In need of backhand guidance: One year of playing

[CEP1295]

Semester is over, back to the grind...

I stopped working on the form for a little bit due to the school semester getting busier, but I am back now and ready to keep working. I've messed around with a few things here and there, but there are a couple of main ideas that I am working on.

1 - For the RHBH, I am still not bracing properly against my plant leg. My bad habit is that I currently try to spin out of the brace to let the body come through instead of bracing/throwing against the plant. To work on this I've done a bunch of bilateral work (LHFH, RHFH, LHBH, RHBH) to transfer the feeling of when I brace for the RHFH to the RHBH. When I'm throwing forehands, I'm definitely not trying to twist or spin or anything out of the brace, instead it is a nice brace against the left leg which allows everything to come through naturally. I know my forehand mechanics are better than my backhands because I'm consistently throwing around ~350-380 forehand while I may throw a backhand further than that once in a while. From my understanding, this generally isn't the case, and the power potential for the BH is more than the FH. This is how I know I haven't capped out my BH potential yet.

2 - For the RHBH, my throwing arm still collapses like I'm trying to spin a frisbee out of it. My throwing arm integrity breaks down instead of creating a nice whip that follows parallel with the swing plane. I've resorted to trying to think of it as swinging the handle of the hammer targetwards, or swinging a baseball bat. This has helped with keeping the arm on a better plane.

Here is a video of me doing a few hammer drills with both sides of my body: https://youtu.be/92JA3OARW1M

At first I do LHFH and RHFH walking straight to the target, not crossing my legs at all, similar to if I was bowling. After that, I try to take a more lateral approach like I'm throwing a submarine pitch. After that, I do some LHBH and RHBH with the hammer to see if I can keep that same bracing feeling from the previous throw with the backhand. From what I can tell, my lower body mechanics work far better in the FH throw. For some reason, my body works better with the left hand/right leg and right hand/left leg brace compared to same arm/leg brace.

 

[Brychanus]

Leaving FH for the big guy.

BH - A few things here, but mostly I think you need to work on the hammer toss to get the release to be more lateral to your X, and you need to see that rear leg counterbalance more behind you. You need to set up in aggressive athletic posture like shoveling snow, but swinging from the throwing arm. Notice that you're blocking yourself from getting a full X here. Then, you are shifting "from in front" with your front foot flared open - you basically used up any torque force before you landed. I will remind you that I had to do the Clement "shift from behind" drill like 2000 times before my body understood it, then a lot of stuff like Open to Closed drill to load the backswing.

The part starting here might help communicate what I'm trying to say. I personally did need to actually hit a thing to start getting this idea to work, and needed significantly more work trying to find how to convert that into a DG release point with Hammer Toss and similar drills.
https://youtu.be/R_ZJxZUZkLI?t=338

 

[CEP1295]

Still working on the backhand. I've tried stepping away from the RHBH and did some other activities that involved similar mechanics like golfing, tennis, and baseball since I swing left handed. Today I felt something different happen so I chased that feeling and the YouTube link is the result of that, so i am not sure if it looks good or bad. As for how the throw felt, it was relatively effortless on the body. It felt like when I was striding into the plant, I wouldn't rotate the hips back, instead I would "fold" into the left hip and when I planted, I was using the plant foot to swing the body through. My upper body is still super rough in these: throwing arm integrity isnt great, can really only throw a hyzer angle low into the ground, and my head still wants to rush through the swing. All these throws were done with little to no power since I wanted to reflexively power through which would make it all wonky.

Link: https://youtu.be/gP13TJWMZ5E

 

[CEP1295]

Standstill and Loop-de-loop

Went back to the standstill and tried figuring out where the loop-de-loop effect was coming from, and it felt like more of a reach out instead of back, and letting my left leg turn my body.

Link: https://youtu.be/RdlJQ2syHYI

 

[sidewinder22]

1. You are setup with your knees too bent. Bend/hinge from the hips so your chest is over your knees.

2. Your elbow is way too low(shoulder externally rotated) in power pocket. Get your elbow up/out and shoulder internally rotated.

 

[CEP1295]

Thanks for the input! When you talk about shoulder needs to be more internally rotated, in what way do I do that? If I hold my arm straight out, with the elbow bent as if in the power pocket, would it mean letting the shoulder rotate counter clockwise and the hand goes closer to the ground? or is it getting in the same position and then letting the elbow move leftward, closing the shoulder more?

I thought that I personally wasn't bending at the knees too much in the standstills, but I will give it a shot trying to have bend at the hips instead of at the knees. Does the bending at the hips come from the force put into the ground through the leg?

 

[CEP1295]

Took some time today to mess around with arm angles, and what you said about knees being too bent, and to get bent more at the hip. When bending at the hip and raising the elbow to be a little more inline with the shoulders, I noticed a huge difference in my arm no longer dropping, and my hand finishing palm down in the throw. Not sure if it looks much better on the film, but I was throwing much more effectively today with my 9 speeds consistently reaching 350' at a local flat course. Definitely still a lot to work on, but I'm excited with how much easier this feels to throw.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/lTZGYQqba8c

 

[sidewinder22]

Your rear knee remains extended instead of bending/walking into the plant.

 

[CEP1295]

Alright, I was chasing this feeling in the waist/hips/legs for the past few days, and the results are in the YouTube link below. After messing with some of the arm/upper body mechanics that SW22 recommended, I wanted to try some different lower body things to try to accompany it. What I changed feels wildly different than before, and I can't necessarily analyze it to tell; however, it feels effortless and the disc seems to come out cleanly and at a nice pace even though I'm maybe throwing at 40% into the net here.

The feeling I was chasing was using the left foot to stretch out the left inner hip, and it made a nice stretch in the left butt-cheek. I would then continue this left foot pushing my butt target wards, and instead of coming on-top of my plant leg, it was a smooth transition into the inside of the plant foot with another stretch in the right hip and butt-cheek. This felt super easy and like I was gliding almost, and my body was following through super naturally. The upper body also felt better with this movement, I was able to maintain a nice bend at the hip and my throwing arm felt like it could maintain the "throw the hammer" position. When reaching back, it was as if I was keeping the head of the hammer on the same plane throughout the swing, but at some point the wrist reaches a position where it can throw the disc nose down which is great. Right now I just keep practicing getting that stretch while going target wards with the butt and not having my upper body tipping to the target.


One question I now have is with the reach back: When reaching back, I feel like there are two positions my hips and upper body can get into.

This one, I felt like I'm coiling backwards and just bending at the hip.



This one, I am getting in the same position as the previous picture, but then giving more of a stretch at the shoulders/throughout the back.


Is one of these better than the other? I hadn't noticed too much of a difference in the throw.

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/00KXcafvlGE

 

[bryantlikes]

One question I now have is with the reach back: When reaching back, I feel like there are two positions my hips and upper body can get into.

For figuring out the backswing position use the doorframe drill. Best to follow the drill and post of video of the drill. This usually helps with figuring it out.

 

[sidewinder22]

Your head is swaying outside your feet/posture back and forth instead of staying more centered while the lower spine shifts ahead underneath the head to catch it dynamic one leg balance.

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

 

[CEP1295]

Back at it again! Since my last post, I've been committing to a lot of field work for the backhand, forehand, and putting. I've recently shot some of my highest rated rounds, and even picked up my first tournament win. There's been a set of drills I've been doing that's combined a lot of the cornerstone drills of this forum. In the first two clips of the attached video is me doing those drills which is focusing on a nice lateral run along a line on a field. Here are my take-aways from it:

- By running laterally and not focusing on the throw explicitly, my body stays closed off to the target more naturally which has reduced my turning/spinning in the wind up and swing.
- The extra-extra long run-up has helped me realized that the throw must be a continuous movement of the lower body throughout the entire swing, and not a plant to stop motion.
- It looks much more like swinging a heavy object instead of finessing a lightweight object like a disc.
- It helps engage the whole body instead of me focusing on single aspects.
- It combines hershyzer, butt wipe, riding the bull, swivel stairs, and many more all together.

With all of these things occurring during that drill, I've increased my distance by a great bit. The second clip in that video was a 340' shot with a Discmania Origin (5, 5, -1, 1) that hit the forest line before finishing its flight. Please let me know what you all think, and where further improvements can be made. I would like to get my arm a bit higher during the swing as that will increase the length of the throwing arm lever, but I haven't gotten that feeling to click yet. For me, if I raise my elbow higher it tends to lead me to throw more of a spinning motion instead of a strong lateral swing.

Youtube Link:

 

[Brychanus]

Make your sideline run slightly more lateral to the target so that you get off the rear foot slightly more lateral to the target and a bit quicker into the plant.

This might also help your balance from tipping into the plant.

 

[CEP1295]

It has been a while, but I was determined on working again on the backhand form. This video is from today where I worked on keeping my elbow up throughout the swing. I feel like the rear-view looks really great, but the side view reviews some issues still. Let me know what you all think.

 

[sidewinder22]

Your spine is extended and side bending on your trailside.
Note how CD spine is flexed and side bending on frontside to remain in a tilted spiral.