Pain in wrist/forearm after big throws

[JHern]

Yesterday, after throwing 50 holes in a tournament (2 rounds of 29 holes/round), I threw my Katana 380' on a low line drive. It was very close to what I was trying to do, so I walked away from the tee happy. But then I noticed that my wrist and forearm were aching. It felt kind of like when something hits your funny bone, but was emanating from the wrist/lower forearm instead. Although it dissipated a bit after a few minutes, my arm just wasn't quite the same for the rest of the round (indeed, I went from -1 to +5 in the last 8 holes). I've experienced this kind of thing before, usually toward the end of a long day of throwing, and always when I was really trying to hit it hard.

Anybody have any ideas of what this pain is about? Somebody suggested it could be a stressed nerve?

I'm going to do some more wrist strength training, which might help. Any other ideas about prevention of this kind of injury?

Unfortunately, this always happens when I crack the whip hardest. I suspect this is from my wrist trying to stop opening when the whip is too violent, and it just snaps my wrist too hard. I think what I need to learn to do is slow things down going into the hit, and smooth out the power zone so that it isn't so harsh and impulsive...that should also help me get better grip and propulsion, and less slip.

[JR]

It could be many things. Nerve pain often manifests itself in a very different place than the injury. If it is tennis elbow using a brace under the elbow may help. The forearm muscles shake a lot in the throw so the brace helps in reducing that. The harder you throw the more the muscles and tendons shake from the tendon bounce and the muscles and tendons wagging back and forth in the follow through. Avery uses a .cloth to put pressure in the hardest hit area. His cloth seems to be very flimsy vs a proper brace. Not knowing what is wrong and how severe it is a compression cloth may work if it's not severe. Rest, ice and not throwing so hard should help if it's not something serious. If rest, ice and throwing control shots at 90 % tops power doesn't help you should definitely see a doc. Some problems may well be made worse by stretching. Like a ruptured tendon membrane getting damaged more and leaking more stuff out to kick start an inflammation. OTOH an overstressed muscle or tendon will get smaller in diameter from stretching so it won't stretch the membranes from inside. For tennis elbow very mild stretching can help in reducing the inside out tension. But it is impossible for a layman to diagnose. So who knows what's up with you.

Pray it's not carpal tunnel syndrome.

Luckily you throw far enough to take a bit off and gain in accuracy and the game is more about accuracy.

[JHern]

It could be many things. Nerve pain often manifests itself in a very different place than the injury.

This is a good point. I had some other pain in my arm a while back, and (thanks to my wife) found out that the center of the problem was actually just below my right shoulder blade.

If it is tennis elbow using a brace under the elbow may help. The forearm muscles shake a lot in the throw so the brace helps in reducing that. The harder you throw the more the muscles and tendons shake from the tendon bounce and the muscles and tendons wagging back and forth in the follow through. Avery uses a .cloth to put pressure in the hardest hit area. His cloth seems to be very flimsy vs a proper brace. Not knowing what is wrong and how severe it is a compression cloth may work if it's not severe.

I'll ask Avery some time. He is an expert on this kind of stuff, but too often away on tour.

Rest, ice and not throwing so hard should help if it's not something serious. If rest, ice and throwing control shots at 90 % tops power doesn't help you should definitely see a doc.

That's my current plan. I might also try to do some drills to smooth out the hit a little bit. It is just too explosive for my arm to handle right now. When I snap my arm without a disc in my hand, my fingers hurt like hell from all the blood rushing to the finger tips. Also, I think I will focus on following through a bit more.

Some problems may well be made worse by stretching...

It actually got better with stretching.

Pray it's not carpal tunnel syndrome.

If it were, you'd think I'd feel it at other times, too. Right now, I think there's no question that I'm doing the most violent maneuvers with my arm since playing baseball, and the connection to snapping hard is pretty obvious. Especially since it occurs after I've been throwing a long time.

Luckily you throw far enough to take a bit off and gain in accuracy and the game is more about accuracy.

Unfortunately it also seems to affect my putting. Something in my brain seems to understand that my arm is weaker after this happens, so it tries to add more wrist opening to my putts and then I tend to yank it right. This movement is involuntary, I need to get rid of it by training.

[JR]

Pinched nerves add to the subconscious effort to try to protect a hurting arm. Add to that a pinched nerve may not conduct electricity=orders from the brain to the arm fully. I've been measured to have a reduced signal strength in the nerves below the elbow. But it was prior to surgery that relieved most of the pinching scar tissue. Don't recall if i've been measured after that. My putting certainly slows down. It's also easy to tense up from being uncertain. That is mental and i had to incorporate checking total looseness in the arm to my pre putt routine. It made a world of difference to the speed of the arm motion and the rate of acceleration=accuracy and totally different scoring. Meaning many more made putts per round than with a partially stiff arm. So i know too much about pinched nerves at least. Don't go waiting for Avery if problems persist. The trouble with Cali is that you have throwing conditions for so much of the year (all round if you ask me) so your body is taking abuse all the time and not having time to heal. Tendon damage takes a long time to recover. This is why i've taken the loooong Finnish winter off to try to recover for next summer. Minor tendon damage takes at least 3 months of easing up. Bad damage takes at least 6 months. So i'd really take it easy.

[JHern]

I'm not likely to play less disc golf...but I won't overdo it, either. There are many upcoming tournaments, but the next one is at a shorter course and I can lay off a bit and focus on my finesse game. In the long term, I just need to figure out how to throw 380' without snapping my wrist so hard...maybe time to do drills focusing on relaxing a bit, I think I just need to smooth out the power band a bit and then I'll be throwing over 400' with less effort.

[CatPredator]

I threw my Katana 380' on a low line drive. It was very close to what I was trying to do, so I walked away from the tee happy. But then I noticed that my wrist and forearm were aching.

Could it be something simple like a grip issue? Does this ever happen with fairway drivers or mids? The wider the rim of the disc, the more difficult it is to secure it in your hand, with good grip pressure being applied by all your fingers on the inner rim, for a powerful, nose down throw. It doesn't seem like properly unloading the tension in your wrist on a 380' throw with a Katana should be doing much damage, unless you're holding it funny and/or trying to force your wrist into doing something beyond it's natural range of motion.

[JHern]

Could it be something simple like a grip issue?...

Damn, I think you might be right! My grip is probably not very good and/or my grip strength is weak, and I'm straining to try and hold on to it or forcing it into awkward positions. The fact is, I know I've got tons more whip in my throwing form than I'm able to impart to the disc with my grip, so this is something to focus attention upon.

After thinking about it a bit, this might be a throwing revelation for me. I usually feel more slip than rip in my throws. And my whip is usually half-hearted, in that I snap out and pull back instead of whipping it forward through the hit (usually some strain to the right pec after a round from lack of good follow-through). But grip is integral to this problem, since I can't whip it forward through the hit if I don't have a solid grip. So my whip has possibly been foiled by the need to compensate for a shitty grip!

OK, I'm going to call a pro buddy, and have him check my grip.

[CatPredator]

Asking your local pros for tips is all well and good but it always comes down to experimentation on your part to figure out what really works for you. I'll go ahead and past a quote from my bag thread and you can see if any of this info helps you resolve your issue.

I switched up my grip a bit, mostly based on observations of Nikko's and Jussi's throws. In the past, I was using an above the seam grip with almost all the pressure generated by the pinch between index and thumb. I'd always been a little unhappy with my grip but wasn't sure how to fix it.

I've gone to an in the seam grip with more pressure pushing into my palm by my middle and ring finger. I use the Bonapane grip to get the disc situated in the seam and nose down, then do the Jussi/Nikko style "trigger grip" type thing where I slide my index finger underneath and lock it into the rim to use it as the rip point before I go into my reach back. It's helped a lot with wrist tension/extension, grip pressure, and nose angle control. Been smashing the shit out of my drives but I can't grip really wide winged discs very well with this method.

The key for me was that the disc wasn't situated in my hand properly, and my grip pressure was too lopsided. The most important thing the bonapane grip did was, it got my discs situated in my hand properly so that I'm getting good grip strength out of my middle, ring, and pinky fingers and the disc is nose down and on plane all the way through the throw.

The limiting factor here is that, after grabbing the disc with the bonapane grip, my index finger isn't long enough to then wrap around the rim while still keeping the disc in exactly the same position in my hand for discs which have rims larger than 2.2cm. I'm a 5'10" 160lb average sized dude, so you may be able to get a better hold on really wide rimmed discs, but I would still suggest trying the Bonapane/trigger grip trick.

I had been doing a lot of work on weight shift, posture, and timing and wasn't seeing the gains in D I was hoping for. Like you, I felt like I was getting a lot of slips. After really fiddling with my grip and wrist tension, I went from 380-400' with wide rims to throwing my Teebirds and PDs 400-420' on line drives and absolutely crushing distance lines. I gained a lot of nose angle control and a massive increase in grip strength and the ability to discharge wrist tension onto the disc explosively with this new grip.

I'd suggest trying this with a disc in the 1.6-1.9cm range, or even smaller, at first. Good luck! Hope my ramblings help.

[JR]

The above plus if the grip really is an issue using Beasts and Rivers could very well help. Both are less than max D wing width and long for the power requirement. Because you don't have the power of the top pros slower discs with the best D/input power ratio at different speeds are probably gonna cover most of the required shots. What is required shot distance depends on the courses and the way you play=shot planning. If you don't get extra strokes from using say 15' shorter discs i would definitely save your arm by using the shorter disc if you can also drop input power to save the arm in two ways at the same time.

For less dependability and HSS a new Sidewinder could work too but overall not as well as the discs above for anything other than right turns and rollers. The Sidewinder has the advantage of having less fade than the others. It has about the same power requirement as the Beast but goes shorter on average and as far max. Side and Beast are longer and have a nigher power requirement than the River. The River in Opto when domey and having a high PLH for a River has the problem of being very power dependent on D. At full power for a 420' Nuke s-curve thrower the best River tosses are low fade 406' and any less it's gonna fade more and a lot shorter. This means that anything less than a full rip success is gonna end up left and short. If you plan for 97-98 % power and accidentally wind up with a 100 % success you are likely to be on the edge of comfy putting range or beyond it right and long. Aiming for a 90 % power makes the River a more fading max weight Champion Leopard with more HSS.

[JHern]

Thanks guys, I think I'm going to work with smaller rim discs for a little while, and see if I can get over this obstacle. I have a good S-PD that will work just fine for most of my shots. I'll try the Bonapane to get my fingers situated, and then experiment from there.

[JR]

The Bonopane grip can stretch the tendons a lot especially if you try to get greedy and go for extreme nose down angle. If you try to copy your normal nose angle it's good. It is a double edged sword to fiddle with the nose angle. If you use above the seam grip you won't stretch the tendons and forearm muscles at all and are maximally loose sans the position of the thumb and the index finger which for me at least is still looser than the power grip or two finger grip. The drawback is that the grip strength overall is reduced vs a power grip. The upside is that it is possible in theory to get a stronger pinch on top of the disc to lessen the effect of the lesser overall grip strength. If you manage to allow the disc pivot freely and then clamp on harder than normal you will have gained. But to pull that off you need to pinch hard even if you have a strong grip. Which naturally strains the arm like hell so it's not a great idea to shoot the moon with the potential of the grip for now.

I'd aim for the status quo with the nose angle and accept whichever direction the distance changes for you. The Bonopane grip has the potential of producing longer flights than the power grip if you can't get a full disc pivot with the power grip. It is likely that you'd suffer from the same problem with the Bonopane but the looser faster muscles and possibly better nose down angle helps a lot. Of course a faster arm motion can strain the arm not knowing what the trouble i it's impossible to predict. What will help is that you put in the same or lesser effort for the same D with looser muscles. On days when i'm tense and stiff from work or practice and warm up slowly and will become looser in the second round i sometimes tire more slowly than i loosen up. That leads to lesser input throws surprising me by putting in 80 % effort and getting the arm moving at 100-10x % of normal rested day performance. Those shots go long farther than 90 % make rate putting distance even with putter drives. So i can't recommend enough trying to stay loose and mellow. For performance too. Staying healthier and getting a longer throwing career on top should be a no brainer.

A low glide disc like the PD won't help with the distance. Most PDs fade too much for the best D. The input power to distance ratio isn't the best with the PD. Especially when you consider the width of the wing. The River flies mostly to the same D and sometimes a 30' farther than the PD with a way friendlier grip. Increasing the wing width to PD size gives you a way longer disc in the Beast. Beasts power down pretty well so you would throw more controlled arm saving throws to the max power D of the PD. Win win if you ask me especially when the Beast fades less and new ones don't turn at 410' even in 166 grams Champion for me. YMMV and if you get older new mold Beasts they turn at max weight when new.

There is option B with wider winged discs for discing up. Since you have s-curves in the holes around you how about a VIP King with a high PLH and dome or a 161 ESP Nuke or lighter if you can find one or going super low with the Blizzards? Only throwing at 80 % power for the same D as long as headwinds aren't involved. Warming up is key for injured guys because it's the key to not get injured in the first place. I practice often at a javelin throwing field and two masters aged guys asked to throw my discs after they had thrown javelin without trouble. I saw that one of the guys was stiff and not limber motion range wise too and warned him to throw at low power initially because the disc is almost 5 times lighter than the javelin. Still the guy held his shoulder after the fifth throw which was the first one with more effort. Apparently those guys weren't warmed up and previous injuries were an issue. Still it illustrates the need to be flexible and warmed up before throwing the first 50+ % power throw. So i have to ask do you warm up and do you stretch before throwing hard? 5 minutes ain't enough but it is better than nothing especially if it prevents injury and keeps you throwing trouble free at full power.

[ChrisWoj]

Download the following book: Convict Conditioning 2 - if you want a great forearm strength program, it is the best place to start. thepiratebay.org has the book. It makes total sense that forearm pain would have to do with grip issues - keep in mind that your fingers have no muscles, they're very unique in that way. They're controlled entirely by tendons connected to the muscles in your forearms. If you want great grip strength, work on forearm strength. Everything from simple hang workouts to finger push-ups will help you immensely (you want to do both to work both sides of the muscle, one or the other and you'll become unbalanced).

[JHern]

Cool, thanks Chris. I will try this out.