Backhand Drive Critique

[iacas]

Spinning out with the right leg is the root cause to not having a pause like the original poster did.

I disagree. He's not making his right leg spin. The right leg spinning is also a result, not a cause.

I think he's simply not using his arm. His arm is not moving away from his chest. The angle between his shoulders (a line segment connecting his two shoulder joints) and his upper arm (humerus) is not increasing at a fast enough rate. Avery goes from 60° or so to 110°+. Next (overlapping but with a later start), his elbow goes from 90° to 170° or so. The wrist, the last in the sequence (also overlapping with a later start than the elbow) is last and mostly passive (hammer drill stuff).




This has an overlap to golf. We have golfers who spin because they think that's how they should generate speed. They need to learn to "get their arms across their chest" faster - to "release the fourth accumulator" faster (the same shoulder/forearm measurement I mentioned above, though with a righty golfer, it's the left humerus).

[JR]

He is using his arm in straightening the elbow too early. So too early a timing is a problem. And that is again a cause to spinning out. But over trying to move as fast as possible in as short amount of time as possible with the whole body is the root cause to that. So it is actually a series of causal relations so in that respect i agree with you that there were issues before spinning out with the right leg too early. But he is spinning on the right leg too early. That should begin later than it does with him. And the arm is even more early than the leg spin. That does not mean that the leg ain't out of the gate before the shot too.

[iacas]

He is using his arm in straightening the elbow too early. So too early a timing is a problem. And that is again a cause to spinning out. But over trying to move as fast as possible in as short amount of time as possible with the whole body is the root cause to that. So it is actually a series of causal relations so in that respect i agree with you that there were issues before spinning out with the right leg too early. But he is spinning on the right leg too early. That should begin later than it does with him. And the arm is even more early than the leg spin. That does not mean that the leg ain't out of the gate before the shot too.

I disagree that the arm is doing anything too soon. He doesn't increase the angle between his humerus and his shoulder line. His arm is too far across his chest. His elbow isn't far enough forward because his forearm hasn't "moved off" his chest enough.

I see this is all spin (causing the foot/leg to spin out prematurely) and no getting the elbow forward by moving his arm off his chest:


His elbow straightens because he's spinning and not blasting his arm off his chest. The weight of the disc is pulling outward from his center of rotation, straightening the elbow, it's not being pulled linearly, being dragged behind the elbow.

[cubeofsoup]

The leg is going to follow the hips and shoulders. If he keeps his hips and shoulders more closed (see the measured avery pic), he will see a huge improvement.

Specifically look at the second pic in the post above. Roughly the same point of release as the 4th pic of Avery. OP's shoulders are almost 90° too far rotated. Slow the hips and shoulders down, get that elbow-a-chopping. Also there is no translation of the weight through the disc. The weight back is making it nearly impossible to get the hips/shoulders/arm into the proper orientation, don't know if that is a symptom or cause but it needs to change.

[iacas]

Specifically look at the second pic in the post above. Roughly the same point of release as the 4th pic of Avery. OP's shoulders are almost 90° too far rotated. Slow the hips and shoulders down, get that elbow-a-chopping.

FWIW though I agree with the overall I don't necessarily agree with saying "slow this part down." Rather, I've had better success in golf having students "speed something else up" - they're all relative, and so my advice in this particular instance is to speed up the angle of the arm moving away from the chest - the red angle I "measured" in Avery's photos (accurate measurements would be from perpendicular to that plane only - the Avery video is close but not perfect). As you said, "get the elbow-a-chopping." I'd focus on that part, speeding that up, and the shoulders will "slow down" relative to that (and probably also literally slow down as the arm works against the platform of the shoulders and the sequencing of max speed and the delay/overlap pattern moves better from proximal to distal).

And you're probably entirely right about weight transfers and the other topics on which you touched. I'm only speaking about the arm part because I feel there's a good amount of cross-over from what I know in golf to be of some little help here.

[cubeofsoup]

Specifically look at the second pic in the post above. Roughly the same point of release as the 4th pic of Avery. OP's shoulders are almost 90° too far rotated. Slow the hips and shoulders down, get that elbow-a-chopping.

FWIW though I agree with the overall I don't necessarily agree with saying "slow this part down." Rather, I've had better success in golf having students "speed something else up" - they're all relative, and so my advice in this particular instance is to speed up the angle of the arm moving away from the chest - the red angle I "measured" in Avery's photos (accurate measurements would be from perpendicular to that plane only - the Avery video is close but not perfect). As you said, "get the elbow-a-chopping." I'd focus on that part, speeding that up, and the shoulders will "slow down" relative to that (and probably also literally slow down as the arm works against the platform of the shoulders and the sequencing of max speed and the delay/overlap pattern moves better from proximal to distal).

And you're probably entirely right about weight transfers and the other topics on which you touched. I'm only speaking about the arm part because I feel there's a good amount of cross-over from what I know in golf to be of some little help here.

The reason I would say slow down in this case is OP already has enough pace to his throw. He doesn't really need anything to be going faster IMO. I agree with you that relative to his current pace, arm needs to go faster.

To relate to ball golf I think the weight part I am talking about is very similar to ball golf. If you don't have a solid decently centered base with good posture, you have a very hard time of getting your weight through the shot. I suppose by weight I mean momentum. You could achieve a similarly erroneous result in a ball golf swing by swinging with a straight back and not getting your shoulders forward at all. If you get what I'm saying it is very possible to still swing the club but it feels like it is just this weak thing dangling out in front of you. When weight is properly centered and distributed through the swing it feels effortless to put power into a swing. It looks like OP is robbing himself of power.

I really like your statements around causes/symptoms. If you start with the first step in a disc golf throw, there are fundamental things that have to happen, as soon as one of those goes wrong it sort of ruins the rest of the throw for analysis. It's like doing a math problem and making an error way at the top. You can finish the rest correct but the base you started with was wrong. I'm rambling, go home cube.

[iacas]

To relate to ball golf I think the weight part I am talking about

Yeah, to be clear, though I could probably say something about this I'm not as confident in this because golf doesn't involve running up, having your back foot off the ground, or a few other moves so I'm staying silent on this for now. I was trying to talk only about the arm/shoulder relationship. I defer to others on anything outside of that for now.

[JR]

To split hairs Newton's third law of movement needs to be accounted for either by having the left leg on the ground or moving it airborne left to right and back to front. Both ways are perfectly legit. Most lift the left leg down to up and that does nothing to counter the elbow chop and the rest. A problem for the original poster.

If the original poster were to speed up the arm with everything else staying the same he would get his elbow more forward than now and he would need more muscle power and acceleration ability to keep on accelerating. Force equals mass times acceleration so acceleration is needed. Yanking the arm early and reaching top arm speed while getting the elbow forward enough when the torso faces 90 degrees left of the target is not going to produce the same flight as a late accelerating throw does. So it is not only about the proper body positions and the angles of different body parts but timing and the speed you are going into any position and how fast you can get out and accelerate to the next position.

Some are so powerful that they claim that they can accelerate all the way from the reach back to the follow through or at least the hit i have not nit picked that with them and they have not shown me measurements. Those guys throw to 600' with wind assistance. And close to if not to 600' without the wind at sea level. That is very respectable indeed. They must be doing something right for that and i have no reason to doubt their claim of yanking the arm balls out from when the leg plants. I would not wonder if a similarly rare performance earned a living in some other sports. I am getting almost as far with early yanks as late acceleration after practicing the early way last season after years of late acceleration practice with thousands of more repetitions. I think my muscle power is lacking and the difficulty of twisting the hips right of neutral with run ups after a back injury messes up my chances of being able to accelerate all the way from the plant. I'm not a super athlete and thus i have even more respect for the monsters that claim to pull that off and on video throw a mile.

The two pictures of the OP above show how the right foot is moving to the right between these pictures. And it has already before the first picture IIRC by a little. Less than between these pictures. It is not the worst spin out which would be right from when the leg plants. This spin starts a little later than that and it is the proper direction starting later from the worst case. I just would like him to delay the leg spin by bracing the right side and the leg and waiting a little more until the legs rotate the torso to less than 90 degrees away from the target. Momentum wanes and the body rotated slower all the time if you don't push off of the left leg. That should happen around +- individual variations for best performance due to multiple causes at the right pec position.

[iacas]

[Simeon]

:lol:

All posts should be informative, please. Smilies are ok with text.

[cubeofsoup]

. I just would like him to delay the leg spin by bracing the right side and the leg and waiting a little more until the legs rotate the torso to less than 90 degrees away from the target.

The foot is just following the hip. Fix the hips, fix the shoulders, the foot will fix itself.

[AbstractLogic]

So I went out yesterday to do some more field testing and found that putting more weight forward (as in leaning over the disc almost) has helped me keep the disc on the line a bit better and may have added 20ish feet to a typical drive. As far as the hips and shoulders not opening at the right time, is there a specific point in the pull through that is ideal for this?

[cubeofsoup]

Go up and look at the pictures of Avery Jenkins, also watch some video of pros throwing and compare. I believe your elbow should get forward first, and then the arm unloads while the hips and shoulders also unload. However the timing is such that the arm should be leading the throw.

On all of these guys notice how the disc is out in front of everything but their hips and shoulders are at least still partially closed. Pics taken from your throws shows you being completely open with the hips and shoulders at release.

http://f.cl.ly/items/302U0Q2d1L1t073d25 ... terick.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHSZyYAVPbs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLDPuDF1dw0

[JR]

. I just would like him to delay the leg spin by bracing the right side and the leg and waiting a little more until the legs rotate the torso to less than 90 degrees away from the target.

The foot is just following the hip. Fix the hips, fix the shoulders, the foot will fix itself.

That is one way of doing this but there are differing forms. Another form is to double pivot. Pivoting both legs and actively turning both knees to the right and that needs both legs to remain on the ground. masterbeato has talked of doing this IIRC and off the top of my head i can't remember if it is shown in any of the videos. He used a different leg work in the instructional video doing the "skateboard kick". To see how both knees move on video look at Chubby checker singing the song Do the Twist.