Getting scientific on form improvement

[petered0518]

Hello,
After having a stagnant year of improvement on the course, I decided to get a bit more intentional about making progress. I bought a net and a speed gun to work on form improvement over the winter.

This is my first external form review, thank you in advance for the help.
Sorry for the grainy quality of the video, this is my first youtube video as well.
This one was one of my better throws, 57 mph at about 85% effort. I typically try to practice in the 75% to 80% range but it is hard to not progressively rip harder as I practice, haha.

https://youtube.com/shorts/TvWQt4rtukU

 

[petered0518]

Meant to add a side view as well. This one was 55 mph at about 80% effort.

https://youtu.be/A_Py6I1Gm3k

 

[Brychanus]

1. Shoes (but I appreciate seeing your naked foot pressure)
2. Horizontal mode

Needs more Drift off the rear leg and drop into the can crush. Seabas22 Hershyzer drills and Crush the Can!

 

[petered0518]

Thank you Brychanus! I will do horizontal mode next time, and add shoes to avoid the unsightly view of my bare feet, lol. I am familiar with the crush the can drill and will work on that. Have to look up the hershyzer drill but I'll get to that as well.

 

[sidewinder22]

Practice like you play. Change in footwear or lack of will affect pressure points differently.

You are locking out your rear leg and falling over your toes. Need to sit back deeper leveraged into rear hip/buttwipe/hogan power move --->

https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133543

 

[Brychanus]

^Reminded me, one of the most helpful ways to learn how to squat or sit on the rear leg in transition to the plant was rocking standstill motions like at this timestamp when you compress and decompress the leg like a spring. If SW22 continued to swing all the way back, he could rest his weight on that leg all day. You want to be able to move back into and forward from that squat - compress your weight in and let it spring back out as you move.

 

[petered0518]

Took me a bunch of reps, but I think I'm starting to make the correction. These throws are about 65%, because I kept screwing up if I went any faster. I definitely feel the power potential from keep that back leg bent and more I'm line with my CoG. My upper body mechanics suffered because I was so focused on my lower body, but I can clean that up later.

https://youtube.com/shorts/9OM6E_Apy84?feature=share

Going to work on speeding this up and cementing my muscle memory over the next week. Any further advice appreciated, but otherwise I'll report back in next week with a new side view.

 

[petered0518]

Also immediate improvement in the shoe department, lol.

 

[petered0518]

I've been hitting a ton of reps and improvement has been rather slow going, but I believe I'm going in the right direction.
My legs are still stiff and not very bendy/loaded, but I'm starting to get that sitting down/buttwipe feeling. It makes an incredible difference in speed when I get it right, but I commonly revert to my old form if I'm not being careful.

Here are two throws at roughly 80% effort, first one went 50 mph and the second went 56. Mere minutes between the two. They look similar, but that slight touch of sit down in the second is leading to 6 extra mph which is pretty dramatic.
First, 50mph: https://youtu.be/nwWpYlPz4Lg
Better, 56mph: https://youtu.be/qc_gy7jMoBk

Anyway, I'm going to spend another week focusing on this same topic because I've got a long way to go, but I'm always open to more critique in the meantime.

I still have been meaning to get a new side view, but the behind view is easier to see the sit down so most of my videos are there right now.

 

[Mocheez]

You need to stick your butt out more. Support your weight with your hamstrings/glutes instead of your quads.

Your right foot and knee need to swing under your right shoulder.

 

[petered0518]

Yeah, I definitely see it and that lines up with the feedback from Brychanus and SW22.

When I've been practicing the "butt out" posture, it commonly leads to me swinging way out over my toes. Or I lean too far back and then get all my weight on my heels.

Any tips for how to feel that balanced position are appreciated.

 

[Mocheez]

Your very first move should be to lean forward and then maintain that forward momentum through the x-step. It will feel like you are doing a little dance with each step maintaining momentum rather than adding or subtracting from it.

Also, keep your right shoulder closed through the x-step like Calvin Heimburg

 

[petered0518]

I've continued to get far better results when focusing on sitting down on my hamstrings while maintaining an upright torso rather than leaning over like Calvin or Paul.

I probably had 30+ throws spread out during the day working on butt out and it was just not going well. I managed to work it up to about 57mph which is close to my baseline best of 59, but that was it.

I then threw again in the evening and decided to focus on sitting down while throwing, and out of nowhere I hit 62, 3mph faster than my previous best of 59. I can't explain why that is working better for me, but it does.

Here is the video of the 62 throw. It wasn't a fluke either, I hit 59-61 for 5 more throws in a row, and they were more controlled than this.
https://youtube.com/shorts/p5domhSSbYE?feature=share

Not saying the advice for butt out is wrong, obviously. But I need to figure out what I'm doing better here and translate that to whatever I'm practicing in the future.

 

[SocraDeez]

Not saying the advice for butt out is wrong, obviously

I'll say it for you: the advice for butt out is wrong. Keep up the good work.

 

[sidewinder22]

You got more "Inside", but too far so you are too behind your heels and pushing off the rear heel with toes up, instead of moving pressure back into rear instep/toe pushing the heel up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWasFdvnGio#t=6m5s

 

[petered0518]

I've been working on getting my weight more balanced, but my swing path keeps getting too far over my toes when I'm balanced due to muscle memory. Today while watching Corey Ellis on Jomez coverage I noticed he swings a bit lower, which I decided to try. I also tried fixing my off arm, which always swings too wide. It felt great and I actually upped my speed to 63, 1 better than the PR I posted last time. This felt more under control than that one, so I really like this direction:
https://youtu.be/H4fIaCU0628

Unfortunately it would have been a bit of a shank to the right, but I think that is because I let my front foot get too open. That should be an easy fix with some can crush drill. Second one was more accurate, though at just 60 mph.

I tried a new camera angle that would roughly match the back left of the teepad. Angles are a bit tougher to judge from here, but you can see my footwork better than the straight behind view. It has the added bonus of matching the typical jomez coverage angle for easier comparison to your favorite pro.

Anyway, feedback much appreciated as always.

 

[petered0518]

Here is another one at 63, this time with a side view. On the one hand it is cool to consistently hit the low 60s now, but this one felt like it took a lot more effort than the one I posted above. I was a bit more accurate which is good, but felt like I really had to juice it to get back to 63.

https://youtu.be/L9B59WMXnQo

My off arm was swinging a bit wide again, and I have a bit less of that "downswing" motion than I did yesterday. That is probably leading to the difference, but I'm not sure.

 

[petered0518]

After watching that clip a million times, I think the biggest problem I'm seeing is that I'm not stomping on the brace hard enough, and lot of my energy is going up and over my front foot instead of transferring to the throw. Does that make sense?

I think getting the front foot farther in front and focusing on halting my momentum would give me a bit more speed.

 

[petered0518]

Sorry to spam my own thread, but I'm making notes for myself to read in the future, haha.

In addition to the front foot needing to get out farther in front of me (in the direction of the target), I think I need to de-weight the back leg a bit sooner and then focus on the butt wipe drill to turn my hips in place rather than out and around.

 

[sidewinder22]

Ride the Bull...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxnhM5amro0#t=1m14s