Hiprotation or snap

[fusan]

So I was just wondering...
Since Im having big problems getting any hipturn, I was thinking, how long a throw could be generated only from
snap and shoulderrotation? Would that be sufficient to break 400? Is snap that powerfull?
Obviously I know you would have to learn both, but what would be most important to learn... hiprotation or snap to gain more distance?

 

[tjh0188]

Practice snap imo. Some amount of snap is generated via the hips but I think you would learn to hone other areas of your form faster starting with snap. I feel like its more fundamental to the core of throwing straight lines or cleanly. I would assume the hips play more of a power role in the grand scheme of it all.

 

[JR]

Taking half measures won't ever take you all the way there but drilling parts of the whole and improving each part will so it is good to drill some. Just beware that once you engage the hips you will have to make everything move faster because it makes the snap faster and more powerful. I've heard of 400'+ stand stills. My some odd chance i got a 366' stand still with a Beast Pro 165 in mild rear wind the other day. Yesterday in mild rear wind i put a Nuke to a wall at the height of 4' flying fast and flat slowly flexing out of anny at 420' so it would have probably skipped to at least 440' but without a wind push it would have been more like 420' with skips i assume. I don't know how representative that is but i ran full tilt before taking the x steps so i covered a lot more ground than any tee has.

The real answer is to video yourself to see what can be done to the hips. Where do you point the right foot at the plant, at least 80 degrees off of pointing at the target is good and bending the knees at least 15 degrees allows you to push with the rear leg after the pause helps the hips get going which in turn helps the shoulders, elbow and wrist.

 

[fusan]

tjh0188
As I mentioned, I have a really hard time incoporating the hipturn to the throw so in the mean time I thought of working on the snap. It cant hurt, right?

JR
I have allready posted a video some time ago, that you criticed. Didnt get much further with the hiprotation.

Im also confused about the shoulders part in the throw. To be more precise, do the shouldes slow down/stop once they reach 90 deg from the target as the
arm whips out? Or do they actively continue the rotation with the arm.
I imagine that it must be harder to create snap if the shoulders continue to rotate. The arm will never really catch up and deliver the whip effetct.
In order to whip a towel you must stop the arm and shoulders. Is this the same effect you strive for in the disc golf throw?

BTW did you happen to be in CphOpen2013 this year, recording the event?

 

[itlnstln]

Im also confused about the shoulders part in the throw. To be more precise, do the shouldes slow down/stop once they reach 90 deg from the target as the
arm whips out? Or do they actively continue the rotation with the arm.
I imagine that it must be harder to create snap if the shoulders continue to rotate. The arm will never really catch up and deliver the whip effetct.
In order to whip a towel you must stop the arm and shoulders. Is this the same effect you strive for in the disc golf throw?

You have answered your own question. Yes, you must stop the shoulders to have the arm whip out. That said, after release, you must continue the motion to mitigate stress on the knee, elbow, etc. Trying to stop the shoulders may lead you down the same road of futility as your hip rotation work. Learning to work from the hit back will help. When you start feeling strong hits, your body will know what to do from there. Personally, I avoid terms like "stopping the shoulders" because people tend to focus on those things like tasks and lose sight of the bigger technique picture. If you focus more on directing the force of the throw in one, linear direction, stuff like stopping the shoulders and hip rotation work itself out as those things are all you can do when you're directing your force properly.

When I first started coming to this site 5-6 years ago to read the articles, I would be baffled at cryptic, abstract way Dave Dunipace would describe/teach technique. Reading what I just wrote made me realize how hard it is to explain. Kudos, Blake.

 

[JR]

Please elaborate on which things you think are an issue with you with getting the hips to rotate? Are they on the execution side or the concept side in your current understanding? Yes the shoulders and even the hips and legs should stop (almost completely) during the pause (hence the name) so that the arm can catch up and lead the body movements for the second 90 degree turning phase of the active throw which is followed by even more body movement in the follow through.

You can see the music video teaser from the Copenhagen Open 2013 at Youtube channel lcgm8 already and the competition video will be released later when lcgm8 has the time to do it. And the footage is from my camera.

 

[fusan]

@itlnstln
I think you did a great job of explaining it. Thanks!
I wallways rotated the torso/shoulder as the main powersource and instead of rotating the hips I just pushed with the rear leg to shift weight.

@JR
The issue with rotating hips you say...
Well when I try to rotate the hips, the torso just stays kinda behind or tilted back. I also tend to rotate on the ball of my front foot and not on the heel.
When I rotate with the hips to 90 deg from the target, the shoulders are 90 deg from the target to. Mayby Im not so flexible or mayby I rotate the hips
to far and to fast, but once my hips/Shoulders are rotated to 90 deg from target with my shoulders, its time to whip out the arm, so theres not much
space to rotate the shoulders without overrotating them and spray the discs right.
Anyway heres a video were I try to lead with the hips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th7jwgWRfq4

This is my normal throw when I focus on snap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAmyzZbsKgY
As you can se, the hips dont rotate. They just shift the weight.

 

[itlnstln]

@itlnstln
I think you did a great job of explaining it. Thanks!
I wallways rotated the torso/shoulder as the main powersource and instead of rotating the hips I just pushed with the rear leg to shift weight.

These days, I don't even think about the upper body rotation. I use my legs and hips to generate power and my upper body follows. When I'm having a bad day, it's usually because I'm more conscious of my upper body rotation and I start shanking to the right.

Of all stupid things that kill me on the course these days, not running up in the direction I want to throw is frustrating the hell out me. I don't know why I do this, but it's stupid and I need to stop.

EDIT: I should have watched the videos first. Your "focus-on-snap" video is more along the lines of what you're looking for. It's not so much of a hip "rotation;" rather, you want to drive the hip toward the target which, in turn, drives everything else the same direction.

 

[fusan]

EDIT: I should have watched the videos first. Your "focus-on-snap" video is more along the lines of what you're looking for. It's not so much of a hip "rotation;" rather, you want to drive the hip toward the target which, in turn, drives everything else the same direction.[/quote]

So the "focus on snap" video looked better than the first one were I tried to rotate the hips?

 

[itlnstln]

So the "focus on snap" video looked better than the first one were I tried to rotate the hips?

Yes. Notice how you were closer to 90 deg. away from the target in the second video and in the first you were nearly faced up? The second video exhibits better driving of the hip which helps fling the arm out as the motion continues but what you will find is that for that strong whip to happen, you will be more in line with the target than faced up to it (it's actually a little past 90 deg. but I'm not breaking out protractor for specificity).

Avery Jenkins shows the concept (but doesn't discuss it a lot) in the Deep in the Game backhand video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCs5u9ecVis

Dave Feldberg goes more in-depth in this video: http://vimeo.com/64171158#

Drive the hip on the line you're throwing. Rotate out to relieve the pressure on the knee and ankle. Driving the hip should be a "conscious" effort (don't think too much, though). The rotate-out motion should pretty much happen naturally as your body's force is going to take you in that direction anyway.

 

[soupdeluxe]

Hey All
I was going to post a question on this very thing but you all are ahead of me. After watching the Feldburg vid and a vid by Will Shust (how ever you spell it) called Driving Instruction I noticed they are instructing to drive the hip in linear fashion rather than rotational? Feldy even points out in his vid that he sees allot of people who struggle with their drives hips opening or moving to the right instead of moving in a linear way. I thought I was looking for rotational because you close the hips during reachback. So am I to assume you move your closed hips linearly at first and then open or rotate them during the last part of the throw? Playing around with this in the house it feels pretty natural and makes the heel pivot happen. Thanks
SD

 

[JR]

Yup and the rear leg push should come after most of the linear push has happened starting the movement chain that results in the rotation.

 

[itlnstln]

Yup and the rear leg push should come after most of the linear push has happened starting the movement chain that results in the rotation.

This is key. Personally, the only "conscious" motion I make is driving the hip. The rest, upper-body drive (I'm avoiding the word "rotation" here)/arm whip, should happen automatically as a chain reaction. If I focus on driving my upper-body or the arm whip, I end up spraying shots right, strong-arming, etc. Usually when this happens to me it's a result of trying to throw too hard.

 

[sidewinder22]

^ Yep, this stuff is tricky to explain. The best explanation I've found is this:

 

[fusan]

Seabas22
Are you Sidewinder22 on the other forum? Your emphasize is on the same things and you love to use golf videos

Anyway, what I gather from the videos are the linear push og the legs/hips and the lift og the front hip. Much like Daves video.

 

[sidewinder22]

Might be my alter ego. :wink:

The Move ties into what Feldy talks about and explains it a bit more in-depth. Feldy also has the most ball golfish form. Greg Norman's rear foot slide is also very similar to Feldy's which is also like a hockey slap shot.

 

[masterbeato]

Upper body timing is far more superior than lower body anything, any old day of the week considering that's what ejects the disc.

To answer the OP, if I were to choose one or the other; snap is the most important thing. Snap = power/distance/control.

 

[fusan]

Seabas22
Another thing Ive notticed in your videos here and on dgcr is maintaining the tension of the coil. I dont know important it is but in regular golf
it is. If you loose that tension from winding the coil, it often result in a colapse. But how does that relate to Disc golf?

Beto
Thanks, Im slowly realising that I can throw pretty long from stand still by only focusing on the snap. Timing seem to be the biggest issue. I feel like
all that power from pulling the disc in close gets me a little out of sync sometimes. Is a proces and needs much more time on the range.
Im not trying to implement the wrist extention yet. I need to focus on slowing down the shoulders and stopping the elbow untill it is automatic I guess.

 

[sidewinder22]

I agree snap is important although I have a hard separating power in terms of upper body vs lower body. If you truly want to find out how far you can throw without the lower body, then sit on the ground and try throwing. There are so many varying degrees of getting your lower body into the throw as I also believe there is with the upper body. The main thing is to find leverage or not lose it. There are body positions that people get into that prohibit snap, I know Blake and Dan have said this as well and I've been there. As far as people that get coiled, and then uncoil before weight transfer they don't have any or much mass behind the hit and are wasting a lot of energy, although they may still throw somewhat far. What typically happens when they learn to get more lower body is that the throw is much more effortless and accurate.

Also you shouldn't really be pulling the disc into the power zone. Your weight transfer will more or less bring it in.

 

[JR]

IDK where the power zone is supposed to be at the accuracy of an inch so for my physiology the disc can be brought to the left side without moving the arm at all by the first 90 degree rotation of the body that ends where the pause starts. It is another matter if anyone is gonna max out their D starting the arm pull at this time. Some may have the sweet spot there and others earlier or later. The more explosive you are the later you can start to accelerate and the more powerful you are the earlier you can start because then the acceleration can be maintained for longer.