muscles leaving me a little fresher. So if anything else won't be an improvement there's that.

[zj1002]

thanks for making this JR, I needed a better place to dump my info.

I had the same realization about the Beto raised grip a couple days ago. When I could hit it with that grip it flew great, but it was causing a ton of pre-throw tightness and varying results. I had been using the Beto(above the seam) grip since I first came here to learn from you guys. So all I really knew was the above the seam; time after time of repeating that as a novice I trained myself to think that was the right feeling of tightness. This Trigger Pull changed all that, and I credit it some of it to the fact that I had been using the wrong grip for me the whole time. The Trigger Pull allows me to put the disc in the seam of my hand, maintaining the same tight grip(minus index finger), and keep the disc sitting in the seam of my hand. As long as I don't pop my shoulder up or pull early, I get great nose down. I shot -11 in doubles yesterday(a course record), most it from this grip. I think it makes a great alternative. For those that do try it, I still am not sure about the distance potential, but it did give me a huge increase in accuracy.

I am going to cut and paste some quotes from that Ion thread so people can see my take on this.

1. Reach back was at about left shoulder(chest high), index finger off the rim. My wrist/hand feels very lose, yet i still maintain a solid grip with the other fingers. My basic grips are a fan grip and a modified 3 finger stacked power grip(index, middle, pinky on rim; ring stacked on pinky/middle)

2. usual x-step and pulled through as I ended the x-step. still kept index finger off the rim as I got the pull to my right pec.

3. tried to accelerate at the right pec, punching the elbow out out in front of me and focusing on keeping the nose down. this is where I start to feel the disc pivot, or it could just be a slip from not having the index finger.

4. as the elbow and wrist start to uncoil this is where I "pulled the trigger" and brought the index finger under the rim as hard as I could. in some cases I could feel the disc, pivot off my palm and other fingers(non-index/thumb), and then pivot again off my index as my wrist uncurled.

There were a few grip locks and sweeping flat hyzers that were definitely not intended. I do seem to have a bit more distance, but didn't get to a field before dark to see if that was true. The biggest difference was dead nuts accuracy when I clamped the index finger at the proper moment. This is basically allowing me to slow my shoulders down, get the nose down, and see my target before I am ripping it.

I could see myself having some issues if I don't time the "trigger" properly. I did not have any early releases or severe nose up shots, which had been a problem the past 3-4 months. I am not sure if this is something I will keep in my throw, but I think it can help me feel the weight of the disc and is a great learning tool.

I want to try this on some distance lines tomorrow. add a longer reach back, and drop my pull down below my chest to create some more leverage. hopefully I get some positive results

The index finger trigger pull motion has momentum going into the pinch so it has the potential to be stronger than a static grip. If the timing coincides with the added grip strength requirement. Grip locks from added pinch power or timing problems are definitely in the cards. This does not fall in the category of keep it simple On the other hand not throwing arm static gripping with the index finger under the wing gets the hand more down the standard finger on the rim. Partially from the size of the index finger not allowing the disc to stay down and partially from the tightening of the forearm muscles which shortens the muscles pulling up the wrist.

This is the video where DgDave pointed out what Jussi was doing with his finger. Check out his throws with the ion, you can see him doing his "trigger pull". I have been doing my trigger a tad latter than his, more at my right pec.

Ion 430' video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyJncrY7zUE

Original thread(all thanks to Jub):
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=19641

I am sure some of you already do this, or please go out and try it. would appreciate more feedback.

I wouldn't try this if you are only throwing 250-300ft, you have more important basic elements to work on. Not trying to hate on people still learning but it does complicate things a tad. If you are like me and JR 375-450ft and seem stuck, this might be for you.

[zj1002]

For those that do try this, please experiment with the index finger off the disc in different locations. I started with the index finger completely off the disc, not even resting on the bottom lip. This is where I started to feel the disc move, so each pull after that I brought the finger under the lip more. it is now mostly what like Jussi is doing, except I pull the trigger a little later. I think taking the index finger off completely can help you see the advantage of this grip when the index finger gets added back in. and just to clarify one more times, this will probably not help you throw farther if you dont have the rest of your throw in check. You need to have some degree of late acceleration/elbow chop going on. it did however help me better analyze the pulls where I was accelerating early, I could finally feel the difference between good and bad(or what I think is good...). this is probably something you should add after doing the blake/beto drills for a bit.

[JR]

I couldn't go out to throw today but managed to futz around at home with approach throw power with a radical variation that made gripping Bosses easy. With loose forearm muscles and easy maintaining of disc attitudes and a great nose down angle as long as I didn't have the nose down at the reach back. Only just about when the wrist starts to snap forward. I need to throw with it to see if it works IRL as well. I'll tell how that goes but I'm stuck with work for a while so it may be next week before I can get back here reporting the results. The approach to gripping is quite unorthodox.

[Booter]

ima need u to show me this whats a zj

[zj1002]

ima need u to show me this whats a zj

I will, but I haven't quite gotten it down. still in experiment mode, but it crushes when I time it right. need to spend a couple days just drilling this into my throw. I have been tinkering with every part of my throw these past few days so it has messed with my timing a good deal.

I think I know why this type of grip works for me. When I posted a video of myself, JR compared my reach back to Chris Voigt. I reach back away from my body and the turn of my hips/torso/shoulders brings my arm tight to my right pec. JR said something(in my video critique) about the need to tighten the grip a little more at the hit point. I know I have always had a grip/pull that stayed tense the entire throw, so by the time I got to right pec I was losing power. This grip keeps me pretty loose and makes me focus on gripping tight at the end rather than the entire throw. I still think this technique is more useful as at training tool for learning when/where to punch the elbow out and then when to uncoil the elbow/wrist with that last second tight grip. This next week is devoted to ingraining this into my throw, planning a two hour session tomorrow morning. I will hopefully be getting nice daily detailed analysis. Possibility of a video or at least pictures of my grip.


JR:
I did some work with this grip today while using the Avery Jenkins thumb pressure and palm off disc. I liked the results, but I still need to work with it. going to work on it tomorrow as well.

[JR]

ima need u to show me this whats a zj

I will, but I haven't quite gotten it down. still in experiment mode, but it crushes when I time it right. need to spend a couple days just drilling this into my throw. I have been tinkering with every part of my throw these past few days so it has messed with my timing a good deal.

I think I know why this type of grip works for me. When I posted a video of myself, JR compared my reach back to Chris Voigt. I reach back away from my body and the turn of my hips/torso/shoulders brings my arm tight to my right pec. JR said something(in my video critique) about the need to tighten the grip a little more at the hit point. I know I have always had a grip/pull that stayed tense the entire throw, so by the time I got to right pec I was losing power. This grip keeps me pretty loose and makes me focus on gripping tight at the end rather than the entire throw. I still think this technique is more useful as at training tool for learning when/where to punch the elbow out and then when to uncoil the elbow/wrist with that last second tight grip. This next week is devoted to ingraining this into my throw, planning a two hour session tomorrow morning. I will hopefully be getting nice daily detailed analysis. Possibility of a video or at least pictures of my grip.


JR:
I did some work with this grip today while using the Avery Jenkins thumb pressure and palm off disc. I liked the results, but I still need to work with it. going to work on it tomorrow as well.

I think the benefits of different trigger pull grips are mainly being an excellent training tool for getting a feel what a properly loose wrist area and up toward the elbow feels like. Now I can get as much looseness and wrist down with the standard power grip so the need for a trigger pull has diminished. I learned more about muscle control and the timing of the pushing down of the wrist during the elbow chop. I had one grip lock yesterday which made a deep mark in my index finger. Ouch. That feel of the weight of the disc is painfully obvious So it's a great teaching tool for realizing about late acceleration and feeling the weight of the disc. I also can't get Dave McCormack type of recommended grip power of grip lock minus 1 % for normal throws. I must explore that.

I tried two different trigger pulls and Voigt (and dgdave) type of grip with no fingers inside the disc. I couldn't grip with the Jenkins type of thumb usage. I was famished, sleep deprived for three days and started field practice after two rounds of going up and down a ski jumping hill and still had about 50 % of the drives landing at 400' or over. Beast C 166, DD2 P 171, beat Excaliber S 175 and Wraith P 166. By far the highest success rate in my life. Low line drives and medium high s-curves wind really wasn't pushing the discs farther and I threw into headwinds and in rear winds. No matter the grip low drives were in danger of landing short from the nose down angle. And high throws usually didn't have the front of the disc lower than rear. By much or at all. Annied the discs did always have front lower than rear and with the Beast diving down early was a real problem. Every disc tended to fly flippier than before and I can't tell if it was from higher speed, more nose down or a different angle in my hand.

Once you figure out the late timing and how to relax the forearm and wrist area muscles and push the wrist down the grip is of no consequence as long as it doesn't slip out. I did tire toward the end and annies are where I have the hardest time of holding onto the disc to avoid early slips. Voigt grip had two early slips until I started to concentrate on pinching harder. Because for the first time in my career grip didn't change D I picked the most familiar and least slipping variation the power grip. Had I not achieved a breakthrough with muscle control trigger pulls would have been longer on average. With one very positive exception for those that can't throw wide rimmed discs with regular grips.

The greatest benefit for others I can think of now is the easy gripping of the widest winged discs. Unless one learns timing with a trigger pull grip then that would be better. Because timing can be learned in other ways I think the ability of small hands with not much power to grip the widest wings dominates in benefits of trigger grips in the following grip variation i tried.

I push my wrist down a little as long as the muscles don't get much tighter than in rest position. I insert the disc to the intersection of the thumb and the hand with the rear of the disc having the front of the disc between the ring and middle finger base. Or if you can't mange that without tightness then as much higher as it takes to remain loose. With practice the muscles will get looser and stronger so they don't need to tighten up even when you push the front of the disc lower in the hand. Then I curl the pinky and the ring finger under the wing beside each other gave me slightly looser muscles than stacking for wide rimmed discs. Beast was a little different so you need to experiment for any given disc. Then I put the middle finger to the underside of the flight plate but not straight to retain full mobility and looseness in the muscles. Then comes the hard part that shows how low the front of the disc can be in the hand. It is a stretch to get the outermost joint of the index finger to the rim/wing corner as far as needed to be able to curl the index finger to the rim. Without undue tensioning up of the muscles. Then I just push the wrist down during the elbow chop and I'd say it's the latter half but am not yet certain of it.

I can do the same things with the above grip as with the power grip with equal tiring speed for the muscles now. So I definitely learned a valuable lesson from trying out a trigger pull grip with a couple of variations.

[rusch_bag]

Kind of confused. Are you just basically just starting with your index finger not under the rim and then moving it there during your pull?

[JR]

Index finger straight or almost straight whichever way gives more looser muscles. Then as the wrist is starting to straighten pushing the wrist down and pulling the index finger tip back onto the rim. The idea is to gain momentum to the index finger opposing the disc trying to rip free. This can give a tighter grip because in theory. You can get maximum muscle power plus the momentum from the index finger grip strength. Index finger is the or the second most important finger in gripping because the disc pivots around it. Thumb being the other critical finger.

[zj1002]

well yesterday I seemed to develop a case of plantar fasciitis. can't x-step or plant hard on my foot. My shoes are almost completely worn out after 9 months(no tread on front or back). My soles had holes in the big toe and heel. I replaced those soles about a month ago, so I am surprised this happened. It might be from changing to flat walking shoes with no arch support. anyways, I won't be playing much this next week(maybe two) while I rest my foot. almost messed up my shoulder on a big thumber, so I need to rest my entire body. sucks because I got a nuke out to 480 on a hyzer flip using the Avery grip and trigger pull.

[JR]

How did you achieve the Jenkins thumb grip with such a tall disc? Can you describe the time line of gripping from how you position the disc in your hand then finger by finger position description please?

[zj1002]

going off the above img

see how the disc is actually below the middle seam line on the palm. Tucking the disc in that part allows the disc to stay put(just like tucking it in the middle creates this cushion on top and bottom). In the past when I tried the AJ grip, the disc was above or in the middle of the palm and the grip felt unnatural.

I actually bend my thumb at the joint and push down on the top. He seems to have pretty short thumbs(in the pic) or at least shorter than mine. He has very little distance between his thumb joint and finger nail. If i kept my thumb flat, two things would go wrong: 1)my thumb would lineup 1-2 fingers longer than my index finger, not creating a pivot point and 2) the top of my palm would be on the disc, which I think Avery has said is a no-no for this grip.

You can't really combine this with the trigger pull that has the index finger removed. I kept the index finger curled, but very lightly gripping. I curl all the fingers under similar to what you can see in the above picture. Of course no one has the same finger lengths so mine looks different. I have long but wide(not lanky) fingers, so mine are slightly slanted except for the index finger. The index and pinky finger appear to be flat on the rim, while the ring and middle are tucked under. The position of these isnt forced, this seems to be my natural placement out of comfort(EDIT: after doing this again, it appears my pinky has a slight bend and tuck to it. If i force it flat, there is pain, most likely from breaking this finger a couple times). I do remember seeing a video of Feldy talking about the 2 tuck, 2 flat thing(the longer fingers need to curl under). If i put my forearm out straight, the disc will lines up perfectly with the bottom of my forearm.

I would start with trying to position the disc lower than the middle of your palm. keep the top of you palm(that is attached to your thumb) off the disc. align the fingers the most natural and lose way possible. The placement of the thumb seems to be helpful in keeping the top of the palm off the disc. I had to bend my thumb at the joint in order to create a pivot point and keep the palm off. I didn't focus on nose down until it came time for the trigger pull(which in this case is simply a tightening of the grip).

i still believe this trigger pull is going to be a great teaching tool. My foot is feeling better so I am going out to the course later just to test this on some of my buddies. They only throw 300-350 backhand, and have been working on the basics of the blake/beto drills. I am going to see if this trigger pull can create the same feelings for them. One guy has a cannon of a forehand(400-450 when he hits it) so I think he will be able to relate the easiest to feeling the pivot into the index finger.

[JR]

Thanks for the clarification. I tried Jenkins thumb style and aligning the disc along the underside of the forearm at home without throwing. It allowed me a couple of degrees of maximum wrist down angle when static. Meaning the forearm gets tight at full wrist down so it still needs to start loose with just a little wrist down and get pushed down at the wrist snap or thereabouts. The loosest muscles I got was when I had the ring finger slightly short of straight for max looseness under the flight plate. And the index finger slightly short of straight. Outermost joint under the rim to wing corner.

[zj1002]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO5zH_jQ ... r_embedded

I think this thread might turn more into a grip experimentation thing so I am going to go slightly off the original topic again. dgdave posted this video so I am going to steal it. the last guy, Brad Soleng, is basically using the the grip I have been trying(AJ grip). I definitely couldn't have successfully tried this grip without the knowledge I learned from the trigger pull training. anyways Brad Soleng's power grip has him bending the thumb like I was talking about, it allows him to keep his thumb pad off the disc(not sure if he knows that, i think we read into this stuff more than them sometimes).

robbies grip in a way builds off the theory in the AJ power grip that having the thumb pad creates more resistance.

Yesterday(new shoes made my feet feel great), I basically combined the AJ power grip with my stacked fan grip. I wasn't throwing for power, just trying to throw accurately straight so I could get this grip down. resulted in 375-400ft line drives, nose down, very little vertical and horizontal movement(valkyrie ranging from 60-75% power). Felt effortless coming out, and moved slower than my normal throws, but it just kept going. I have described my fan grip in earlier posts, but I was basically starting in a power grip, then adjusting to a fan grip so I could get the thumb aligned properly. It actually looked very similar to what Michael Johansen was using, except my thumb was bent and the pad was elevated a little more off the disc. if you look closely at his grip, his thumb pad isn't on the disc unless he adjusts his thumb.

and one more clarification for those that are reading this and want more BOOM. Im not gaining all that much distance here, but it is starting to come around. Try the trigger pull out, it will help you get a feel for where the discs needs to be ripped. I am going to give this a week more of practice and then start rotation 180 degrees, for the most part I don't move past 90-100. I think with the addition of the hips, and aiming higher to adjust for the faster turn I should be bombing it.

[zj1002]

I know I am no blake or beto, but I would be interested to know if anyone has read this and has any questions. or if anyone has tried this at all. I am trying to get my friend to bring his video camera out to the course so I can get a video.