Acceleration: Late or Smooth?

[jenb]

When people say "late acceleration," it conjures images of moving slowly up to the the hit and then jerking it really hard at the last second.

Some older pros have been promoting smoothness over anything.

So what should it be? A constant rate of acceleration that avoids an early peak, or an acceleration that occurs at more of an exponential rate at the last instant?

 

[BrotherDave]

Both. It should be a beautiful explosion of fury, like a car crash set to Beethoven.

 

[notapro]

Jerk!!!!

 

[Tee1]

I've been doing a lot of field work lately and focusing on late acceleration.From what I've read you want to stay nice and smooth and wait until the disc is passing across your chest and then pull as hard as possible and really clamp down on the disc.Its given me a good boost in distance and spin.

 

[JTacoma03]

an acceleration that occurs at more of an exponential rate at the last instant?

This phrase implies both smooth and "late" - i.e. the "hit", so like BroD said: Both.

 

[dheathx]

The overall motion is smooth, but the acceleration doesn't start until the disc is at the right pectoral muscle. Don't "jerk" the disc late, instead use your legs, core and a little arm to explode the disc toward the Target.

 

[sidewinder22]

You need to be smooth to accelerate late.

 

[jenb]

Jerk!!!!

Exactly.

Recalling that a constant rate of acceleration doubles the disc velocity each regular time interval, I don't see how an exponential rate of acceleration can be viewed as "smooth." It's a jerk.

 

[scoopa]

If you're herky-jerky the kinetic chain can't do its thing.

 

[notapro]

Maybe that's the type of hit people are getting:

no hit - no acceleration/constant velocity
half hit - no jerk/constant acceleration
Full hit - jerk

.......

nah.......

 

[kamiskillet]

Imagine you are a samurai. Now imagine you're going to cut a white mans head off. You must acceleration as fast and as hard as you can after your hand reaches your left peck, otherwise you'll ever cut through their spinal column. If you jerk too hard, you may be a bit off but you're still cutting an extremity off.

 

[ReinZ_96]

Both. It should be a beautiful explosion of fury, like a car crash set to Beethoven.

agreed :thmbup:

 

[sidewinder22]

Without smoothness/looseness/fluidity...there is no cracking the whip, and equally there is no cracking the whip without the steely stop of the wrist. Most players jerk way early, but you have to smoothly sequence your levers before you really jerk effectively. It's often easiest to learn passive release of the levers in sequence. For active acceleration you have to feel the weight of the disc tugging your wrist back. If you resist and build tension on that tugging you load the hand/wrist muscles and tendons for a bounce or jerk acceleration and steely stop the wrist for palm ejection and max force exerted onto the disc.

This draws up some good physics comparisons:
http://www.understandingthegolfswing.com/understandinggolfswing.htm

This thread also kind of goes over this:
http://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44085

 

[NicedGuy]

Late and smooth, its all about timing.

 

[BADman]

Imagine you are a samurai. Now imagine you're going to cut a white mans head off. You must acceleration as fast and as hard as you can after your hand reaches your left peck, otherwise you'll ever cut through their spinal column. If you jerk too hard, you may be a bit off but you're still cutting an extremity off.

i'll be quoting you to my buddy tomorrow when i take him out for his first time.

 

[discdoh]

I am not necessarily the expert to ask, but I am a 145 lb 6 ft guy that can throw 400+. Keeping the idea of "smooth" in your head is very important. You still need to throw extremely hard, but you must remain loose. Without the loose part, everything else goes to the crapper...your run up becomes sketchy, your grip gets too aggresive, your timing is all off, and the disctance will suffer. Ask any top pro, and they wil say their best drives have felt like butter...hardly any effort at all. As with anything, and more practice, the timing will develop itself as long as you don't force it.

 

[garublador]

When people say "late acceleration," it conjures images of moving slowly up to the the hit and then jerking it really hard at the last second.

Some older pros have been promoting smoothness over anything.

So what should it be? A constant rate of acceleration that avoids an early peak, or an acceleration that occurs at more of an exponential rate at the last instant?

IMO "late acceleration" is really all that's necessary to learn how to actually "hit it." It's harder to learn if you aren't throwing smoothly, but once you do know how to hit it, the more acceleration the better. I also think that pounding the hammer is a much easier way to go about it than worrying about stuff like this. You have to accelerate correctly to get the hammer to pound.

 

[dodgeball]

IMO there's too much emphasis on late acceleration. Granted, it is a vital part of a good throw, but it's only one part of the throw, namely the last part. Just concentrating on late acceleration really doesn't take into account the importance of things like good footwork, proper rotation going back, hip turn and getting a good plant going into the latter part of the throw. I really like how some have talked about having a good kinetic linkage (sidewinder and others) and the proper sequence in the throw to achieve maximum torque and acceleration. For me, having a good 'setup' to the late acceleration is critical.

 

[jtbingster]

IMO there's too much emphasis on late acceleration. Granted, it is a vital part of a good throw, but it's only one part of the throw, namely the last part. Just concentrating on late acceleration really doesn't take into account the importance of things like good footwork, proper rotation going back, hip turn and getting a good plant going into the latter part of the throw. I really like how some have talked about having a good kinetic linkage (sidewinder and others) and the proper sequence in the throw to achieve maximum torque and acceleration. For me, having a good 'setup' to the late acceleration is critical.

All this is true, but I'd say that there is just too little emphasis on the 'setup', rather than too much emphasis on late acceleration. All the parts of the throw are vitally important, acceleration included.

 

[garublador]

IMO there's too much emphasis on late acceleration. Granted, it is a vital part of a good throw, but it's only one part of the throw, namely the last part. Just concentrating on late acceleration really doesn't take into account the importance of things like good footwork, proper rotation going back, hip turn and getting a good plant going into the latter part of the throw. I really like how some have talked about having a good kinetic linkage (sidewinder and others) and the proper sequence in the throw to achieve maximum torque and acceleration. For me, having a good 'setup' to the late acceleration is critical.

The problem is that until you get the very last part of the throw correct, you won't know how to do any of the rest of that stuff correctly. Done incorrectly you can actually make it impossible to do the end of the throw right.

You can do the late acceleration without any of that stuff. However, even if you do all of that other stuff, not doing the late acceleration will limit how far you can throw by a lot. The late acceleration is emphasized becasue it is the most important part of the throw.