Lack of arm speed?

[Binslo]

Long time lurker, don't post often.

So I've spent the last year or so working purely on form. Don't carry anything faster than a Valkyrie. I am at the point where I am seeing great results. I drive with eagles/strikers on longer holes and I can work amazing lines with them. I've even recently won a local tournament (military overseas) coming in first place.

All that being said, I still seem to have issues getting past 350. What I have noticed is that just about every disc seems to hit right around 300-320 and immediatey fade out. They hit some kind of magic wall then pfbbt, they drop. I have thrown a 170g DX Eagle, a 170g GL Striker, a 169g GL Saint, a 138g Blizz Champ Wraith (not in the bag anymore), a 171g DX Teebird, a 168 TM2/EZE Vision, a 168 DX Valkyrie, and a 168g TM1 River. They all just hit the same point then smack the earth like it owes them money.

I have heard that Disc A has a nice forward fade while Disc B fades hard blah blah. But all the discs seem to drop at roughly the same rate. Farthest I can consistently throw is right around 320 with a hyzer flipped River. What I don't understand is that the discs seem to fly the way they are designed. Thrown flat, the vision/valk and river are nice gentle turnovers, the saint is bullet straight, and the eagle and striker all have a pretty mini-flex that always a treat to watch. I can work great lines with my current bag. But I can't get them past this invisible point.

Would snap but a lack of arm speed cause an issue like this?

[Mike C]

Sounds like you might be throwing nose up. Try focusing on keeping your wrist bent down like a handshake, and kick off with your back foot and get your weight forward on the drive as you're coming up to the release point. Also make sure you don't reach back low and release high.

When a disc seems to always stall out and drop that is usually why.

[mashnut]

The way you describe the end of the flight makes it sound to me like nose angle issues might be contributing. If you throw with the nose up, the disc will stall out and fall left rather than finishing forward as it slows down.

[kutz167]

If you wanted more in-depth help, post a video of you throwing. The form gurus on here will hone in and give tons of (mostly) great advice.

[Binslo]

I would post a video but the internet connection here is straight from 1996 and is ghetto fabulous. Trying to upload a video would be as successful as me scaling Everest.


I had a slight feeling that it might be a nose angle issue but since I was throwing good lines I was in say-it-ain't-so mode. Thanks for the input, I'll definitely have to watch my wrist movement out in the field. If true, this would probably be a good time to mention that I've been practicing a LOT with putters/mids. I remember someone mentioning something about practicing with a River for nose-angle issues since putters and mids won't give you experience with nose-angle. And what a coincidence, the River is the one going farthest...

Guess they could be right after all.

[mashnut]

Throwing mids and putters is great for cleaning up a lot of areas of form, but they don't punish you nearly as much for nose up shots. Mixing in field work with slower drivers is important to make sure you don't end up building that muscle memory incorrectly. Like Mike said, a combination of grip, wrist angle and weight transfer all go into nose angle.

[Will Burke]

Or it could be your arm speed. Some people just don't have it yet. Would cause a similar problem because disc would fall into low speed stability earlier and fly just like nose up.

[garublador]

Originally Posted by Binslo

Would snap but a lack of arm speed cause an issue like this?

Short answer, no. Working on "arm speed" will just make your problem worse and potentially introduce new problems. On DGR Blake just posted how he has one student that recently "got it" and was hitting 350' with Rocs with very low "arm speed." Unless your fairway drivers are in the 400' ball park then you probably aren't throwing with was is commonly called "snap." Even then it's only "half hitting" rather than "full hitting" which would be "full snap."

With the exception of snap, which few actually get, there's probably one part of your throw that's not quite right. It does sound like a nose angle problem so the fixes people have been giving to fix that are good things to try. You can get your fairway drivers out to 350' and speed 10-11 discs out to 400' or so without actually getting "snap," FWIW.

[Discwrangler]

Arm speed is a by product of Core Strength and hip flexibility