Straight or Stiff Arm Technique

[Brychanus]

Timothy, thanks for drawing this out, I really appreciate discussions like this.

I said there were two things I noticed - straight arm and upright/vertical swing axis.

Can you help me see the vertical part you're looking at? Not a criticism, just want to clarify because at this point I only see players move down the tee and swinging in the tilted axis.

You can't see inside my head but basically I see this when people move, but in true 4D (rather than a flattened video like these):

To take a 2D slice of what I "see" in 4D (with camera parallax, yada yada), Kristin is another case of preserved posture that adjusts overall to the task. I learned a couple bits here. Interestingly, her shot from hole 12 on the right is one of her more "flat" shots from the entire tournament. In real time, I expected her plane of play to be more shallow, but it's still ~12 degrees hyzer. You can see her spine is still ~8 degrees relative to the ground. Importantly, her femur-to-spine angulation is almost identical, but her whole axis is shifted to account for the more shallow release angle. She still uses a hyzer gravity advantage to power what are among her flattest swings.

Part of why that happens involves that little bit of supination entering the release, which segways into the next part you mentioned:

A straight arm affects how long you can hold your hand on the outside of the disc.

If your arm is at 90, your hand is outside only at full reachback. If at 135, never (unless you're flexible enough to reach back past square, or you do some shoulder rotation manipulation).

This was interesting to think about! I want to make sure I'm parsing it using an image. I guess part of this is what you mean by "outside" so I went with this to help the chat. The added blue lines are the foot angles and a guess about where the pelvis is. The red lines in B and C are representing changes in the arm and shoulders in your scenarios. Specifically:

(A) Could be your "If your arm is at 90, your hand is outside only at full reachback."
(B) Could be your "If at 135, never".
(C) Could be one version of your "unless you're flexible enough to reach back past square, or you do some shoulder rotation manipulation"

Are A-C what you mean, or something else?

That implies that rotation 1 is continuous from start of forward swing for straight arm, but is delayed until power pocket for bent arm. I don't know the right terms so I'm calling rotation 1 disc motion while fully in the grip, and rotation 2 the disc motion as it comes out of the hand finger by finger.

It might be that straight arm throwers have to do more external rotation and supination later in the swing to get the disc on plane.

Most of the discussion here is on macro body mechanics, and that's still all I work on as a beginner, but I'm curious about the arm hand stuff too.

Definitely want to continue this chat, just want to check my work above.

 

[timothy42b]

I'm explaining poorly. Partly that's because I'm trying to put a 3D mental picture into words, instead of standing in front of you and holding out my arm, and partly because I haven't thought it through myself. And I'm mixing up several ideas.

I see that while Kristin is shallower than some she still has a good bit of lean. Lindsey from JustDisc is really pretty upright. I just watched it again to be sure. I think that means she can't get as much leg power into the swing but it lets her release clean and on plane.

So that was my posture point.

Then I thought about the straight arm. I threw that way for at least a year when I had right shoulder impingement and had to use my left hand. I just treated my left arm like a golf shaft. (and on about the same plane as a ball golfer might)

But what does a straight arm do to my hand? I've read many times that I should keep my hand on the outside of the disc as long as possible, and I interpret "outside" to mean left of the tee pad. My monitor didn't show your diagrams clearly, sorry. I think you interpreted it the same.

The disc can rotate relative to the ground and it can rotate relative to the hand. It seems to me that if you swing back straight then bend the arm on the forward swing, then the disc might move with very little rotation relative to ground until it gets to the power pocket. But if you keep your arm straight on the forward swing, then rotation relative to the ground must begin immediately and be fairly constant until the release.

But after I said all that, I realized I am making a 2D vs 3D error. The disc and hand need not be on the arm plane.

Suppose I keep the disc horizontal the whole time, but with my arm at a 45 degree angle downwards. Straight or bent, doesn't matter. Then there is clearance that allows the disc to float under my hand, and I can hold it anywhere on the edge. When I look at Mcbeth from behind, it looks like that to me.

I appreciate you being patient with my uneducated musings. I think I'm working on the right things, but I also notice a relative of mine who does none of the mechanics but throws nearly as far as I do. She does something right with the smaller levers that I haven't figured out (and she makes sure I don't get a video.)

 

[Sard0nyx]

I feel like arm angle to shoulder doesn't matter for keeping the hand outside the disc. If you go wider, you can curl your wrist slightly to keep it in more.

 

[txmxer]

This is almost a straight arm throw too. She says she pulls straight through but it doesn't look that way.



She says she gets 300 feet from that, which is not huge, but also not bad from a beginner.

It seems to me that a straight arm might do two things. One is that of course the larger radius the faster the linear speed at a given rotation, if you have sufficient torque to achieve that rotation. (W=T*I and "I" increases with the radius) The other might be timing the throw so the arm comes straight at the hit. Thinking out loud, sorry. And maybe reduce OAT.

that's awesome! Just what I need to do to develop my LHBH throw while I sort out my issues with my right shoulder.

 

[Brychanus]

I'm explaining poorly. Partly that's because I'm trying to put a 3D mental picture into words, instead of standing in front of you and holding out my arm, and partly because I haven't thought it through myself. And I'm mixing up several ideas.

I see that while Kristin is shallower than some she still has a good bit of lean. Lindsey from JustDisc is really pretty upright. I just watched it again to be sure. I think that means she can't get as much leg power into the swing but it lets her release clean and on plane.

So that was my posture point.

Then I thought about the straight arm. I threw that way for at least a year when I had right shoulder impingement and had to use my left hand. I just treated my left arm like a golf shaft. (and on about the same plane as a ball golfer might)

But what does a straight arm do to my hand? I've read many times that I should keep my hand on the outside of the disc as long as possible, and I interpret "outside" to mean left of the tee pad. My monitor didn't show your diagrams clearly, sorry. I think you interpreted it the same.

The disc can rotate relative to the ground and it can rotate relative to the hand. It seems to me that if you swing back straight then bend the arm on the forward swing, then the disc might move with very little rotation relative to ground until it gets to the power pocket. But if you keep your arm straight on the forward swing, then rotation relative to the ground must begin immediately and be fairly constant until the release.

But after I said all that, I realized I am making a 2D vs 3D error. The disc and hand need not be on the arm plane.

Suppose I keep the disc horizontal the whole time, but with my arm at a 45 degree angle downwards. Straight or bent, doesn't matter. Then there is clearance that allows the disc to float under my hand, and I can hold it anywhere on the edge. When I look at Mcbeth from behind, it looks like that to me.

I appreciate you being patient with my uneducated musings. I think I'm working on the right things, but I also notice a relative of mine who does none of the mechanics but throws nearly as far as I do. She does something right with the smaller levers that I haven't figured out (and she makes sure I don't get a video.)

I agree the reality-to-text conversion problem is always an issue!

On Kristin and Lindsey - yes, absolutely Lindsey achieves some accuracy with that technique, and I tried it at one point early on too. It reminds me of the distinction navel made illustrated as such on the left, where Lindsey's form functions close to true vertical relative to the ground for a "flat" swing, but she twists less at the lumber area than the springy diagram mannequin. You can throw that way, just watch out for the lower back and lack of deweighting in the front leg since there's not really much compression and decompression against the ground.

I think Sard0nyx means "outside" the same way I tend to think about it. I'd say that each of my A,B,C, cases above are all leveraged "outside" the disc. Curled, neutral, or even slightly extended in the backswing can work as long as you don't spoil the leverage moving through the swing. I think that's part of your and many players' struggle based on how you're describing it, timothy.

 

[Sard0nyx]

Yeah. I think with the hand, you just want to make sure you're not leaving the cog of the disc behind your hand. Or else you have no room to rotate it at the hit.

 

[txmxer]

It's the torque, not the horsepower.

 

[sandolorian]

Not sure if anyone will see this, but I've read through this whole post and still don't quite understand the difference between a straight arm throw and a bent arm throw? I'm a newbie and having trouble seeing the difference.

 

[Countchunkula]

Not sure if anyone will see this, but I've read through this whole post and still don't quite understand the difference between a straight arm throw and a bent arm throw? I'm a newbie and having trouble seeing the difference.

Most people bend their elbow between the backswing and release, which brings the disc close to their chest. A few, like Brad Schick in the OP and former world champ Dave Feldberg barely bend their elbow at all.

 

[Brychanus]

Not sure if anyone will see this, but I've read through this whole post and still don't quite understand the difference between a straight arm throw and a bent arm throw? I'm a newbie and having trouble seeing the difference.

Also watch Feldberg (bottom right here, Straight-ish) vs. the other 3 pros (bent arm):

 

[sandolorian]

Ahh I see. Thank you for clarifying. I was watching the JustDisc video above and her arm looked bent so I was confused. I just checked the video again and see that she does bend it quite a bit, at least in this throw:



(But I'm still thankful timothy42b posted this video, as I'm going to try to get my wife to copy her. She really struggles with distance even more than I do.)

 

[Brychanus]

Ahh I see. Thank you for clarifying. I was watching the JustDisc video above and her arm looked bent so I was confused. I just checked the video again and see that she does bend it quite a bit, at least in this throw:

View attachment 318322

(But I'm still thankful timothy42b posted this video, as I'm going to try to get my wife to copy her. She really struggles with distance even more than I do.)

It kinda depends on what the goals are, but I think there's something to be learned in the more straight armed/centrifugal throws like Schick or Feldberg, or like Josh at Overthrow explored in this recent video:



They can especially help you learn to let your posture open up and not collapse in on itself so much, which a lot of people struggle with. Also helps you learn what can be driven by momentum rather than muscle.

 

[timothy42b]

Ahh I see. Thank you for clarifying. I was watching the JustDisc video above and her arm looked bent so I was confused. I just checked the video again and see that she does bend it quite a bit, at least in this throw:

View attachment 318322

(But I'm still thankful timothy42b posted this video, as I'm going to try to get my wife to copy her. She really struggles with distance even more than I do.)

Here's another one that at least starts out with straight arm: