Breaking Bad Timing Habit

[Melonhusk]

Alright finally got a couple chances to get out to the field and do some more work, and I think I'm finally starting to figure out how to step towards the target, and not diagonally, as my legs so badly want to do. I'm finding that this combined with keeping my head turned back longer makes everything feel extremely different, sort of like throwing backwards. Feeling very uncoordinated but here's some video.





I was focusing mainly on keeping my head turned back following the disc until I felt my heel plant, and also on getting more of a feeling of "cocking" my hips.

I think the main problem I can self-diagnose right now is that I'm not really planting confidently, so my front knee bends quite a bit before it figures out it's time to brace, and I think sometimes my weight is not off my rear leg by the time my front leg gets weight on it.

I'm also wondering if maybe I'm not really bringing the disc in close enough to my chest? It seems like the disc never really winds up being that close to my body, though every time I tried to correct this my throw went waayyyyy off to the right.

 

[Melonhusk]

So I went out today again for a bit. I tweaked my back yesterday so I wasn't sure how much throwing I'd be able to do but I wanted to feel it out with some super easy throws, maybe take the opportunity to try to relax a bit more and feel out a smoother throw in general. It felt ok so I ramped up the pace a bit, but trying to keep the whole x step and reachback very relaxed, and focus my only real effort into the swing.



I think I might have made some improvements? The whole session I was tending to round a bit, just because I was trying to be so relaxed I had to remind myself to still bring my elbow forward. Distance was a bit less than my typical, but still pretty decent for me considering how easy the best throws felt. Anyway, what do you all think?

 

[sidewinder22]

Yeah that looks a lot better. Looks like you kind of stop turning back early and not completing the backswing. I think in door frame drill you can step your rear foot closer to target a few inches and get turned further back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvGudQYfjD8#t=62s

 

[Melonhusk]

Awesome, yeah it definitely felt easier. The turn back thing I'm not 100% but I think could be a product of my friend filming from a little behind me? It's not really an ideal angle; didn't think I'd be throwing so I didn't bring the tripod. But you may have noticed that and still meant it, and the door frame drill is always worth a revisit anyway. Thanks as always! I'll have to get out and film more once my back is in better shape.

 

[Melonhusk]

Haven't been able to get out and film in a while, but I was able to work on some stuff today. I've been watching a lot of Bradley Walker videos recently, and he made some things click in my mind that I was trying to put into action - one being changing my grip so most of the pressure is between the pointer and thumb (I use a standard power grip), and the other being making sure the "trailing side" was taking a more active role (like Drew in this video):



Anyway, here's some video. This was earlier, and they felt ok, distance was meh but the throws felt smooth and easy.







As the titles indicate I realized halfway through I was hiking my shoulder up, so for the rest of the session after these I tried to focus on using my lats and getting my shoulder more relaxed and low. In feeling this out I had a few that came out with a ton of wobble, enough that they throllered into the headwind. Here's a vid of one, it's certainly not the prettiest throw but I guess I'm wondering what could have caused the OAT?



I had one throw that I think made some progress towards what I was trying to do: the video below. It felt super quick out of my hand, made a different sound traveling through the air and held a line that disc usually doesn't for me.



I'm not sure if I'm feeling any of the right things - hitting (or even half hitting), the hammer throw, all the stuff I read about - but I'd like to get there! The last month or so has felt like just a million ways to plateau at ~400' absolute max golf line; I keep changing stuff and I feel like at least visually my throws are getting more the right "look" to them (finishing upright, not blowing past my plant etc.) but I feel like getting my arm levers working correctly is a big piece I'm not quite there with. Any help/thoughts much appreciated as always!

 

[Melonhusk]

Thanks to all the great help I've gotten in this thread and just through reading elsewhere in this forum I've finally gotten the distance and accuracy I was looking for, throwing straight and topping out at 450. But then I realized whatever I was now doing was causing my rotator cuff to bother me nonstop, and just creating tension all throughout my upper right side. So I'm taking a step back and trying to figure out a better way forward.

The key to my jump in distance was no question at least the mental cue of engaging my lats. I was focusing on relaxing my deltoids and tensing my lats at the top of the backswing, and I felt an unbelievable sense of rubber band tension leverage when I did it right, the disc just exploding out of my hand. Here's a vid from the day I made a big jump forward, maxing out around 430.



As you'll probably notice, though I may have been using the lats, I still have a little bit of that hunched shoulder, so I was still strong-arming, which partially explains the shoulder pain. The other part of the explanation is that to engage my lats I was actively flexing them, which was definitely effective in adding some distance but was creating a ton of tension in the region of my neck, collarbone, upper pec, rotator cuff, etc, just really didn't feel good after a couple days of it.

So on to today, when I decided to ditch that approach and try to just do anything that would make my right shoulder be no higher than my left. I had been working through this:



to try to help, and thought I had a solid idea of what it should feel like. I also incorporated a little forward pump to help momentum and not turning my shoulders back too early, and was focusing on consciously "shifting from behind" more. Here are a few videos from today:





Distance was way down, topping out like 370, but that's alright. I can tell that I didn't succeed in throwing with a relaxed shoulder, and I'm pretty baffled as to how to do it now. Seems like no matter what I focus on that hunched shoulder is so deeply ingrained. Are there any good mental cues to avoid it? Was there some part of what I was doing before, that conscious lat activation, that was good? Is pulling my arm through with lat tension while keeping my upper shoulder relaxed the idea, and I just wasn't executing it well, or is there something I'm missing?

 

[RandyC]

It looks pretty good, you could try to fix your timing by having the disc over your left leg instead behind your body during the x-step.

 

[mjdepue]

Distance was way down, topping out like 370, but that's alright. I can tell that I didn't succeed in throwing with a relaxed shoulder, and I'm pretty baffled as to how to do it now. Seems like no matter what I focus on that hunched shoulder is so deeply ingrained. Are there any good mental cues to avoid it? Was there some part of what I was doing before, that conscious lat activation, that was good? Is pulling my arm through with lat tension while keeping my upper shoulder relaxed the idea, and I just wasn't executing it well, or is there something I'm missing?

Have you tried getting the disc out in front of you during your x-step? You mentioned you added a pump but it's barely noticeable and I wonder if adding something like McBeth or Schultz could help you keep that front shoulder down if you visualize it as a low back-swing rather than a reach back.

That said, it would be a fairly drastic change from what you're doing now so it may add too much in but maybe just trying to feel that back swing with your shoulder as the point of a pendulum could help. Your reach back right now is actually downward and ends below your pull through height. At least for me, visualizing and feeling a lower back "swing" that sets up the pendulum feeling has better results.

 

[sidewinder22]

1. Backswing transition looks weird, like you push the disc back and down and pull it off the ground. Your shoulder goes from internally rotated to external rotated in transition from backswing to forward swing/power pocket, should be the opposite direction if it changes, or keep it internally rotated swinging into power pocket.

2. Stance looks too closed, striding across the door frame/rear foot. Should be more straight line force striding hips away from door frame.

 

[Melonhusk]

It looks pretty good, you could try to fix your timing by having the disc over your left leg instead behind your body during the x-step.

Have you tried getting the disc out in front of you during your x-step? You mentioned you added a pump but it's barely noticeable and I wonder if adding something like McBeth or Schultz could help you keep that front shoulder down if you visualize it as a low back-swing rather than a reach back.

That said, it would be a fairly drastic change from what you're doing now so it may add too much in but maybe just trying to feel that back swing with your shoulder as the point of a pendulum could help. Your reach back right now is actually downward and ends below your pull through height. At least for me, visualizing and feeling a lower back "swing" that sets up the pendulum feeling has better results.

Haha I know I realized that about my "pump"; in my mind I was doing a sort of McBeth-esque thing but seeing it on film for the first time it's barely there. I do think even the small amount I'm doing has helped my x-step pacing, but things have only gone from weird to passable. I'll definitely try the left leg thing; thinking about that may help me not turn back as early! And the shoulder pendulum idea should help too; you're spot on mjdepue that I sort of awkwardly push the disc too far down.

1. Backswing transition looks weird, like you push the disc back and down and pull it off the ground. Your shoulder goes from internally rotated to external rotated in transition from backswing to forward swing/power pocket, should be the opposite direction if it changes, or keep it internally rotated swinging into power pocket.

2. Stance looks too closed, striding across the door frame/rear foot. Should be more straight line force striding hips away from door frame.

Starting with your second point, do you mean that my front foot is angled too far back, or that I'm planting my right leg too far to the left (or both)? I'll definitely work through the second and third door frame vids, I'll have to feel out what you mean!

I'm really interested in your first point, because I don't really understand it and that probably means it's incredibly important. I'm not versed in biomechanics to where I feel like I'm solid on what external vs internal rotation looks like in all possible positions of the arm, but I've been trying to figure it out with some googling of diagrams.

So it does look to me like this:

and this:

are internally rotated, right? Is that where you see I go to external rotation, which I'm seeing as this:

Or is it somewhere else? And also would you mind going into the significance of the different shoulder orientations?

Thanks so much for all the quick and astute advice guys! Wish I wasn't at work.

 

[sidewinder22]

Too leftward.
See Tilted Twirl vid, top of backswing/reachback.

 

[Melonhusk]

Ah ok, I did just watch that one and had a suspicion that's what you were talking about. I guess it confused me a little; it sounded like you were saying the disc should be flat at the top of the backswing, tilted down/pronated wrist at the power pocket, and then of course flat again at release? I guess I've been aiming for tilted down/pronated wrist from the backswing to the power pocket ever since noticing something similar in players like Simon, Eagle, etc, whereas I used to keep my wrist more supinated. I think I might be now seeing a subtlety I didn't before, though I'm not 100% and I'd be curious to hear what the significance of it is/how it helps the throw.

Does this paint a good picture of the idea? I can see that before the disc gets yanked forward they do both reach a point of relative flatness with the disc. Again just out of curiosity, what does this set up that keeping the disc angled down (or even angled up/supinated as some players do) doesn't?

Working through the door frame vids now, for the hundredth time but more and more clicks each time.

 

[sidewinder22]

Should feel different loading or leverage of your shoulder, more pulled taut/smooth, less slack/yank in transition.

 

[Melonhusk]

Gotcha, something I'll have to play around with then - but it sounds like maybe that's what I need to get my backswing finally in order. Thanks so much as always for all your time and insight!

 

[Melonhusk]

Little off topic, but I'm off disc golf for a few more weeks with a minor hyperextended elbow. Decided to go hit some golf balls for the first time since the 8th grade, and I wasn't sure how it was gonna go but I've seen so many dang Shawn Clement videos at this point that it went surprisingly well. Was hitting 150+ yards on zero effort swings. Thanks SW!

 

[sidewinder22]

Nice lower body action. This might help the upstairs.

 

[Melonhusk]

Thanks! That's really cool, seems to be along the same lines as Shawn's battering ram, it's interesting seeing the two different approaches to the same idea



I'll definitely have to give it a try if I can get out again before all the ranges close for the season. Had a better time than I thought I would; I may be a multi-sport golfer now!

 

[Melonhusk]

Finally finished rehabbing my elbow, and I've had a lot of time to think about what improvements I want to make, to throw further with less stress on my body. Biggest things I've been working on:

1) started throwing exclusively fan grip. Used to never use it, even for upshots, but now I'm realizing that since I use this grip for ultimate:

I'm used to having the disc pivot off my middle finger. I started to notice that sometimes when throwing golf discs I'd instinctively use the middle finger to squeeze, and every time that would happen the disc would pull way to the right. So now I've got this sort of thing going on:

and it's working great! More consistent release, doesn't seem to have lost me any power on its own.

2) Actually implementing a pump during my x-step, instead of only thinking I am.

3) Striding "down the hallway", not as closed off. I realized that this is probably pretty tied to 4), which would be reaching back later. I've found that if I keep my eyes on target until I've fully crossed and uncrossed my legs in the x-step I naturally stride a bit straighter and reach back a bit later, though they could both still be better as you'll see.

5) Instead of focusing on the disc, focusing on my hips turning my torso turning my upper arm, and NOT thinking about anything past that. This is the toughest, because it's the most abstract and I'm discovering just how much I'm used to consciously moving the disc, rather than waiting and waiting and waiting for the perfect moment that the disc can dingle arm along for the ride.

I've got one video - let me know how it looks, if it matches any of my goals or any of my goals need to be adjusted. My max distance since throwing in this way has been about 380/340/310/270, so a definite step back from where I was pre-injury but at least it doesn't hurt to throw anymore.

 

[sidewinder22]

I keep the pinky flatter, pad on rim, rather than curling pinky with tip/nail on rim - some people do that though.

Looks like your stance is like 2-3" too wide and/or too staggered closed.

 

[Melonhusk]

I keep the pinky flatter, pad on rim, rather than curling pinky with tip/nail on rim - some people do that though.

Looks like your stance is like 2-3" too wide and/or too staggered closed.

Thanks for the tip, I'll play around with it! It's helping a lot just not having my middle finger available to grip with, but sometimes that pinky does feel kind of weird.

That's about what I figured as far as my stance, just that little bit of extra stagger still.

Watching it again today it looks like my weight is probably a bit back after the x-step, right? Looks like my weight is just a bit far back over my back foot, and my body is tipped back a bit longer than it should be which I think is delaying my plant, and making my shoulders start to come around before heel strike. That's what it seems like to me at least; delaying my shoulders long enough to get that swinging feeling rather than strong arming continues to be the hardest part for me.