LHBH Form Check - First Time

[Swingfinder]

Hello,

First of all, thank you to Brychanus for leading me here from youtube and for sharing his form journey. Thank you to SW for the treasure trove of knowledge and for sharing it so freely. Thank you to everyone else who contributes to these forums.

I have been studying backhand form for about 6 months, practicing SW's drills, and reading these forums. I have increased my distance from 300-320' to 350-380'. I have practiced SW's standstill drills at length. I can feel the lag and rubberband effect with throws up to about 320'. I cannot, however, translate that to a throw with an X-step. Please view the video below and let me know how I can improve.

https://youtu.be/VrK5ihX1k_8

From what I can tell, a few things are holding me back:
1) Weight too far back during x-step, causing me to "tip over" during plant, reducing lag, increasing pulling through and rounding, rather than rubber band effect from weight shift.
2) "Reaching back"/looking away from target a bit too early compared to SW's Eagle vs Garret video.
3)Planting with open hip and shoulder. Maybe a symptom of number 1?
4) Horse Stance. It appears that my plant foot is pretty flat-footed. My theory is that since I am off balance going into the plant I require stability of a flat foot to keep me from falling over.

Lately, I have been slowing the x-step way down and eliminating the hop in an effort to stay balanced inside of back foot which seems to help me coil and weightshift correctly without tipping over.

 

[Brychanus]

You are leaning away. Don't be a leany leaner like me.

As you detected you are never really loading back your leading shoulder behind the rear hip and you don't seem to get pulled taut. I think you may have opposite side bend too.

Take it from my regret: keep your eyes/head with the disc heading into and out of the the backswing for now. That also can help unlearn the leaning.

As usual, standstills are easier to address most of this at first.

You do seem a bit horse stanced and get your whole body trapped way behind your brace leg as a result of that and the above:

 

[Swingfinder]

As you detected you are never really loading back your leading shoulder behind the rear hip and you don't seem to get pulled taut. I think you may have opposite side bend too.

Thanks Brychanus!

It seems that I think leaning away will somehow generate more momentum leading into the brace. Clearly it does not. Going to work on staying balanced and stacked over back foot during coil and getting leading shoulder behind rear hip as you suggest, starting with standstills.

What do you mean by opposite side bend? Is it hunching/curving the spine over my back hip during coil?

 

[Brychanus]

There are forms where lean (e.g., Gurthie as Sidewinder recently pointed out) can convert to swing momentum, but it's actually only when the player's mass is drifting forward of and leveraged correctly off the rear leg. Exaggerating in Feldberg's direction can help you find the correct dynamic. Standstills help force you to find it too.

Side bend:


IMO that one pairs very nicely with seabas22 Inside Swing. Feel the similarity against the wall getting your posture stacked up:
https://youtu.be/FWasFdvnGio?t=365

 

[Swingfinder]

IMO that one pairs very nicely with seabas22 Inside Swing. Feel the similarity against the wall getting your posture stacked up:
https://youtu.be/FWasFdvnGio?t=365

Practiced inside swing drill and windmill drill for side bend. Fieldwork session yesterday applying staying stacked over rear leg at during x-step and incorporating full coil/getting pulled taught at end of backswing. I am quite pleased with the results:


https://youtu.be/Kd5cekJV9ig

The leaning has drastically reduced. Head and shoulder are now only barely leading. I am staying much more balanced over brace and follow through if still trapped a bit behind. I must thank you for the advice to keep head following disc. I also told myself "don't rush to look targetward, trust the physics". The swing now feels like a bit of a "trust fall" when I do the weight shift "from behind" correctly.

My pendulum is still a bit early. I am lingering taught for a few moments too long. One thing I noticed is that prior to a few days ago I was pulling through the pendulum into backswing rather than staying loose and letting gravity take it. Staying loose allowed me to develop a felt sense of getting pulled taught.

Unfortunately full coil into the plant has aggravated an old groin injury in my left groin. Time to take some time off and do some hip mobility and stretching. Additionally, new muscles are sore in my left peck and shoulder but not in way that suggests injury or risk of injury.

When I get back to practice I am going to work on timing the pendulum a bit later, experimenting with spine tilt, and trying to get my off arm tighter to body. Any other recommendations are welcome!

 

[Swingfinder]

Update:
Took some time off to heal my groin and shoulder. I was throwing way too many shots at full power. Throwing full power with a run up really doesn't allow my body/brain to understand what is going on in the moment or make corrections to the form. From here on, I plan to slow way down. Time to get over the absurd preoccupation with throwing far. Standstills mainly, and a few run ups per session. Both at max 60% power.

Here are a few standstills from yesterday.
https://youtu.be/8ZuRRGc9hVU

I was trying to do hyzer angle release in the first one and "flat" in the following two.
The first throw seems like decent progress. Decent side bend, relatively balanced, and ending the throw stacked and balanced on plant leg.

The second two are pretty horrific. I power up the throw since I am throwing drivers. In doing so, I am leaning targetward slightly, turning the shoulder ahead of weightshift, resulting in rounding and "late release". So far I am unable to increase power without this result.

I'm going to practice one leg drill which I think will prevent me from leaning targetward.

I would love to hear what anybody sees or recommends.

 

[Brychanus]

Sorry you learned the costs and lesson of throwing full power with bad mechanics the hard way. Hope it sticks the first time ;-)

1. Get your throwing shoulder loaded back just behind the rear hip - load the bow, door frame drill.
https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3887779&postcount=150

2. You are opening your front hip as you land on in the plant.

Need to shift "from behind you." Do this many, many times:

https://youtu.be/0CSHqnYNijw?t=158

 

[Swingfinder]

Sorry you learned the costs and lesson of throwing full power with bad mechanics the hard way. Hope it sticks the first time ;-

I'm consistently baffled by my belief that if I do near full power drives enough times I will figure out good form. Pride and ego want me to believe it will come easy or that I can cut corners. I too, hope it sticks the first time.

I've been practicing clement's downswing wieghtshift. It is pretty intuitive in the more vertical golf swing. Less so when trying to incorporate the more lateral disc golf swing into the mechanics at play. It feels like "shifting from behind" brings my hand too close to my body as it passes through the "power pocket". I plan to film some to see if this is true and if so it may be a tilt or posture issue.

Going to practice drills for a week or two and maybe hit the field for some light throwing once or twice.

Thanks Brychanus!

 

[Brychanus]

I'm consistently baffled by my belief that if I do near full power drives enough times I will figure out good form. Pride and ego want me to believe it will come easy or that I can cut corners. I too, hope it sticks the first time.

I've been practicing clement's downswing wieghtshift. It is pretty intuitive in the more vertical golf swing. Less so when trying to incorporate the more lateral disc golf swing into the mechanics at play. It feels like "shifting from behind" brings my hand too close to my body as it passes through the "power pocket". I plan to film some to see if this is true and if so it may be a tilt or posture issue.

Going to practice drills for a week or two and maybe hit the field for some light throwing once or twice.

Thanks Brychanus!

People develop all kinds of idiosyncratic beliefs and hangups and the desire to lunge for the finish line. Me too.

Need to find the sweet spots for when to slow down and when to speed up. Need to find where you are weakest and work on it. Need to listen to the body. Need to know your goals and develop reasonable expectations. Distance is part of the package and an effect, not a cause of good mechanics and momentum mastery and so on.

Need to not be like me and learn to follow this advice when you give it yourself:

 

[Brychanus]

Oh, shifting from behind and space:

Yes, the better posture control you have the easier it is to find good spacing for the arm, disc and hand to swing in and out. I'm pretty crowded in the chest with short arms and it took some time to find the easiest combo of things, and I still benefit from working on my posture in transition. Often when people first start learning to shift from behind they still have other symptoms of tipping or leaning that cause jamming or collapsing posture, which also makes it harder to find space to swing. I think longer limbed people can get away with more mistakes and kinda make it work but are often still leaving a lot on the table.

 

[Swingfinder]

Update:
I've had to slow down frequency of practice due to life circumstances and nagging groin pain. It seems like the internal rotation at the plant is stressing something in my left hip. I'm hoping this is something related to bad form which means I may be able to fix it with proper form. When I have been practicing I have resisted the urge to throw hard, toning it down to 30-50% power.

I have two terminology questions I was hoping somebody could answer. I rooted around in the forums a bit but couldn't definitions.

What does shoulder collapse mean?
What is hip clearance?

 

[Brychanus]

One form of shoulder collapse is hugging yourself and not the disc:




By "hip clearance" not sure which you are referring to specifically, but many people use moves that kind of block their hips from allowing natural or a full range of movement.

 

[Swingfinder]

Thanks Brychanus!

That clarified shoulder collapse in the context I was thinking about.

Your section in "The Good Swing" on hip and leg action clarified "clearing the hips" or "hip clearance" in the context I had in mind, the front hip. "As a result, the leading hip begins to be forced back up and away from the target – "clearing" the hip to swing around his trailing arm and helping to swing or twirl his upper body into the release." This is in refence to McBeth during the plant crush.

Big thank you for putting "The Good Swing" together. It is a wonderful resource.

I am going to make a post on an analysis of my hip injury. It is most definitely related to bad form and I hope I can help people avoid my mistakes.