Looking for input ...

[Dusty5150]

background - I'm 39, been playing for 15 years and this is the first time I've ever looked to video for improvement. What sparked this is that I often meet up with new players and give them that first lesson to get them to 'not throw the golf disc like a frisbee', and this past weekend I met a 15 y/o kid on the course that immediate was throwing way farther than me, from standing still. I started to wonder if maybe I wasn't practising what I was preaching. And it's evident that I'm not from my first glance at my video. I'm also starting to experience some elbow pain in my right arm, and aside from seeking additional distance, I'm looking to tweak my form for health reasons as well.

I notice a couple of issues right away involving the plane of my throwing arm and my last step. These look like obvious areas for improvement, but I'm hoping the experts here can give me some feedback.

Thanks in advance!

[youtube]http://youtu.be/sofg1W3QpX8[/youtube]

[new013]

FOUND IT!!!

[keltik]

[keltik]

well it's gonna be hard for you to undo 15 years of practice and habit.

the one thing I see is that you are throwing at your throat. Your weight shift is really good and your foot work looks fine. How far are you throwing on a golf line?
also after 15 years do you really think you need more distance? how is the rest of your game? how do you normally fare in competition?

there is always the right pec drill and the secret technique. start here viewforum.php?f=2

[Dusty5150]

Thanks keltik ... to be honest, I'm quite happy with my game, have been for a long time, but I would like to add some distance; mainly because I can normally throw my midrange discs as far as my drivers, and that bugs me lol; in my mind I should be around 400. I'm throwing about 300-330 pretty consistently, but every now and then I hit one around 350 and wonder what I did different. I was also hoping to catch something that may indicate why my elbow is all of a sudden starting to hurt - that may be due to 15 years of disc golf 3 times a week though.

[keltik]

JR should be in here in a bit (he's our OCD technique adviser.) He can really give you detailed advice.

the only thing I can suggest is try pulling lower. the best thing is the right pec drill and the other tools we promote on here.

what discs are you throwing for drivers? are you getting a lot of nose up? What about your grip?

[new013]

you're bringing the disc up to high on your reach back and the angle your forearm is making with your shoulders is a bit out of line; you want those on the same plane. you're also not getting the disc in to your right pec enough to generate good snap; try bringing it farther in before whipping your arm around.

[JR]

Dunno about OCD just trying to help but welcome in any case. You are at the age where age starts to show. Where exactly and what kind of pain do you get in the elbow area? Do you do repetitive motions or get static load to your throwing arm doing something else? Like typing a lot on the computer or physical work or other exercise? Check the net for RSI repetitive stress injury. Tennis/golf elbow/mouse hand.

Your footwork saps power and gaining there would allow you to throw softer with the arm to conserve the arm. Your run up speed is on the fast side especially for the first two steps. Only the plant step needs to be really quick to get acceleration. You plant the final step with the foot pointing only a little left of the target. It will make your body turn too early toward the target reducing snap. I would try at least 90 degrees away from the target pointing direction for the foot but if your leg is fine try 10 degree intervals up to 180 away from the target. As it is now you can't reach back far enough and lose boatloads of speed and distance. Don't be afraid to look away from the target in the reach back.

The left leg slides on the ground and lifts off before the disc rips out. Also the push of the left leg doesn't really happen because you move so quickly so your weight shift back to front is from momentum only. The trouble there is that the final acceleration and rotation in the foot pivot ain't driven as hard as it could be. And that is where the extra power for longer flights comes from. So i would slow down the first steps and make the final step quicker and push the left leg straight quickly concentrating on getting the knee angle straight. The upside to slowing down is that your balance would be better and that directs all the created power in the same direction pushing the disc as far as it can go. Having different body parts firing in different directions reduces power and rapes consistency and does not help with accuracy. Shortening the first and x step could help too although the downhill does screw up the shot and analysis so you might be fine on flat ground. Who knows one can't say for sure until one sees a flat ground shot. At first you may only see differences in accuracy and consistency but distance should come with practice.

If you look at Dave Greenwell, Joonas Hynönen and IIRC Emil Dahlgren or a karate punch that starts with the wrist up and finishes with the wrist down you see how that rotational snap adds power. It is also damn difficult to get the angles right each time. You do reach back with slight hyzer and throw with an anhyzer with anhyzer follow through. The angles are so small that you don't gain much in power but do degrade the consistency so it's the worst of both worlds. I'd do one or the other. Either full power holding the disc almost upright as the disc passes the chest or keep the disc and the arm motions in the same angle from start to follow through.

The pause is something to watch for and check out rounding term with Climo video from Clearwater Disc Golf Store and Disc Golf Monthly episodes 94 and 95 on Youtube. That translates to the right pec drill and getting the elbow closer to the target before you start to rotate the torso toward the target. That increases the snap so you don't need to rip as hard with the arm. But the increased tendon bounce may hurt too. An elbow brace might help too. Check out the toe to heel to toe foot leg pivot in those videos. I'd try that. And stiffening the right leg at the plant and a little after so that the momentum transfers to twisting of the hips and then loosening up with the right leg muscles to allow the pivot.

You should stretch lightly at least and warm up well and start to throw with minimal power at first. Stretching and cold to the sore spot after exercise should help. But i'd take a pause of a week to see if the pains go away. If they do it's probably nothing terribly serious.

The hips should turn the lower torso right of neutral and the shoulders should twist even farther right before the disc leaves. You have ways to go there and some distance can be gained from a faster wider turning to the right. Especially in the follow through.

You start the arm pull at very high level and have little acceleration left. I'd try different starting positions for the full arm acceleration to give you the best spot for now. That may change over time so rechecks are necessary.

[seabas22]

You aren't turning the feet/hips/shoulders away enough like JR said and you lose your posture to throw from. You should be transferring your weight from behind you!
Read this: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=24071

[keltik]

okay so I was wrong about your footwork and weight transfer.

[Dusty5150]

wow thats a ton of input ... thanks a lot everyone! I've done a ton of reading on this site already, I suppose it's time to get to work on some things.

JR - the elbow pain is sharp, concentrated and immobilizing. it's above the elbow, on the outside. When I say immobilizing, I mean preventing me from straightening my arm. I've had ultrasounds and x-rays, and nothing. I also started bowling a few years ago, so I'm sure that hasn't been helping - I'm gong to be taking a year off from that, so hopefully I'll see a difference . It goes away after a couple days rest for sure. Stretching before & after is not something I ever gave any serious thought to; I've always been a 'show up at the course and start playing' kind of person. Good advice there, thanks a lot.

[JR]

Epicondylitis and golfers elbow searches on Google could help. Maybe the docs weren't doing their jobs properly. Have you been tested for electrical conductivity of the nerves from elbow to shoulder? That could show if you have scar tissue pinching nerves. Not sure is soft scar tissue is visible in x rays. Dunno about ultrasound. Maybe you met hacks.

Sharp immobilizing pain sounds bad and all too familiar for someone who had tennis elbow (epicondylitis) surgery. Tendon damage takes half a year of rest easily to properly heal minimum. And that is for the cases of mild problems without inflammations and virii hitting the tissues (antiobiotics don't work) and so little scarring that it doesn't rub the tendons and squeeze the nerves. Also very light motion is way better for healing than no motion at all if it is tendon damage. Cold is a life saver and i mean freezer cold. To avoid freezing skin a towel between a cold pack from the freezer and the skin is mandatory. 10 minutes twice a day for two weeks is a minimum start to see if that helps. Swelling is a problem for tendon damage with pinched nerves. The swelling hits on the next day usually so you may not experience any pain while exercising and then you wake up in agony that can last over a week. And deprive you of sleep. The pain can be so intense that you can't hold a glass half filled water. Sound familiar? If so it could be tendon trouble. If it is getting a proper diagnose helps and if non invasive treatments work, fine if not a minor surgery can remove at least some of the scar tissue. There are a bunch of nerves close to the tendons so it may not be possible to remove all of the scarring. I'm not medically trained just a patient.

Bowling is stressful. Have you overextended the elbow?

[Dusty5150]

No, I've never over extended my elbow. the elbow mobility, its really strange. most of the time, and I mean like 95% of the time, I cannot fully straighten my arm - with both palms outstretched in front of me, my right arm is always slighty bent (palm higher than the left). Now, only a small percentage of the time there is pain, usually following a day of bowling then a day of golfing. And, it only hurts when I try and straighten it, and it hurts a lot. Most noticeably when I putt - that final pop extension (a la discmanias latest putting video with AJ) - OWCH. And no swelling whatsoever. Maybe the doc's are hacks, but I went to two different ones, when the pain was at its worst, and nothin'.

all this talk has me at a realization that distance should be the least of my priorities. I should be figuring out what to do about my elbow, and then do what's necessary to eliminate the potential for continued serious injury - stretching, icing, maybe throwing differently.

ice routine for a couple weeks sounds like a good start, and stretching before/after and icing after - I'm going to implement all of that immediately.

appreciate your feedback JR.

[JR]

What is your putting technique?

The bowling throw and the putt in pitch putt style have a similar lifting of the arm. Punching the arm forward and the lifting motion of the pitch putt stress everything in the arm. Including the tendons above the elbow. Because spin putts also punch the arm forward (even more violently) that is not a cure either. I imagine that the turbo putt is even worse. Right now i can't think of any short term solution putting forms that aren't hard on the golfers elbow area other than throwing the disc pointing the right side at the basket.

The swelling from exercise i mean is not visible to a layperson at least. I never saw any additional size in my arm when the muscles/tendons/other tissue around the injured part was aggravated. To the point of not being able to inhale from the pain. Have you had numbness or tingling anywhere in the arm ever after throwing or bowling? Those are typical sensations when the nerves are pinched.

I also can't straighten my elbows fully and that in itself may be a problem. The heavier weights you use and harder you throw in bowling and in disc golf the more that motion will force the elbow to move beyond the natural range of motion. That stretching alone may hurt. Because you may have tears in the tendon or the membrane surrounding the tendon doctors did not recommend stretching hard when i had these problems. Mild stretching to reduce the tensed up muscles and thus strained tendons do reduce the diameter of the tendon trying to rip apart the relatively inflexible surrounding membrane. If the membrane ruptures all sort of stuff leaks out and it's an immediate feast to bacteria which left untreated with antibiotics has a very high chance of getting an inflammation. A condition that creates breeding ground for virii and if it happens shit spattered all over from the fan. Antibiotics are ineffectual against that and surgery becomes very likely.

Add the odd treatment method of cortisone injections. I've been told that engineers get taught to not destroy a broken piece of machinery more. Different docs trained in different decades injected cortisone in totally different manners. Older docs injected straight into the tendon puncturing more holes. Hello? A young doc was taught differently and inserted the cortisone between the tendon and the surrounding membrane only puncturing the membrane. I guess she and the people inventing that treatment thought that once the membrane is shot it doesn't hurt to punch holes in the membrane since the cat is out of the bag already. At least that leaves the tendon to heal instead of getting more beat.

The nasty thing about cortisone injections is that they contain a lot of chalk and it builds up so 10 shots tops to the same spot is maximum they told me back then. The surgeon that operated my arm was not happy about the 3-4 IIRC shots i got because the chalk was all over in inoperable places where nerves were in the way so i have scarring and chalk messing up my arm for the rest of my days. Doesn't sound like the medical community should stop finding better alternatives for a cure. As if cortisone cured anything. Fuck that i've never heard anyone getting help in recuperating better from it but have heard of others with chalk related worse effects than the injury alone. Cortisone is supposed to quicken the healing. What's the rush? Where is the saving in creating more problems? Does not compute to a layperson. But doctors are exactly that when it comes to economic matters. Grr everyone loses from trying to rush people back to work. Yeah lets chop his leg off to get him to work a week earlier i'm sure it costs nothing in other ways in the future... Right. Faultless logic.

Because the area above the elbow hurts the mild stretching that tenses up the arm muscles potentially worsening the problems should be avoided. Out of the ways i've tried here is the one that keeps the arm most relaxed. Bend the opposite knee of the arm to be stretched and raise the elbow well above the head putting the elbow against a solid object you can lean into. Keeping the stretched arm in place lean forward slowly with the rest of the body until the arm moves back far enough to stretch the muscles and tendons between the elbow and the shoulder opposite the bicep. Since you don't have a diagnosis it could hurt you more than help so at first you should discuss these ideas with a different doc. Preferably someone specializing in the arm and/or sports injuries and RSI.

Please read up on the diagnoses and rehab of the things i've mentioned so far to see if you spot familiar symptoms to give you a clue about what is going on. And when and what to do in rehab and how hard you should begin at first and when to ramp up rehab by how much as time and healing progresses.

What you can do once you return to playing is to revise your putting form to utilize more weight shift if you don't actually throw the putts. By leaning back far and squatting down very low indeed raising the ball of the foot on the front leg in the reach back (between the legs knees pointing out to the sides to accomodate the arm and the disc between the legs) and then pushing fast with the legs and jamming your weenie forward by thrusting the hips at the basket and lifting the arm down to up you can make the disc need less speed for the same distance. Like Nikko said on Disc Golf Monthly 95 you should make the disc glide not use rocket launchers every time. That means that the higher you throw the less speed you need to make it in the bucket.

The good news is that when you straighten the deep down bent knees you are pushing forward and up so the legs do give the disc some apex height so you don't need to necessarily do the bowling follow through motion hard with the arm. You need to finish with the rear leg up in the air and standing on the ball of the foot of the front leg to get everything out of the legs and the weight shift. That slashes the power needs from the arm. I would also start to throw instead of putt from a shorter distance even inside the circle until your you have healed enough to be able to putt and play without pain.

I've come across many hacks in practice. They may know better but actually healing the patient by doing the right things and instructing how to rehab is something i've learned to squeeze out of the docs. Up to the point of grabbing them by the ankles and shaking them to see what falls out. Dammit i've paid in pain and money without receiving proper treatment. It's even more common now.

[Dusty5150]

JR, thanks for all of the detailed information. I'll be doing my research for sure.

To answer your questions, I spin putt - your basic from the belly button forward spin putt. It's how I was taught when I first started and have never changed it. Maybe that's part of the problem as well. I have been intrigued by the push putt though,from watching videos of Nikko, and watching Ben Callaway at Am Nats last year.

As for numbness or tingling, no. If it's not a sharp pain, it's a general ache with tightness. I'll add to that, when I try to straighten my right arm, I feel the tightness, or the physical stop, on the inside of my elbow, specifically on the forearm side, outer if palm facing up.