Maxing out @ 300ft...

[Roottori]

Hi.

I've been having some problems with my drivers lately. On flat ground on the course I can throw my Aviars consistently and accurately up to 240' (best throws have been 265'), same distances for Rocs are 270' and 315'. But with drivers, even with Eagles, I usually get nothing but really early slips, and that kills my accuracy and distance with them. With Eagles slips are not that big than with Predators for example, but they are still significant. I think I'm getting at least some snap to my putter- and mid throws, because they fly really straight without wobble (I guess it isn't really easy to strong arm them?), but how could I get the same snap with my drivers? Do you have any ideas I could try working with? I have few points that may affect this, I'm just not sure if they do:

- Pulling too early. I try to throw my drivers the same way as putters and mids, but maybe I just try too hard with drivers without noticing it?
- Timing issues. I try to keep my grip loose when the disc goes across my chest, maybe I can't grip tight at the right time?
- Not gripping tight enough.
- Too wide rims. I do have small and dry hands, but it's hard for me to believe that even Eagle would be too wide.

[Stringbean]

Drivers are generally more forgiving than putters/mids when it comes to strong arming. Definitely sounds like a grip issue. With your drivers, make sure you are first getting a comfortable yet tight pinch between your thumb and index finger. Make sure the disc can rotate freely around your hand. Then wrap your other fingers around the rim of the disc.

[JR]

Lets test your grip. Squeeze as hard as you can before you take the first step and maintain that strength throughout the throw with the Eagle. Also lets try to eliminate skin slickness and too weak thumb usage by moving the thumb way to the center of the disc. Not as far in as possible because you lose leverage. You'll gain some leverage by tilting the outermost section of the thumb down at about 70 degree angle relative to the flight plate. If you don't get slips move the thumb toward the outside of the disc in 1 cm increments until you have a slip. From there back up a cm toward the center and see if starting with a loose grip and pinching later produces a slip. If it does pinch already at the right pec position. If you can't pinch any harder and get a slip move the thumb toward the center in 1 cm increments again. Please let us know if that helps. If it does you might gain a little distance too.

You could try to have most of the grip power squeezing between the base of the thumb and the pinky and the ring finger down to up and vice versa in the early part of the throw once you have stopped the diagnostical full power squeeze from the beginning. This version requires a pinch to make the disc pivot happen fully.

[Roottori]

Thanks, I'll try that the next time I go to the field. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Simeon]

To drive home the point that you shouldn't actually try to immobilize your shoulder this way, here is an illustration of what happens if you break your elbow backwards...caution, not for the weak of stomach...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1044258/Pictured-The-horrific-moment-Olympic-weightlifter-turns-elbow-front.html

Can you imagine somebody can recover from that? This is the good part:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/János_Baranyai

[Stringbean]

Andrew Bogut's elbow injury wasn't quite as gruesome but was still painful to watch. I am not sure that he has fully recovered from it.

Brian Butch also dislocated his elbow but returned to the court 4 months later...

The sight of Brian Butch landing awkwardly on his right elbow at Ohio State is still too grisly to cue up again. But, unless you were courtside, you have no idea what it was like to hear that injury and Butch's audible agony.

More than four months later, the Wisconsin senior center still recounts the injury with a nervous laugh, a twinge of his face and a sigh of relief that he's back playing; this week he competed for the U.S. Pan Am Games team but didn't make the final roster.

"If a 10 is the limit, then it was an 11," Butch said of the pain after suffering the injury three minutes into the Big Ten regular-season title matchup at Ohio State on Feb. 25.

"It hurt like heck," Butch said. "It hurt right away and then the shock hit. I didn't realize what was going on. The worst part was when it got put back in place right back on the bench." Butch said Wisconsin's trainer Henry Perez-Guerra yelled at him to relax and once he did, "I said do what you have to do."

It was then that Perez-Guerra popped the dislocated elbow back into place.

"He got it on the first try," Butch said. "It hurt like … well, the worst pain I've ever felt in my life."

Believe it or not, Butch actually wanted to go back into the game. He said he initially viewed the dislocation of the elbow like a dislocated finger. He figured once it was popped back into place he was good to go. That may have been the shock settling in because Butch had no idea that he also had suffered a fracture.

[bfowler]

So, I'm a new member and I've only been playing for 4 months. I could get my midrange stuff like my buzzz to go about 200-250. My drivers like my surge or Avenger SS almost to 300, maybe a few feet over on some good throws. I've recently discovered all this technique talk about the hit and snap and have been experimenting at the local baseball field every night after work. They turn on the lights and the games they have out there don't start until around 7 so I've got a whole ball field all light up all to myself for about an hour.

So, I've been watching the MB videos and Blake T's great snap threads and videos and while I think I understand the concept, actually pulling it off has eluded me. I'm pretty sure I've hit it a time or two as the disk effortlessly shot our of my hand but it was so high I couldn't judge the distance. It felt different though.

That was last week. After weekend of playing going back to my usual style but thinking about throwing the hammer and such as I play. I was much more accurate than usual.

This week I've made a few more changes. I switched to the Ken Climo Fork Grip and that feels a lot more stable for me than the 4 finger grip. With the 4 finger I was getting a lot more slippage. Then today I found this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUOq09T2 ... 4rq_FsH6gv

It's got Dave Feldburg giving a ton of advice on how to drive. One of the big things he says is the foot pivot being toe to heel and the pivot on the heel. I tried that tonight and after 45 minutes of practice I was banging the 320 foot outfield fence at the ball field with my Buzzz and my Stalker. I've never thrown with so little effort. I was throwing deadly accurate almost line drives. I tried of number of them with my driver and got almost to the fence but didn't hit them. Weird that I can throw the mids longer than the drivers. Here's a couple of observations about what I think I've learned.

- by pivoting on my heel I automatically pull the disc VERY close, almost into my chest
- I can feel the weight shift much, much better because my weight HAS to shift forward in order for me to go from the toe on my plant foot down to my heel to pivot
- the weight shift pulls my hip and shoulder forward while my arm is just holding the disc and it tucks my chin into my shoulder

All this cause my rotation to be crazy fast after I get into the power zone. I'm pretty slow and relaxed I almost fall/weight shift into my heel to pivot. Then I'm kind of in the right peck drill except it's tighter. It's like I'm pulling the disk to my chest with my back almost to the basket or slightly angled forward and my body rotats around the disk or around the line it's on. Or more like my torso it's turning like a salon door as the disk comes through.

I'm going to practice the heel pivot a lot more from here on out and I'm going to try to work some the the snap and hit techniques into it. Honestly after I hit the power zone off the pivot it happens so fast it's hard for me to isolate anything after that except that it's effortless and almost feels like I'm throwing air. I don't hear a snap or pop but a number of times I really heard that air displacement "fffpppppppttttt" sound.

[cmlasley]

Weird that I can throw the mids longer than the drivers.

Congrats on the new-found distance. You are probably throwing nose-up if you are throwing mids farther than drivers. There is a ton of talk on here about how to get the nose down.

[JR]

Welcome. That air displacement sound is all that you should hear. People use the word snap often to describe the sound of the fingers hitting each other or the palm and it does not add to the power or distance. Snap around here means a sequence of events from the right pec to the rip. Usually hearing something indicates at least a partial slipping of the disc from the hand.

Your midrange distance is very promising for such a new player and you sure generate enough power to make drivers go faaar. Do your driver throws pop up high, slow down quickly moving right to left in the end instead of back to forward? That is how just about everyone starts. There are plenty of threads about "nose down" throwing. So you should search for that term. At first try to push the wrist down forcefully once the elbow starts to straighten and raising the rear of the disc up to the innermost joint of the thumb while keeping the front of the disc between the root of the index and middle fingers.

[bfowler]

Thanks guys. I'll work on keeping my nose down. JR, you're right about the flight path of many of my teeoffs with my drivers. I use to throw an Avenger SS and could get it to go dead straight but now that I'm improving that disc has turned into my easy rollover disc. I don't see how I ever use to have trouble getting a disc to turnover. It very hard for me not to turn over that disc. Now I'm trying a surge and a regular avenger and the flight path is exactly what you mentioned.

[JR]

Nose up high stalls are a major technique flaw and it kills the distance. You'll gain a lot of distance on lower front and rear of the disc at the same height above the ground lines. Two other major things to make sure that the discs don't fly high and stop mid flight is to ensure that you shift your weight forward and reach back at the same height as you release the disc. Many players reach back lower than they release at so the disc is rising during the entire pull. It helps to stand still and do a mock slow throw visually inspecting the height you reach back at and slowly moving the arm to the rip point and checking that the arm is moving at a constant height. Then trying to recreate the same feel of height in the actual throw.

[bfowler]

So, you're saying I should pretty much aim for line driver or just to make sure I'm pulling on the same plane. If I'm trying to throw in straight on flat ground but with as much distance as I can should I pull dead level with the ground? I just assumed I needed to throw it a little high or more of a bigger arc.

On a side note after two weeks I FINALLY got the towel drill to snap. Before it was half way doing it. It wasn't a whif but more a dull "tha-lump". I'd been doing some trail and error and one thing I tried was pulling a little early earlier than I was previously doing so. When I did that..."tha-WAP!" I'd read so much about waiting until as late as possible before you pull I was way overdoing it. I wasn't starting to actively pull until my disc was almost past my right pec. Last night I started pulling right when it crosses the center of my chest.

If anyone else has a problem getting the snap I'd suggest messing around trial and error with the timing of your pulls. I'm still really slow through my reach back but just starting a few inches sooner made all the difference.

On a 2nd side note in the last day or two I've been getting my mid range disc out to 275-300 (buzzz and stalker). A few times I've banged the stalker off the outfield baseball fence that is 320 from home plate where I'm throwing.

I feel like I'm all around it but I can't put together all the elements at the same time yet. I keep forgetting parts. I'll get the timing right but not pull close enough to my chest or forget to cock my wrist down to keep the nose down.

[pask2155]

One thing for me I was with a discraft pro the other day in a field and he was teaching me some techniques and I know I will get crucified for saying this on this forum, but the key to the nose issues is to get your weight leaning in front of you and start with the disc higher then your release. He had me having it as high as my face and the. Snapping down on a hyzer for hyzer flipping understable discs or anhyzer for over stable discs. This drive the nose down. Nice sweet low lines. And as I have grown comfortable with it I can manipulate any disc to do anything I want.

So judging on your post about your buzz now take big drivers and play with the reach back point higher and weight forward. Plant your plant foot, rip through with your hips and your arm will just sling across! And let me know how this works for you.

[itlnstln]

One thing for me I was with a discraft pro the other day in a field and he was teaching me some techniques and I know I will get crucified for saying this on this forum, but the key to the nose issues is to get your weight leaning in front of you and start with the disc higher then your release. He had me having it as high as my face and the. Snapping down on a hyzer for hyzer flipping understable discs or anhyzer for over stable discs. This drive the nose down. Nice sweet low lines. And as I have grown comfortable with it I can manipulate any disc to do anything I want.

So judging on your post about your buzz now take big drivers and play with the reach back point higher and weight forward. Plant your plant foot, rip through with your hips and your arm will just sling across! And let me know how this works for you.

That's not too far fetched. I have been practicing a higher reach back with wider rim discs to help with keeping the nose down (not quite as high as my face; maybe shoulder height). I actually got the idea to try it watching footage of Avery Jenkins. He starts with the disc around shoulder height and ends up around nipple height. Granted, it's not a linear, downward pull; in the last part of the throw, his plane is flat.

[JR]

Height is difficult to understand before you throw so fast that the hyzer flipped disc rises high enough to reach the maximum distance for any given line. S-curve is the longest line but a line drive with a few discs can be almost as long. Those discs need to fade as late and as little as possible. Throwing around 400' line drive with current discs can lift the disc to 15'+ height even with a shoulder high pull all the way from the reach back to the rip with the front and the rear of the disc being at the same height. Discs climb during the hyzer part of the hyzer flip and not getting enough speed to more than counter the gravity for as long a time means that the apex will be lower. Even the release height apex is possible.

While reaching back high and releasing lower and leaning forward a lot at the rip can push the front of the disc level or below the rear of the disc it is not absolutely mandatory. There are other ways to get the nose level with the rear of the disc. By the way a disc can be nose down when the front and rear of the disc are at the same height. Nose actually moves around the edge of the disc in different parts of the throw. Nose is the center place where the oncoming wind hits the edge of the disc. A hyzer flipped disc with front and rear level rising up is nose down. A disc fading is nose down and a disc turning is nose down. RHBH fade has the nose to the left of the center of the disc and annied turn has the nose to the right of the center and a flat line drive has the nose at the center of the disc.

Pushing the wrist down and orienting the disc properly in the grip is better nose down method for power generation as long as you have enough flexibility and power in the arm to have the muscles stay loose long enough to get a high speed and acceleration out of the arm pull.

Because people have different nerves, muscle power, coordination and ratio of the fastest muscle cells vs the rest of the cells it is somewhat individual when to accelerate and how hard and at which rate the acceleration should occur. That is why everyone needs to experiment where, when and how quickly they need to start the acceleration with each body part. Not just the arm. Because the amount of the fastest cells can grow over time you might need to move the acceleration point earlier so annual check ups are a good idea.

Feldberg gets a POW!!!! from the towel drill. It's like hitting a solid object with another solid object.