Hilariously Bad Backhand Form, Please Advise

[sidewinder22]

Windmill looked the best. You are limiting yourself by only using camera on side view.

I would work on these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpp7ZFLHK90#t=9m40s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwy1HNMfhbk#t=6m57s
https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136487

 

[ninjabq]

Yeah I need to remember to post some rear view footage. I have been taking some lately but forgot to this last session, but wanted to post anyway because I'm not sure what my main-est deficiency is at this point.

Still working from a standstill, can get drivers up around 250 with some regularity in the field (although never seems to work out that way on the course...). Maybe a couple throws in the past month or so have gotten closer to 300. Putters and mids I am getting a touch over 200. Thinking about putting some work into X-step but I feel like I can get my standstill over 300 first.

Main issues that I see looking at this:
- Not getting weight over plant foot enough (causing my front leg to spin out during the throw), need to do crush the can more
- Front shoulder on top of rear shoulder throughout the majority of the throw
- Peak of reachback is happening way before the plant

Let me know what else you see!

 

[bryantlikes]

Still working from a standstill, can get drivers up around 250 with some regularity in the field (although never seems to work out that way on the course...). Maybe a couple throws in the past month or so have gotten closer to 300. Putters and mids I am getting a touch over 200. Thinking about putting some work into X-step but I feel like I can get my standstill over 300 first.

Looking better!

1) Instead of jumping to the X-step runup, give the open to closed a try. I've found that I get a fair amount of power this way and you'll still be able to focus on your form.

2) Remember your practice swing *is* your swing. I'd suggest not holding a disc in your throwing hand since it forces you to turn it sideways which you don't want to do in your actual throw. Focus on your hand being in the correct position and whipping your fingers out.

Keep at it!

 

[ninjabq]

1) Instead of jumping to the X-step runup, give the open to closed a try. I've found that I get a fair amount of power this way and you'll still be able to focus on your form.

I've done open to closed as a drill in the field a bit (did it some more this morning), but you mean you'd do it as a throw on a course too? For me it's pretty erratic lol, maybe that's just a sign that I need to do it even more

 

[bryantlikes]

I've done open to closed as a drill in the field a bit (did it some more this morning), but you mean you'd do it as a throw on a course too? For me it's pretty erratic lol, maybe that's just a sign that I need to do it even more

Yes, right now this is how I throw all the time. Even for CTP playoffs



And I'm not the only one. https://youtu.be/PbJpN7PK_bA?t=150

It is a very useful throwing style to develop and works especially well in bad or uphill lies.

 

[sidewinder22]

If you are doing One Leg Drill, you need to square up your posture on it, stand up on it. Your hip is collapsed and over top your knee.

 

[ninjabq]

I wasn't going for OLD lol but I'll keep that in mind when I do it again, and when posting up in general.

Was focusing on door frame drill and produced these hammer throws which felt much more effortless than normal

 

[Brychanus]

Looks like you're having trouble getting onto and off that rear leg - e.g., trouble as your rear foot appears to go into dorsiflexion before your heel comes down rather than keeping the toes down as you plant and brace the backswing.

You also don't get your mass moving back over balanced on that rear leg, so you don't really have any supporting leverage or structure to your backswing. You're not ever "stacked" on that leg so you kind of swivel back into it but without your mass supported fully by it.

Hershyzer + Reverse stride are coming to mind. I kinda want to see you marching around a bit more naturally with a bit of diagonal. How much battering ram have you tried?

 

[sidewinder22]

You are too over your toes, outside posture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWasFdvnGio#t=6m5s

Need more diagonal stance setup, straightening front knee while bending rear knee - walking back backswing(and reversing/figure 8 walking forward). You seem to pickup your front foot early and not really shifting/pushing back enough with it into ground.

Note in rear view how Seppo, Brinster and me are are just walking back diagonally more with rear foot while our width of stance is essentially the same.
http://biokineticgolfswing.blogspot.com/2010/04/diagonal-stance.html
https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3582455&postcount=2
https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139973

 

[ninjabq]

Looks like you're having trouble getting onto and off that rear leg - e.g., trouble as your rear foot appears to go into dorsiflexion before your heel comes down rather than keeping the toes down as you plant and brace the backswing.

Having a little trouble visualizing this/seeing it, but looking at my rear video do you mean I'm kind of just bending my foot up/calf down to make the rear foot flat instead of it coming down in the process of the weight shift backwards (like a reverse can crush)?

(rear foot flat, weight still completely forward)?

 

[ninjabq]

I kinda want to see you marching around a bit more naturally with a bit of diagonal.

Not sure if this is what you mean, but here's me pacing backwards across the teepad repeatedly, starting from looking forward and then turning each time until I'm in the backhand throw posture. This might be my most obscure video to date!

You are too over your toes, outside posture.

Here I am trying to focus on this diagonal->rear motion to get onto the rear foot. I find it very uncomfortable to get back this way and pull up the toe/ball of front foot unless I let that foot come off the ground or cave hard inwards - definitely a flexibility issue. (I have been working a lot on mobility lately!)



Here is a similar thing but after getting back on the rear foot, I extend up on it, doing more of a one-step kind of thing.



Side view:


Interestingly I thought that the shifting fully to the rear, and fixing inside posture/less over toes, were two separate things, but I can tell from these throws that the former helps the latter.

Upper body posture looks really weird from the side now though, definitely need to figure out how to incorporate this more naturally

 

[Brychanus]

Not sure if this is what you mean, but here's me pacing backwards across the teepad repeatedly, starting from looking forward and then turning each time until I'm in the backhand throw posture. This might be my most obscure video to date!

Mean diagonal march like with Battering Ram, sorry. We want to get you moving your weight around swinging more naturally.

I would still do that, but in your swing I might go after this first in any case: the diagonal shift in hammer tos is starting to come along. But you need let the hammer pull/coil you back more into the backswing more horizontal to the ground like SW. Don't try to hold it so wide or straight back from the release point. Also notice that his front shoulder is stacked more over his front ankle. Your front ankle is extended out too far North and West. Get the shift to be a little more compact (the backswing change will help that too).

 

[ninjabq]

Lol whoops, well in any case that walking backwards really helped me make the connection around "the swing is just walking in a different direction then normal", so I think it was useful anyway.

Unrelatedly, do y'all have any thoughts on RHFH vs LHBH? For context, I am left handed but have historically played sports right handed. However as alluded to at the beginning of this thread I have no real sports history so it's kind of irrelevant. I have an absolutely unusable RHFH, and I've been practicing it a bit lately but it's strenuous on my rotator cuff just to get it past 100 feet.. On the other hand I tried out LHBH for a little bit in the field today and was able to send it out around 200 feet pretty easily (although the direction was all over the place). I'm thinking of just working on that instead of trying to build up a RHFH.

 

[Kennets]

Gonna tap it on this one. Feel free to correct me brychanus and you Andrew

Not sure if you guys have been over it already, but. It seems like you open your shoulders/body too much in the end of the swing (at release) and "spin out". Not by a huge margin, but too much. For me, the hammer is a huge help to remind me of the more "lateral" motion in the throw (English isn't my first language, but trying my best). Posture is a huge deal too.

It seems like you're too stiff and need to freewheel some more. Let the hammer tell your body and arm how to react. When you "catch the momentum" of the hammer in the "pocket/downswing/whatever" and actually feel how you naturally have to brace and the outswing is merely you clinging on to dear life and hoping that you don't launch the hammer 600 feets... That's the BEST feeling ever.. translating that to a disc is another problem, lol.

Disclaimer: you shouldn't just be loose and fling that hammer out, you'll injure yourself. Throwing a somewhere heavy object will normally get your body in a right posture and/or alignment, it just take some self awareness on how your body should react

Gl man!

 

[ninjabq]

It seems like you open your shoulders/body too much in the end of the swing (at release) and "spin out".

Yeah this has definitely been a common thread throughout this journey haha. Believe it nor not I was doing a lot more spinning earlier! But I appreciate the insight, definitely need to remind myself to keep everything moving laterally.

Mean diagonal march like with Battering Ram, sorry. We want to get you moving your weight around swinging more naturally.

Here's some battering ram (I started in the neutral/feet in line posture first and walked back the rear side like in SW's video, but failed to capture that on video).

battering ram side


battering ram rear


battering ram side (high arm slot)


hammer throw post-battering ram rear (focused on incorporating battering ram and keeping everything moving backwards diagonal/letting hammer pull)


standstills rear - here's where it gets ugly, I already was having a problem recently with pulling to the right but now it's at an extreme after all these drills lol. I think I am getting more stacked upright like I want, but my shoulders are opening up super early

 

[ninjabq]

I can see that if I freeze at the same point of extension (arm/shoulder relative to torso), I am more and more over-rotated starting from battering ram and ending at one of the standstill throws - not just shoulders but hips as well. (One thing that might relevant is that what I was using for the battering ram was a sleeping bag pad for camping and it is fairly light.)

 

[ninjabq]

Something I noticed re-watching the standstill disc throw video - from the end of the reachback (which isn't much of one - my arm is pretty bent still), my arm doesn't really move relative to my body. It's just statically coming along for the ride, no out/in/out, which means it's just experiencing all of the rotational force being produced by my hips and shoulders. Definitely need to re-fix the reachback to be more linear and outward and improve the timing in order to create the necessary lag.

(In addition to working on all the other spinning)

 

[Brychanus]

1. March with the ram a bit like he does in the vid with your diagonal stance there. Walk in little steps feeling the compact shift and rock working together.

2. Just like you need to "heave" it to throw it, you also need to "let it go" heaving in the backswing. You were doing ok with the ram until you went to swing into follow through, which you suddenly shifted into trying to control the ram and you blew the leverage on your rear leg. DG backswing is similar - let it heave back while your weight shifts forward, just like walking with it.

3. Don't worry about making it either linear or outward. If anything, allow it to swing you back like the sleeping bag was- but feel the weight of the ram and your arm "levitating" you back. You want to get that stretched out feeling.

4. Might as well toss the ram, it's good for you. Maybe stuff something about 5 lbs in the middle of the bag.

 

[Brychanus]

Here, I want to help you get the backswing to work. Right now in your hammer swing everything is shifting together forward. But the backswing should continue counterrotating as your weight shift forward.

Keep this image in mind. I edited it to be more true to the actual backswing path in his toss. The point isn't really the exact direction of the backswing as much as letting it naturally swing back and get you taut. The easiest way is just let it follow the shift back like the battering ram. That's why his hammer goes that way - it's just following the direction of his diagonal shift.

The frame on the right is his practice pump. He is not shifting forward, and so his hammer doesn't break back as far into the diagonal relative to his body as a result. But he's still feeling a little stretch through his lat and core there.

On the left, he is shifting diagonally, preparing to toss. Notice that as he takes the small stride, the hammer is basically countering that shift. He's just letting it swing back. But what he's letting happen is that the hammer/arm is being "let go" and stretching him out a bit more. He feels it in his lat muscle and through the core - that elastic tension gets released after he plants to power the swing. You aren't getting that process to happen yet - find it in ram too.

It works exactly like this but moving in BH direction:

 

[sidewinder22]

You are taking the ram back too rotational around your body. The head end of your ram is almost facing the camera. Take it back more vertical and try to keep your left hand further from target than lead hand, so the head end remains more on target. And also try to keep your elbows above your hands.