First form review

Rear foot should counter behind(to right tee side) front foot when it leaves the ground.
 
Thanks once again for your feedback.

The past weeks I have been working on getting my rear leg to counter behind and simultaneously getting the angle of my throwing arm right. I had a lot of trouble getting my upper body into a tilted position and figuring out how exactly the rear leg works as a counterweigt. At first I did some Olympic Hammer Throw Drills at home and before each throwing session, but on video I discovered not much had changed for me. I then went into the dingle arm drills and resolved to not throw for a week and just swing a water bottle around in my room while letting gravity pull me into the throw. This also was my biggest a-ha moment, letting gravity do its thing and not rush forward in the pendulum.

https://youtu.be/3Qunde3unWg

At this point my lower body action feels really easy, the only thing feeling awkward is my rear leg countering and pushing my drive leg a little bit forward. I also don't think much about the arm in a good throw anymore. I just propel it with the weight shift to let it sling the disc. However on video I notived my arm is also all over the place. I also noticed how I almost brace my weight above my drive leg, not too much behind it like many pros will do.
 
Another thing that was really difficult to learn was to recalibrate my swing to go in a slight angle to my feet. Before I would line up my feet to aim a shot, now I need to aim with my shoulders and orient my feet slightly skewed. Controlling the direction of my throw has for now become really difficult because of that.

I have also noted that the vertical style of swingback (or reachback, but I don't really reach anymore) pulls my body into the right position for the throw, however I often end up with the disc really high. With a more horizontal style swingback it is more difficult to get my upper body into the right position, but it is much easier for my arm to end up in the right place.
 
I have been working on stopping my arm from flailing around by getting more a feel for slinging it via the reciprocating dingle arm drill, some olympic hammer throws drill and the inside swing drill. What I got from the drills is my shoulder protracting when winding up and throwing, providing me with a larger leve to sling the disc. I also fiddled a little with the height of my elboy to get a better feeling power pocket. Lastly I also put more of a focus on pushing my hip around by extending my drive leg, ending in a balanced position above my drive leg.



As to some questions:
- does the equal and opposite motion of throwing at an angle while balancing myself with my back leg look good to you? It certainly feels better for me to throw this way.
- I am not sure on where to go next. In the last couple of sessions I tried to work some more on the arm angle and leg countering but not much changed. What do you think is my next step to work on?
 
Lastly I also put more of a focus on pushing my hip around by extending my drive leg, ending in a balanced position above my drive leg.


As to some questions:
- does the equal and opposite motion of throwing at an angle while balancing myself with my back leg look good to you? It certainly feels better for me to throw this way.
- I am not sure on where to go next. In the last couple of sessions I tried to work some more on the arm angle and leg countering but not much changed. What do you think is my next step to work on?
You should not be pushing your hip around(or up) by extending the drive leg. The rear knee should bend like walking and the rear hip will drop lower and swivel/rotate freely thanks to gravity.

The backswing looks better, but you get stuck on both feet on ground instead of shifting to one foot balance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxnhM5amro0#t=1m14s





 
Thank you once again for your feedback, it is really fun learning the swing properly in this way!

You should not be pushing your hip around(or up) by extending the drive leg. The rear knee should bend like walking and the rear hip will drop lower and swivel/rotate freely thanks to gravity.

I think I got the idea to extend my drive leg to push my hip around from these two videos, I linked you the time stamps.

https://youtu.be/FBCotqGEcLI?t=312

https://youtu.be/FWasFdvnGio?t=130

I have probably misunderstood something along the way. Are you meaning to say I should not actively push my drive leg out (possibly hyper extending the leg and shredding my knee in the process) or should I keep it more bent like Will Schusterick does? So far I thought pushing my right hip up with my drive leg and turning around my right foot along the way towards the target is the way to go.
 
I think I got the idea to extend my drive leg to push my hip around from these two videos, I linked you the time stamps.

https://youtu.be/FBCotqGEcLI?t=312

https://youtu.be/FWasFdvnGio?t=130

I have probably misunderstood something along the way. Are you meaning to say I should not actively push my drive leg out (possibly hyper extending the leg and shredding my knee in the process) or should I keep it more bent like Will Schusterick does? So far I thought pushing my right hip up with my drive leg and turning around my right foot along the way towards the target is the way to go.

Drive leg is the rear leg, not the front leg.
 
Thank you for saving me from more misunderstandings, I had thought rear leg is called back leg and front is called drive leg.
 
It is really hard to wrap my head around dropping into the throw and I worked some rounds on it with video review, but I felt like nothing of substance changed.

I thought maybe the best way to go about it is to post the drills, does this look like I do it right? When you do it it looks like the weight is really dropping into it so im not sure if im doing it right.



As for throws, I had 2 lightbulb moments. I noticed I my drive leg not countering behind and stopping my momentum. So I did one field-work session just throwing the most extreme hyzers I could manage so it would have to counter the weight of my upper body.

The other one was today, instead of focusing on the weight dropping into the heel, I focused on leaving the arm a little lower and dropping my right shoulder as you also explained in your dooframe video part 2. This made it clearer to me that the throw is a lateral move and my weight moves laterally towards the target.

Do you see a noticeable difference here to my previous video? I think my drive leg counters more and my arm-action has gotten atleast less funky.



Also Shawn Clement has amazing hip IR.
 
I recommend when you do the door frame drills (which I absolutely, fully encourage you to do right now) that you start with something like along a wall so that your arm and posture get feedback from it at first. You should drop your mAss more directly away from the frame with your hand somewhere between navel and sternum.

Right now you've got an enormous stagger, and you have your plant foot "passing through the wall" relative to your hand and arm. So you are going to have trouble finding the most efficient leverage, and you can't learn what the drop from the leverage position feels like.

You're having trouble dropping at ease because right now your brain is probably terrified by the risk of falling down since you're not in a good balanced position relative to the "frame"!

Same problem in your throw: you are still rotating more than shifting your body mass toward the target to lead the arm and disc. You'll get more out of your long levers with more mAss shift leading the throw toward the target.

I couldn't fix it until a lot of work on door frame and hershyzer.
 
Last edited:
^ Yeah your stance/front foot is staggered way west/across the door frame/swing path/trajectory, instead of being inside the line. You can do a door frame version with a wall in front of your toes like in Inside Swing Drill.

Also your rear knee is locked out and fully extended, instead of bending into it. Your rear foot plantar flexion should bend/flex your knee toward the toes like walking forward/normal. Your knee is going behind your ankle like walking backwards.


 
I recommend when you do the door frame drills (which I absolutely, fully encourage you to do right now) that you start with something like along a wall so that your arm and posture get feedback from it at first. You should drop your mAss more directly away from the frame with your hand somewhere between navel and sternum.
I just tried doing it against a wall and it felt better immediately. Also made me think of the inside swing drill when letting go of the ledge.

Thanks for the advice, I'm gonna do some hershhyzers and door frame to reinforce that movement.

Also your rear knee is locked out and fully extended, instead of bending into it. Your rear foot plantar flexion should bend/flex your knee toward the toes like walking forward/normal. Your knee is going behind your ankle like walking backwards.
Explaining it with the chair is a really nice move. It makes sense that I need to get on my toes to swivel the hip instead of standing on the side of foot.

Im gonna report back with some more video of the door frame and hershyzer drill and see if it is better this time around.
 
So I tried the doorframe drill some more and went back to doing some hershyzers.
Right now my distance is really growing, probably at least part of that is because the doorframe drill also reinforces a straighter farm as I had problems with it just flapping all over the place. But the throws are also easier on my knee and shoulder.

I did two versions of the drill, close to the ledge and far away from it. I feel like I can really stretch that to get the disc farther away from the CoG but it also makes moving properly much harder. What do you think looks better?

Also for the video I could only find something with a small ledge, at home I can just do it against the wall and let the wall reign me in.





Some of the things I noticed:
- Stagger is probably still too big, although smaller than last time
- left leg (drive leg) still too straight and I also have the habit of turning my left foot back, making it hard to turn my hips
- chicken wing

Here are the hershyzer drill part 1 and 2. Are these looking good?





- as for the part 1 I know the purpose is to lead with my weight, although I have trouble translating that to a throw
- in your video you manage much more of a drop in the part 2 one @sidewinder22
 
1. Your hand is too low. Start about navel high maybe few inches higher.
2. Your stance, especially rear foot is too far staggered east/right from wall and front foot. You want your rear foot to feel more inline force with the arm/disc.
3. Play around with rear foot north/south distance from door frame. Side view is much easier to tell on this aspect. Once you move your rear foot more west closer to wall/less stagger this will also affect the ideal north/south distance for leverage.
 

Latest posts

Top