Trying to get my backhand form to 400ft and beyond

[Hampejo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlyD1ynQrh4#t=3m26s

Done this drill recently?

 

[bryantlikes]

Do you have any other drills to learn to fall into the throw?

One of the drills that helped me figure this out was the crush the can drill and swivel stairs.

Try crushing the can but put your rear foot up higher on a cinder block or something, that was what really made the drill click more for me.

SW shows this at this point in the drill video:
https://youtu.be/BuvujcEMLxs?t=195

 

[Brychanus]

Agree w/ Bryant and Hampejo above.

Also wanted to add that learning to do the Door Frame Drill at maximum "bow load" and then dropping off from there was also a big help for me. I still return to it if I notice stuff starting to cramp in and especially as I'm still trying to clean up my transition off the rear side.

 

[Dundee]

What am I supposed to be feeling in Swivel Stairs? I just feel like I'm walking down stairs sideways and haven't been able to notice anything to implement in the disc golf throw. Herhyzer drill feels easy to do, but hard to put into the throw. Something about my stride being stopped by the wall makes it hard for me to realize what I'm supposed to do in my throw once I'm striding towards the target.

The door frame drill does click though. In the throw, should I feel a lot of weight on my rear foot as I'm reaching back. Also, am I supposed to be consciously thinking about keeping my shoulder back as my lower half comes forward? I have not been thinking about my shoulder like that. One of the posts I read mentioned feeling like their waist was getting pulled by a rope towards the target while the rest of their body lags behind. That really made sense to me. However, I cannot find a way to feel the power make it to my front leg. Feels like I have a lot of tension in my rear foot and shoulder as a reach back, but going forward makes it feel like I'm losing all the power I had.

https://youtu.be/Z0DbULHOvLA

 

[sidewinder22]

I think your hinge is instead in your ankle like Aimee shows below. You extend/rise up during the throw instead of staying down and rotating thru/clearing the front knee/hip. Your front heel spins back away from target instead of pivoting on the heel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um5cS9u_Y0w&t=4m32s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuvujcEMLxs#t=1m25s

 

[Dundee]

I think your hinge is instead in your ankle like Aimee shows below. You extend/rise up during the throw instead of staying down and rotating thru/clearing the front knee/hip. Your front heel spins back away from target instead of pivoting on the heel.

I really can't feel a hinge anywhere, but I see what you mean. I will video myself doing her drill because I don't think I'm doing it right.

https://youtu.be/1xnRIB13ITo

Here I am doing crush the can from an elevated surface. First one is what happens 99% of the time I do this drill. Then eventually the can gets so deformed that I'm able to "crush" it like in the second try. What am I doing wrong in this? Last year when I tried this, I think I was over thinking it so I simplified it to just attempting to crush the can without falling over the top. I wonder if my problem is that my mind instinctively does not want me to "fall" out of self-preservation or something. I don't know, but I do know that it frustrates the hell out of me that I cannot do this drill.

 

[bryantlikes]

Here I am doing crush the can from an elevated surface. First one is what happens 99% of the time I do this drill. Then eventually the can gets so deformed that I'm able to "crush" it like in the second try. What am I doing wrong in this? Last year when I tried this, I think I was over thinking it so I simplified it to just attempting to crush the can without falling over the top. I wonder if my problem is that my mind instinctively does not want me to "fall" out of self-preservation or something. I don't know, but I do know that it frustrates the hell out of me that I cannot do this drill.

I think you need to find a better elevated surface, that doesn't look like it gives you a lot of stability. Here are a few things from SW22 from when I tried to do this.

1. Starting stance probably too wide. Try 6-12" narrower.

2. "Backswing"(don't swing - leave your arm/s alone, relaxed, dingle). Just stand upright on rear leg, rear hip stacked over foot, could stand there all day on one leg. Maybe this should be called "backshift" instead of backswing.

3. Crush the Can with frontside in dynamic stack/alignment to front leg. Your front knee is landing behind your hip instead of hip braced behind knee. You can see your whole frontside collapses all the way to your head into your shoulder.

Note how my rear foot/shin rolled laterally targetward while the rear hip sits back deeper and rear knee bent more over rear toes. Note how you end up too far over, likely due to starting stance too wide and not really shifting/standing up on rear hip.

Not sure it is an exact match but I think some of those apply. Looks to me like you have too much lateral movement forward instead of vertical. Also can be helpful to watch/rewatch the weight shift video.

 

[Brychanus]

I really can't feel a hinge anywhere, but I see what you mean. I will video myself doing her drill because I don't think I'm doing it right.

https://youtu.be/1xnRIB13ITo

Here I am doing crush the can from an elevated surface. First one is what happens 99% of the time I do this drill. Then eventually the can gets so deformed that I'm able to "crush" it like in the second try. What am I doing wrong in this? Last year when I tried this, I think I was over thinking it so I simplified it to just attempting to crush the can without falling over the top. I wonder if my problem is that my mind instinctively does not want me to "fall" out of self-preservation or something. I don't know, but I do know that it frustrates the hell out of me that I cannot do this drill.

There's the crush, but there's also the "posting up" and "hinge" part SW is talking about.

In your first crush there it looks like you are already extended too much at the knee. This is preventing you from leveraging the ground when you land, and why your hinge ends up in the wrong place when you swing.

Compare what Aimee is doing to a hockey slapshot or GG. Do the drill like Aimee, drop the club or stick, then do it one-handed with a disc. You may need to drop starting with just a touch of natural knee bend like standing relaxed. Or try exaggerating the initial bend just a bit, then as soon as you land leverage with your whole leg off the ground to swing. Basically that plant leg hangs relaxed until your toes hit the ground, then the leg starts resisting the ground, which opens or posts up on the front hip into the hinge. One leg is fine.

What am I supposed to be feeling in Swivel Stairs?

Better to post it. My posture was initially all ****ed up even when doing that drill. It didn't get better til SW noticed a couple fundamental issues doing that drill.

 

[Dundee]

I didn't realize that my knee wasn't supposed to be extended when my heel was coming down. I thought that was the primary way to bring my heel down. Are both knees suppose to be bent in this drill?

https://youtu.be/0IuYT4HMBi0

I crushed a few more cans today. At the start of the drill, I am supposed to be shifting my weight to my back leg, correct? Is it supposed to stay bent at this time? Then I try to shift towards the target while leading with my butt. While shifting towards the target, is my front knee meant to be bent? When does my front knee need to straighten out? Does it ever straighten out?

I will find a better elevated surface. Not warm enough yet for there to be any pool noodles to cut in half, and I couldn't find anything lying around that I felt comfortable putting my weight on. I don't think it's affecting my ability to do the drill, as it doesn't really feel unstable.

 

[Brychanus]

Was talking about the plant knee when you transition to crush. But I'd advise you to hold that thought and pause the can crushing for now. I went back and read the past couple pages of posts in your form thread. Let's zoom out for a minute.

I'm concerned in general that you're getting tangled up in micromanaging the crush the can and other mechanics. In the end, your legs should be functioning very much like walking:

SW's "hinging" in the right spot there because he's just plain walking with heavy strides into the backswing and plant.

Take it from a fellow headcase/form addict - you can get yourself mentally tangled up to your peril. There is a difference between learning and knowing the mechanical details and getting your body to do them more naturally. Ideally we can enjoy both, but getting anxious about it all doesn't help.

I think you should do and post the Aimee drill (and possibly also Swivel Stairs) now. It might feel fresh to do a "macro" movement like those and learn from critiques, and your body might surprise you when you give it a completely different task to do.

 

[sidewinder22]

1. Shift back and stand up on rear leg going into backswing.

2. Your front tippy toes need remain on the ground. You lift your toes way off the ground bending your front knee, instead of it hanging extended/gravity pulling it taut.

3. Now if you let gravity do the work the front leg will hang extended and drop into the heel, you shouldn't have to extend your knee/accelerating foot faster than body/gravity.

 

[Dundee]

1. Shift back and stand up on rear leg going into backswing.

2. Your front tippy toes need remain on the ground. You lift your toes way off the ground bending your front knee, instead of it hanging extended/gravity pulling it taut.

3. Now if you let gravity do the work the front leg will hang extended and drop into the heel, you shouldn't have to extend your knee/accelerating foot faster than body/gravity.

1. By stand up, does that mean extend the rear knee when going into the backswing?

2. Are you smashing the can straight down? Or does it get crushed at an angle? Because I don't think I can crush the can straight down while keeping my toes on the ground just from the fact that my heel won't get high enough.

So I'm confused. I thought Brychanus was saying to have the knee bent. But it should be hanging extended? I'm misunderstanding something.

3. I have definitely been putting energy into this. I didn't realize it was just gravity doing everything.

I sometimes feel extremely oblivious to these drills. Like I can't tell what my body is doing, what your body is doing in the videos, and it feels so unnatural for me to be doing this motion.

 

[Dundee]

Was talking about the plant knee when you transition to crush. But I'd advise you to hold that thought and pause the can crushing for now. I went back and read the past couple pages of posts in your form thread. Let's zoom out for a minute.

I'm concerned in general that you're getting tangled up in micromanaging the crush the can and other mechanics. In the end, your legs should be functioning very much like walking:

SW's "hinging" in the right spot there because he's just plain walking with heavy strides into the backswing and plant.

Take it from a fellow headcase/form addict - you can get yourself mentally tangled up to your peril. There is a difference between learning and knowing the mechanical details and getting your body to do them more naturally. Ideally we can enjoy both, but getting anxious about it all doesn't help.

I think you should do and post the Aimee drill (and possibly also Swivel Stairs) now. It might feel fresh to do a "macro" movement like those and learn from critiques, and your body might surprise you when you give it a completely different task to do.

You are correct. I'm very much lost in all these mechanics. The entire ground forces, falling into the throw, crushing the can, and weight transfer just confuse me. I feel like I watch a million videos all the time, most of them over and over and over and over, just constantly trying to figure this out. Then I think I figure something out, but I actually never do. Unbelievably frustrating. Sometimes it sucks the fun out of the game because who wants to go play when your form is janky and you have no idea what direction or how far the disc will go.

Syncing up the walking with the swing during the Elephant walk throws me off. I can revisit doing that drill again. And Swivel Stairs but I have to find some stairs I can film myself on first.

Here I am doing the Aimee drill with a stick and with a disc. I feel this in my knee, which seems like a very bad thing to try if I was putting any effort into it. Not sure how to fix this.

https://youtu.be/6w4byCBLhto

 

[sidewinder22]

1. By stand up, does that mean extend the rear knee when going into the backswing?

2. Are you smashing the can straight down? Or does it get crushed at an angle? Because I don't think I can crush the can straight down while keeping my toes on the ground just from the fact that my heel won't get high enough.

So I'm confused. I thought Brychanus was saying to have the knee bent. But it should be hanging extended? I'm misunderstanding something.

3. I have definitely been putting energy into this. I didn't realize it was just gravity doing everything.

I sometimes feel extremely oblivious to these drills. Like I can't tell what my body is doing, what your body is doing in the videos, and it feels so unnatural for me to be doing this motion.

1. yes.

2. slight diagonal. Crush a shorter can or crushed can or cigarette pack or bug, or just imagine it. How would you land or plant if you were hanging from the roof or you wanted to reverse direction suddenly like a running back? Just slightly flexed/bent, but relaxed until you hit the ground, right? You definitely wouldn't want to hyperextend the knee.

3. yes gravity and posture resisting collapse.

4. Rotate into thigh with knee slightly bent, foot rolls over: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuvujcEMLxs#t=1m25s

 

[Brychanus]

You are correct. I'm very much lost in all these mechanics. The entire ground forces, falling into the throw, crushing the can, and weight transfer just confuse me. I feel like I watch a million videos all the time, most of them over and over and over and over, just constantly trying to figure this out. Then I think I figure something out, but I actually never do. Unbelievably frustrating. Sometimes it sucks the fun out of the game because who wants to go play when your form is janky and you have no idea what direction or how far the disc will go.

Syncing up the walking with the swing during the Elephant walk throws me off. I can revisit doing that drill again. And Swivel Stairs but I have to find some stairs I can film myself on first.

Here I am doing the Aimee drill with a stick and with a disc. I feel this in my knee, which seems like a very bad thing to try if I was putting any effort into it. Not sure how to fix this.

https://youtu.be/6w4byCBLhto

Thanks for posting the drill!

I think this is all consistent with what SW is saying, including the leg action in the crush and the bad hinge. Like seemingly everything else, I went through this too.

Compared to Aimee, you are doing the classic "torquing" through the hips. I'm exaggerating it here. This is unfortunately a common problem and - I can personally assure you - very bad for the knee. Your hinge has developed to protect you from blowing out the knee because you aren't dropping on top of it properly in the plant.

You are in what I like to call "Flatville." Notice how Aimee's overall posture has much more curvature to the move (dashed line at the top of her vs. you).

1. Her legs are "posting up" into the hips, clearing the rear hip up as she swings back, and clearing the front hip up as she swings forward. Your legs are just twisting or rotating your hips and upper body around each way.

2. Your shoulders can't swing on the plane she has as a result. The S-curve in your spine (last panel of you vs. her to the right) just makes all of that harder.

So:
-I think you need a posture intervention, and to put your body in positions where your legs can make your hips move better. Look at Aimee all the way to the right. If you aren't in that posture, you will create less space to swing, and all kinds of problems as a result. I didn't make durable progress on that until SW helped me retool the Ride the Bull move. One of the most important things he told me to do was to "hug a trashcan." I'm serious, do it. Find a cylindrical one if you can. Hug it, and settle comfortably into a posture like Aimee's. That's much closer to the way you need to posture yourself and swing for DG.

-Relax, it'll be ok. Fixing posture is hard but makes everything else easier. It can take days or weeks to fix posture even when you know what the goal is. Be patient.

-Legs, dropping, crushing, and knees: My issue was related to injury/compensation, and I had to do a lot of tricks just to get the "drop/plant/resist/post up" action at all. My knee or hip would just collapse trying to protect the knee, which ironically made everything worse. So I did the Aimee drill with a little bit of a stride like a hockey slapshot. Actually swinging through a puck or ball can help - then drop the stick and throw. I also HOPPED off my plant foot, then landed and focused on resisting HARD against the ground to lead the swing. That was the first time I threw a Comet 300' on one leg.


-Maybe we should also look at Ride the Bull since that kinda ties all this together. You have something that looks similar to what I was doing before, which is kinda rotating around the spine vertically, rather than swinging back and forth like Aimee is over her feet.

 

[Dundee]

Thanks for posting the drill!

I think this is all consistent with what SW is saying, including the leg action in the crush and the bad hinge. Like seemingly everything else, I went through this too.

Compared to Aimee, you are doing the classic "torquing" through the hips. I'm exaggerating it here. This is unfortunately a common problem and - I can personally assure you - very bad for the knee. Your hinge has developed to protect you from blowing out the knee because you aren't dropping on top of it properly in the plant.

You are in what I like to call "Flatville." Notice how Aimee's overall posture has much more curvature to the move (dashed line at the top of her vs. you).

1. Her legs are "posting up" into the hips, clearing the rear hip up as she swings back, and clearing the front hip up as she swings forward. Your legs are just twisting or rotating your hips and upper body around each way.

2. Your shoulders can't swing on the plane she has as a result. The S-curve in your spine (last panel of you vs. her to the right) just makes all of that harder.

So:
-I think you need a posture intervention, and to put your body in positions where your legs can make your hips move better. Look at Aimee all the way to the right. If you aren't in that posture, you will create less space to swing, and all kinds of problems as a result. I didn't make durable progress on that until SW helped me retool the Ride the Bull move. One of the most important things he told me to do was to "hug a trashcan." I'm serious, do it. Find a cylindrical one if you can. Hug it, and settle comfortably into a posture like Aimee's. That's much closer to the way you need to posture yourself and swing for DG.

-Relax, it'll be ok. Fixing posture is hard but makes everything else easier. It can take days or weeks to fix posture even when you know what the goal is. Be patient.

-Legs, dropping, crushing, and knees: My issue was related to injury/compensation, and I had to do a lot of tricks just to get the "drop/plant/resist/post up" action at all. My knee or hip would just collapse trying to protect the knee, which ironically made everything worse. So I did the Aimee drill with a little bit of a stride like a hockey slapshot. Actually swinging through a puck or ball can help - then drop the stick and throw. I also HOPPED off my plant foot, then landed and focused on resisting HARD against the ground to lead the swing. That was the first time I threw a Comet 300' on one leg.


-Maybe we should also look at Ride the Bull since that kinda ties all this together. You have something that looks similar to what I was doing before, which is kinda rotating around the spine vertically, rather than swinging back and forth like Aimee is over her feet.

So there is a lot here for me to digest and think about. I tried just generally moving around in what feels like an athletic stance to me. I'm not even sure it's an athletic stance tbh at this point. For the life of me, I cannot get my lower back to look like Aimee's. My back naturally wants to have interior (not sure if that's the right descriptor) curvature. I feel like I'm trying to get my back to look like her's, but it's definitely not getting any better. My back never feels sore when I throw, but this left me sore. Is my back looking like this a symptom of something else I'm doing wrong or the problem that everything else stems from?

https://youtu.be/gbCEJPdpz2c

I really didn't get too much into your "Legs, dropping, crushing, and knees" advice just because posture seems to come first before those things. Also when doing the Aimee drill, I physically cannot make the stick going any further than what I'm doing in the video. That can't be a good sign. I think I need help figuring out how to change my posture.

 

[Dundee]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br9Ss-VEtso

I found this video from Aimee. Does this translate over to disc golf?

 

[sidewinder22]

Your stance is too wide like 6-12". You get stuck between your feet and never really shift your balance to either foot.

 

[Dundee]

Continuing to work on this. Definitely feels very different from anything I've been doing in the past. Shortened my stance as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSD-MSViA8s

You can tell that I don't have very good balance doing this. Swaying all over the place and having trouble staying down. I guess I just feel weak doing this motion compared to what I was doing before. It also looks like I have gone in the opposite direction from not getting onto my front leg to now pushing too far towards the target (at least I think based on the attached image).

I feel the weight on the outside of my lead foot when I shift. Is that supposed to be happening? I picked up a disc and tried doing a swing motion like with the broom stick and it felt very, very strange. Half the time my mind just reverted back to what I was doing before.

 

[sidewinder22]

Note how both your heels remain low so you are essentially stuck on both feet, instead of fully shifting from one foot balance to the other foot balance with one heel up/foot released from ground and can swivel the leg freely.