Quantifying the Right Pec Drill

[anborn]

went and played a round at a local course sunday, went from having a stiff wrist, to more of a loose wrist/arm during my throw to try and get more whip/snap action. was spraying all over the place and didn't really figure out timing until #16. 16 and 18, felt smooth but the aim was off. gonna have to work on how hard to pinch and stopping my shoulders in line with my target. but on #17 crushed a drive that actually went where i wanted it, and it felt super smooth. gonna have to work on nose up issues now since my throwing style/motion changed a bit.

think i need to hit a field to just work on this stuff without worrying about playing.

 

[Porsche320]

Played a round today on a course I hadn't played in a while to see if I could beat my score. I was crunched for time (afternoon fundraiser - something worthy) so I skipped the warm-up, and any diagnostics. I simply played fast without worrying about or trying to correct poor throws.
I had a number of poor drives, and they all had a few things in common: They had a stronger rip out of my hand than my "normal" drives, and they all released a few degrees right of where I was aiming (RHBH), and they would rotate/bank to the right (in the understable direction) more than normal and never "come back" - they would keep turning right until it hit the ground and rolled in a circle. My better drives left with less rip and banked to the right less, and at the end of the flight would bank back left (overstable direction) and fade a bit.

I'll get some video as soon as I can, and I know it is impossible to make accurate suggestions without seeing, but I have to think this is a common problem. I was throwing DX Archangel and DX Leopard flat (no hyzer). My thoughts were that I was -for whatever reason- releasing too late, or possibly throwing harder. If I'm throwing harder, would throwing with a small hyzer help?

 

[UFO]

I am pretty much in the same boat and on a steep learning curve. Trying to acquire multiple discs in the same mold for practice - and in my mind I want to quantify or measure progress more accurately by doing so. I want to use the archangel for this but it doesnt come in good plastic so they will be breaking in and changing a bit but probably not enough to worry about. My dx leopard and star leopard are two different animals all together...maybe just a bunch of dx archangels is the cheap way to have 5 or so of the same disc. X out archangels are 5 bucks at gottagothrow btw.

 

[Porsche320]

For that exact reason, I was contemplating going to Roadrunner over Archangel. Then again, getting 3 X-outs for the price of a single champion is appealing; also, discs just for throwing practice should take negligible wear, so DX isn't such a liability. Another issue with X-outs is limited selection of disc weight, which I am just starting to think about.

Any input on this (and my drive problem above) from more experienced guys?
Thanks again, the direction is incredibly encouraging.

 

[JR]

Thwere was one very overstable run of DX Archangels at least. The understable ones are ones, i've never thrown, but from hearsay they aren't hard to overpower to turn as is the case for DX Leo. Especially beat ones of both. Yes hyzer flips to flat. If you make it to do so.

 

[UFO]

Backed down from Valks to Archangels and loving it. Just practiced with two archangels bkhand and two wraiths forehand and kept putting all 4 in a 20ish ft circle around 275' out, maybe 75 percent effort. Fun practice.

 

[Porsche320]

It worked out that I had a bit of time this morning, so I went out to my favorite soccer field to throw for around 25 minutes.
At 80% power, everything flew like it has been, but when I increased to 90% everything flew more understable. I think I'm finally starting to see differences in disc wear. The distance discs I've been using for a while, DX Eagle and DX archangel both turned over way too much thrown flat at 90%, and my lightly-worn DX Leo flew slightly understable, and near-new Champ Leo and new DX dragon flew pretty flat.
I started throwing hyzer on the understable stuff, with mixed results. With a slight hyzer, I got good flight, but I had trouble getting the angle right.
As a whole, average distance is going up, but I still can't break 300'
Would it make more sense to learn to throw these discs (which will evolve with wear), or get new versions of the DX stuff I have, and/or use only champ in the woods to stabilize the wear?
I feel like I answered a few questions this morning, but created a whole new set of questions.

 

[JR]

For monetary reasons and traveling to courses with rocks it is good to slow down the wear cycle by having a champion plastic version of the main discs. Except Rocs and other discs, that fly differently in champ and cost more than their worth.

 

[JHern]

...the difficult part that most people fail to do is opening the wrist completely at the end to release the disc and fling it out of the hand after the wrist extension takes place...

I think I fall into this category. I can throw 375' with no run up, but getting up to the 450' category has thus far escaped me...but I know I can get there, and I will eventually. Adding a run-up doesn't always help. When I watch video of myself, I can see that I'm missing something at the end of the throw, my arm doesn't feel the urge so much to follow through the hit. When I try to force my arm to follow through, it just feels forced, not like it is powering through the hit and out with violence. Put another way: I'm great at pausing the shoulder turn when they are neutral, which allows me to "half hit" it, but still terrible when it comes to cranking up the angular momentum again at the hit. I should probably just shut up, go back to the garage, and do right pec drills, until I get it.

...the wrist can only open with a rapid re-direction of the forearm. which most people fail to do...

By rapid re-direction, do you mean as part of the elbow chop, rotating the forearm from closed to open? Or do you mean a sudden sideways motion of the forearm just at the hit?

 

[scoopa]

Or maybe belly button drills.... No seriously.

The wrist cocks going into the "pocket", or the angle made by your bent elbow. As the elbow chops the disc goes from moving forward to sideways slinging it out. Yada yada you know all this.

The lower and later the pull the quicker the action becomes. The forward to sideways action.

I cannot get into the pocket at all with the disc positioned higher than my belly. If it is literally at my right pec I miss it. I think it has to do with the lengths of the different segments of the arm. My forearms are long.

So try pulling lower and see what your results are in the field. Hopefully more D with less effort!!!

 

[JR]

...the difficult part that most people fail to do is opening the wrist completely at the end to release the disc and fling it out of the hand after the wrist extension takes place...

I think I fall into this category. I can throw 375' with no run up, but getting up to the 450' category has thus far escaped me...but I know I can get there, and I will eventually. Adding a run-up doesn't always help. When I watch video of myself, I can see that I'm missing something at the end of the throw, my arm doesn't feel the urge so much to follow through the hit. When I try to force my arm to follow through, it just feels forced, not like it is powering through the hit and out with violence. Put another way: I'm great at pausing the shoulder turn when they are neutral, which allows me to "half hit" it, but still terrible when it comes to cranking up the angular momentum again at the hit. I should probably just shut up, go back to the garage, and do right pec drills, until I get it.

...the wrist can only open with a rapid re-direction of the forearm. which most people fail to do...

By rapid re-direction, do you mean as part of the elbow chop, rotating the forearm from closed to open? Or do you mean a sudden sideways motion of the forearm just at the hit?

Or both maybe? Thinking of powering the arm to go far in the follow through (watch Markus Källström, Simon Lizotte for example) changes my distribution of powering even though i think my timing is mostly the same. I just get more power in the sideways motion of the entire arm from the shoulder socket. The addition of D is small for me but it is always there. I also can't swing the arm right fast before i'm well warmed up. My shoulder blade collides with back muscles and loosening the muscles helps in taking away resistance. Don't know how the big boys do it.

 

[JHern]

I think powering through the follow-through (my pause is actually a stop, instead of a pause) is the last thing for me to learn in terms of generating big snap. I sometimes have the privilege of playing with big snap players, and I see what they do, I can see the wrist wagging and plyometrically bending, etc., and I also know intellectually what is supposed to happen. It's just a matter of getting my body to do it. I know what to do to get there, just have to get off my arse and do it.

 

[JR]

There is also the matter of the speed of the nervous system and the ratio of the fastest twitch cells to the rest of the muscle cells in the arm and top power level. It doesn't hurt to increase speed and power in the muscle opposite the bicep by training it. But to really get the wrist to bend and the tendons to stretch turning faster after the pause will create even more acceleration. Now if you could fight against the wrist bending back, but not lock it to unbending and then do the steely stop, you'd be doing things better. I don't know about healthy people, because i haven't been healthy in all of my DG career, but i think there is a minimum amount of power you need to have in the wrist going in both directions. Resisting the bend and having the brakes. Powerball and dumbell training with possibly cable work as well. It is dangerous to do those and you must do those exercises right from the get go and start with few reps and light weights like a couple of pounds. The thing is that if you don't take it easy early on you'll get inflammations or worse. So i'd get training tips from professionals. I'm stuck with a bum arm for life from tendon damage. It can ruin a DG career too get bad tendon damage. It's safer for DG career to break bones than tendons.