I've swung a hammer a few times, and even without it I can still feel the weight of my lower arm. I somewhat comprehend the timing, I'm just having trouble translating it to an actual disc golf throw. I don't know if other people run into this, but I always hit a plateau distance in my form no matter how I change things up. Cannot figure out how to break it down and access more.
I'm sympathetic to your plight. Adding my 2 cents or less on making changes and pursuing "The Good Swing." The closed shoulder is just part of a much bigger picture, and hammers aren't about hammers. This is not just for you, Sard0nyx, but also for any lurkers. It's possible to get better with some of these things in mind.
Training a high-level skill is hard work, and everyone's different
-IMO developing disc golf form is just like mastering any other high-level motor skill, but with some unique challenges. You need to expect
many hours of ups and downs no matter how you do it. This includes with learning aids like hammers.
-Recently, making my body
throw fairly heavy things outside is having a big, fast impact on my DG swing relative to most of what I've done before. I need to commit time to learning and doing these things, and usually with a lot of help. Sometimes I wonder: if I had started with medicine balls and hammers, would I have advanced faster? Maybe. Or maybe I wouldn't have had a good base of movements to work from. YMMV. Only one way to find out!
-After yet another plateau, I finally decided to completely re-arrange my limited physical fitness time entirely around DG - not just throwing, but retraining my body from being a slow weightlifter into being a slinger. My old habits were still getting in the way. Your body needs to be ready to be loose, flexible, well-postured, and smooth when you put a disc in your hands. Different people achieve this in different ways.
On hammers
-People can learn to throw discs without throwing hammers of course. Things like hammer drills aren't really about hammers
per se - they're just aids to get your body moving more powerfully. The better your body moves around the hammer, the better you swing and throw it, and the better you swing and throw it, the better your body can learn to move to sling it better. This can take a while. And it's never just about the hammers.
-Like SW noted, breaking the "frisbee" habit and training leverage is one major aspect of throwing hammers. Another (for me) is about retraining how your body moves its own mass around to swing objects powerfully. Without any baseball or tennis or golf etc. background I had very little muscle memory to build on.
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Take a risk & take the plunge. Sometimes you need little changes, and sometimes you need
big ones. A year and a half ago I never thought my morning workout plan would involve hauling a sledgehammer to the local YMCA field at 7am to throw it like a somewhat insane person. I've only done it once, and I need to tell you that I can't ****ing wait for tomorrow. SW just advised me to literally go throw my sledgehammer like a one-armed Olympic hammer. Why? It's not just about the hammer. It's about getting me to freewheel against the long-levered weight and gravity and keep improving how I sling effortlessly with my whole body in that sweet, sweet tilted axis. My posture and motion is kind of stuck in a few ways, and maybe this will help.
Find your approach to the long game:
I don't know what my max distance is. I'm not 20 anymore and I've gotten hurt enough that I just want to learn to move better to throw farther. With this mindset, my peak consistent effortless distance continues to go up over time - I have learned that it's ok when it dips for a while and then it comes back better than before. I'm also more accurate at longer distance each time.
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Feedback, feedback, feedback. Your own study of pro form, video analysis, a coach's eye, etc. all matter. I simply do not trust my own eye or knowledge base well enough to be confident about what my own body needs next, and I'm glad I got over my jitters of starting a now very long public form critique thread. I am riding SW and others' coattails as long as they'll drag me along (again, I cannot convey enough gratitude). Sometimes it's embarrassing. It's worth it.
-I think SW massed a lot of progress in a relatively short period of time with a lot of dedication. I think his background in swimming and baseball gave him some relevant motor memory to build on, which is important. It still took him a lot of hard work. Build on the relevant advantages that
you have and
discard the rest as soon as possible. It's the underlined part that many of us get stuck on. Usually it's better not to fight habits - it just takes the patience to learn to do something else entirely.
