Inconsistent release angles

[tapioh]

Yeah, not keeping the shoulders level throughout the motion, but actually not shrugging or tightening up the front shoulder when throwing.

And yes, looking back, I was told in many posts not to do that and watched some videos, where that was pointed out, but it took those hammer drills with primary focus on this issue to realize what it means. Even if somebody had broken into my house in the middle of the night, woken me up and told me not to do that, I would not have gotten it until now. Yet, I must figure out, how to throw correctly, but recognition is a step forward.

 

[tapioh]

I had one more hammer tossing session on Tuesday and today I went back to throwing discs. I planned that I might start circuiting through different kind of drills in subsequent sessions. For example, in the first session hammer tossing, in the second one-leg or ewalk drill and in the third just regular throwing.

Here are the clips from hammer tossing session. I tried to cultivate what learned so far and also pay attention to hinging from the hips in the backswing and to the shoulder movement.





To finish the session I tried to mimic the movement with putters and do some very light and relaxed upshots to 100'-120'.



Today I went to throw putters. Thanks to hammer drills and also studying technique threads in the forum I had some kind of mental image in my head how the throw should look and feel, but well... I forgot to bring that mental image to the field. It felt and looks that nothing really changed from the previous sessions. More work to be done.

One thing catching my eye is that my hips turn too fast pointing (= become perpendicular) to the direction of the throw after the release.

 

[sidewinder22]

Looking better.

You plant your front foot to flat/dorsiflexed/retracted and seem to force the foot pivot. There is no need for the foot to pivot on an approach shot. The foot should get pulled into the pivot by the momentum of the swing. You need to extend your right ankle/plantar flexion landing on toes first and push your foot into the ground.

 

[tapioh]

You plant your front foot to flat/dorsiflexed/retracted and seem to force the foot pivot. There is no need for the foot to pivot on an approach shot. The foot should get pulled into the pivot by the momentum of the swing. You need to extend your right ankle/plantar flexion landing on toes first and push your foot into the ground.

Thanks, a good pick about the plant. Never thought about that.

A notion about forcing the pivot is certainly true.

One question about the vertical movement of the CoG. With the pendulum backswing, in the starting position arm pointing towards target the CoG is up. When the disc goes downwards in the pendulum, also the CoG goes down. When the disc starts to rise up again and the arm starts pointing away from the target, the CoG goes up and finally when planting, it goes down again. Is it right? Hopefully you can understand the confusing question

 

[sidewinder22]

Not sure I'm following. Your CoG always leads and arm/disc follow/lag/wag behind like ball on string or water skier towed behind boat.

In the top two pics below Steve's CoG is dropping faster than the arm/disc that is being lifted/levitated to the top of the backswing relative to the body. Disc starts at navel high and ends up shoulder high as he dropped into plant. So while disc and body both dropped in space(and moved targetward), they did the opposite relative to each other and stretched/loaded like sling shot.

In frame 2 to 3 note how Steve's CoG rises and the disc is moving lower.

In frame 4 Steve's CoG still rising and the disc finally followed upward to release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IFO7J3AV5Y#t=4m30s

 

[tapioh]

I did elephant walk drill yesterday. Cannot comment that much about it, but I think hammer drill helped to get the feeling about the timing and this enhanced it further. I tried to concentrate on the relaxed effort in swinging and throwing.





To finish off the session, I threw five putter shots starting from a very slow 80' and applying progressively more power to each shot, but even the last one was quite easy to 220'.

 

[sidewinder22]

Ewalk looks like you are trying to keep the disc wide/outside at the top of backswing toward left tee and then swinging forward to the right/inside.

Instead of letting the swing pull back more behind/inside you toward right tee and then swinging forward more leftward/outward. Rounding has nothing to do with where the disc is. Only the upper arm angle relative to chest matters, so long as your shoulders have turned far enough it doesn't matter if the disc appears to be behind your body.

 

[tapioh]

Okay, the same thing than with my hammer tosses before the correction. The hint that it is because I try to avoid rounding even though it would not be there is spot on. Thanks!

 

[tapioh]

Hammer time!

I did just some regular hammer tosses and tried to concentrate on the issues mentioned previously (shoulder over the knee and hinging from the hips in the backswing) and maybe throw a bit longer than previously.

Those attempts look and felt goodish, but cannot praise the said points of interest. In the shot recorded from the side, I lose my balance in the follow-through, the thumbnail is just from that moment. Can't remember exactly what it felt like, but I think it might be because I tried to have the right shoulder travel over/around the front knee.





I also did a couple of open to closed drills to add versatility to a proven drill. Very effortless, felt goodish about them.

 

[sidewinder22]

Looking good! Do not worry about being pulled over in the followthru by the swing/hammer. You aren't pushing yourself over, so that is good.

Open to Closed, I would start more open, about as far open as possible and swing the shoulder further back. Start with right foot almost on same line perpendicular to target, wide open, chest, hips facing target and arm/hammer pointed 90 degrees to right.

 

[tapioh]

Here is some footage from a week ago, I have been on the road since then and had not chance to upload or practice. Those I threw quite hard, but not as hard as I could. The shots went to 260'-270' and those are one of the longest putter shots I have thrown on that field (and probably elsewhere as well, but the field gives the fixed reference of the length of the throws).

As you can see from the view behind, I brought the disc more behind my body and had the shoulders turned 180 degrees from the target. I do not know if that is good or not, but was what SW advised to do with hammer and ewalk, so could as well do it with regular throws, I suppose.





To end the session, I did some understable/neutral midrange disc drives as far as I could manage and to my delight, I could consistently throw 90 % of those midranges closer than 20' to the other end line of the field and the field must be pretty close to 300' (295' if I had to guess an exact number). Even though I have occasionally managed to shoot over the field, never had threatened the end line so consistently. A victory, albeit a small one.

 

[sidewinder22]

You aren't dropping into the plant. Your rear knee stays extended and shoulder stays up and elbow drops. Your shoulder should follow your CoG dropping into the plant, so the shoulder lowers and loads down into the elbow/disc plane.

 

[tapioh]

You aren't dropping into the plant. Your rear knee stays extended and shoulder stays up and elbow drops. Your shoulder should follow your CoG dropping into the plant, so the shoulder lowers and loads down into the elbow/disc plane.

Thanks! So similarly as the muscles of the rear leg and foot generate most of the force to pull the door frame, the same muscles should have the main responsibility in pushing my CoG and weight pressure to the front foot in the throw? I have been thinking a lot the issue why my shoulder rises every time I try to apply even some power to the throw and that might be one of the issues behind it.

Yesterday I did some OLDs, here is the footage. I tried to pay now attention to feedback from the previous OLD session and for the reference, the footage and feedback is copied below. I guess I improved those mentioned issues and the shots did feel better than back then. When comparing to SW22's OLD form, his upper body seems to be more forward addressed and athletic/aggressive. The upper body positioning has been one of the issues I have been trying to think and pay attention to in OLDs as in other drills as well, but I seem to have hard time understanding it. Generally, if I tilt my upper body left of tee, I am able to throw only hyzer shots.





Previous session and the feedback:

I did some one-leg drills on the field. A couple of shots from both side and back.





What do you think? The follow-through felt somewhat violent on the shoulder. Most of the shots left on quite a steep hyzer angle.

You are taking it too literal. There should be a slight shift or walk back to the right tee side in the backswing. Note how your body moves toward the left tee side in backswing while I'm moving back toward the right tee side. Your weight pressure is staying on your rear toes and increasing, while I'm moving the pressure and rolling back to heel/targetward and then back to toes.

https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136487

 

[sidewinder22]

More staggered stance, moving left foot back toward right tee and keep front heel on ground, but let toes come up. Note how my center has shifted more toward right tee/heels while you are staying more over your toes/left tee.

 

[tapioh]

Do the hips rotate in the OLD during the backswing more or somehow exaggeratedly in comparison to standard standstill throw? I mean, it seems to me that in the OLD (and hammer toss) your hips are turned completely (or at least 160 degrees) away from the target, but in the standard standstill the hip rotation is much less clear.

 

[sidewinder22]

Do the hips rotate in the OLD during the backswing more or somehow exaggeratedly in comparison to standard standstill throw? I mean, it seems to me that in the OLD (and hammer toss) your hips are turned completely (or at least 160 degrees) away from the target, but in the standard standstill the hip rotation is much less clear.

In OLD the rear foot is staggered back more out of the way which allows the pelvis to rotate further back. OLD(and Elephant Walk) drill is a more of a rotational(and vertical) drill with a little horizontal motion.

In "standstill" there is more horizontal motion and the rear foot needs to be more inline to brake the horizontal motion of the backswing and redirect targetward. Being more inline also restricts the pelvis from rotating further back. So it's a balancing act to find the right amount of stagger and width of stance to maximize the mix of forces.

 

[tapioh]

I went fishing and hiking for a week and was not able to practice but prior to and after that I really spent several sessions trying to figure out how to drop into the plant and push/squat with the rear leg.

The difficulty that I perceived was that I also started to turn my hips way more than I should. Reference to SW22's previous post, where dr. Lynn talks about many beginner golfers having too much rotational momentum and lacking the necessary lateral ground force. I feel pretty much that it's one of my problems as well. From the side view it looks that my knees somehow collapse and get awkwardly close to each other. And I have now took like 400 shots trying to not to do that but you can see the result in the videos (those are one of the better shots).

The other problem I see is the persistent problem with going over/around the plant rather than bracing onto it. I do not know what to do, but when I forcefully try to brace onto a plant, I end up just throwing badly mistimed shots that go way right and high. But I guess that's fundamentally a timing issue.

There are two quite good shots with Pures, one from side and one behind, going maybe 250' or so.

 

[sidewinder22]

Standstill in a bigger stagger, your heels should almost be inline with each other perpendicular to target - like walking perpendicular to target/ e walk drill. Inside Swing Drill should help, note how much further back/deeper/inside toward right tee my left shoulder gets and swing comes back inside front foot. You are too over your toes bending knees too much in the setup.

 

[tapioh]

Standstill in a bigger stagger, your heels should almost be inline with each other perpendicular to target - like walking perpendicular to target/ e walk drill. Inside Swing Drill should help, note how much further back/deeper/inside toward right tee my left shoulder gets and swing comes back inside front foot. You are too over your toes bending knees too much in the setup.

Thanks! Would the bigger stagger be there for the sake of practice to fix the aforementioned issues or something I should be targeting as the ideal standstill form? In standstill ground force and hip rotation video the stagger seems quite extreme to me, like in OLD. The form I have been trying to achieve is similar to this, where the stagger is way smaller:

 

[sidewinder22]

Yes, move more like OLD and Elephant Walk to fix issues on two legs spread laterally.