More Snap or More Nose-down?

[Timhawk33]

So my friend and I both started playing almost a year ago. We started with mid ranges and fairways. Within a month of playing we were getting most of our discs out to 225'-250'. Every once in a while we might get a good toss that will go out to 300'. We may have increased accuracy since then but our distance really isn't any better. After reading far too many articles here or videos of pros on youtube, we each have a theory why we can't get any more distance on our drives.

I believe our issue lies in the amount of "snap" we have. I believe we have good use of lower body. We both came from a baseball background and know how to generate leverage with the rest of our body instead of just our arm (this isn't to say we aren't still strong arming). I struggle to feel a tug of the disc and very rarely do I feel like the disc wants to rip out of my grip. There have been a few practice sessions where I feel like I'm leveraging the other side of the disc and but they are infrequent and I believe that if we can get snap on our drive, we will start making distance gains quickly.

His belief is that we are not releasing the disc with enough nose down. While I do believe nose down is a requirement for a good distance drive, he believes it's what's keeping us under 300'. I argue that if our main issue was nose angle, our drives would be launching high into the air and stalling out (which some do).

Obviously, it is most likely that we suffer from both things. My question is, do you guys think a lack of snap or our nose angle is the problem we should focus on first?

Sorry for the wall of text and thanks in advance for any replies?

 

[horsethief]

the strong arming plateau is about 350' with a teebird and ~400' with something like a destroyer or nuke or _insert_favorite_13_speed_driver_here_. Based on that, the problem is probably a combination of form and nose-up, but putters and mid-ranges like to be a little nose up anyway (especially putters).

If I were you guys, I would just take some video of you guys throwing, even if you don't post it for feedback. Just seeing what you think you are doing vs. what you are actually doing will probably be surprising.

 

[Timhawk33]

Thanks for the reply horsethief! What's your definition of strong arming/how would you describe it?

 

[horsethief]

Thanks for the reply horsethief! What's your definition of strong arming/how would you describe it?

Throwing as hard as you can with your arm, body may or may not be doing something -- but either way it isn't contributing to the throw

 

[HyzerUniBomber]

"I struggle to feel a tug of the disc and very rarely do I feel like the disc wants to rip out of my grip."

That's a root problem, and nose angle won't fix it.

Even a putter or a mid-rance should be impossible or very-nearly impossible to hold onto on a regular throw with a hit.

It's not easy to trust the hit, because until you feel what holding later on the disc does - your brain just doesn't think anything is going to happen, so it tells you to start speeding it up. "Hey man, this thing will go NOWHERE unless you rip it!"

Wrong.

In the beginning of developing your hit, you're going to be going slow. It'll look and feel silly, but what it does - is show you that all the acceleration happens when the disc is ejecting from your grip.

A note about nose angle:

Most putters and mids will forgive a little nose-up. Drivers not so much. I think most players miss out on how amazing nose angle is for shaping shots. I can throw a Truth dead nuts straight (flat release), or I can use the exact same throw and go more nose down and get it to turn as much as I need. Add in the hyzer/anhyzer angles and suddenly your flight arc changes shapes with added or decreased nose angles.

You can hyzer flip stable discs, by going very nose down... I didn't think I'd ever hyzer-flip a stable driver, but what I didn't realize was how much nose angle does to stability. It's also really important for throwing down-hill - so that you don't end up with a drive that fades forever.

You can also throw putters more nose up on ahyzer and get long right breaking shots, where as just anhyzer might head to the ground too soon.

I really enjoy playing with nose angles in fieldwork, it is like discovering you've got paint brushes instead of paint rollers.

 

[akray21]

"I struggle to feel a tug of the disc and very rarely do I feel like the disc wants to rip out of my grip."

That's a root problem, and nose angle won't fix it.

Even a putter or a mid-rance should be impossible or very-nearly impossible to hold onto on a regular throw with a hit.

It's not easy to trust the hit, because until you feel what holding later on the disc does - your brain just doesn't think anything is going to happen, so it tells you to start speeding it up. "Hey man, this thing will go NOWHERE unless you rip it!"

Wrong.

In the beginning of developing your hit, you're going to be going slow. It'll look and feel silly, but what it does - is show you that all the acceleration happens when the disc is ejecting from your grip.

A note about nose angle:

Most putters and mids will forgive a little nose-up. Drivers not so much. I think most players miss out on how amazing nose angle is for shaping shots. I can throw a Truth dead nuts straight (flat release), or I can use the exact same throw and go more nose down and get it to turn as much as I need. Add in the hyzer/anhyzer angles and suddenly your flight arc changes shapes with added or decreased nose angles.

You can hyzer flip stable discs, by going very nose down... I didn't think I'd ever hyzer-flip a stable driver, but what I didn't realize was how much nose angle does to stability. It's also really important for throwing down-hill - so that you don't end up with a drive that fades forever.

You can also throw putters more nose up on ahyzer and get long right breaking shots, where as just anhyzer might head to the ground too soon.

I really enjoy playing with nose angles in fieldwork, it is like discovering you've got paint brushes instead of paint rollers.

BTW I am the friend that Timhawk is referring to. I feel like I am in the beginning stages of developing the "hit" (as you say). Right now my 90% power throws go the same distance as my 50-60% throws (around 250' with a midrage/fairway driver). At times I really do feel the disc tugging slightly on my finger, but when I try to ramp up the speed on the next throw the extra power seems to do nothing. Do I need to keep throwing at a lower power level until I get a better hit?

I know that fieldwork and repetition will improve our skills and distance over time (good thing daylight savings is coming soon!), but how can we accelerate the process of learning the "hit". I would also like to know the natural progression of throwing distance for the average player. Like how long after starting disc golf does one normally hit 200', 250', 300', and so on. I like to say timhawk and I are fairly naturally athletic people, and I feel like we are having more issues with gaining distance than we should. Thanks for your reply.

EDIT: also I noticed that the OP said "snap", and you reference "hit". Are these words interchangeable, or are these two separate concepts?

 

[Dan Ensor]

Snap is like "smash factor". The amount of snap you have is how good your hit is. Not exactly interchangeable, but they are used that way a lot.

A better hit (more snap) will help get the nose down.

I know you played baseball, but baseball focuses on one weight shift, that is the opposite of a right-hand backhand dg throw. I played baseball and had very poor weight shift for disc golf.

How much of a distance difference is there when you drive a putter, mid, or driver for max D?

 

[HyzerUniBomber]

Painfully, yes you have to throw slow to most easily feel the hit.

Snap is a word I dislike. People think it means audible snap, which has no relation to hit.

"how can we accelerate the process of learning the "hit".

Kill off any x-step or hop. Working with a smaller number of variables to screw up is much easier. TRUST ME, I know. I kept trying to add in a step before I'd really worked out a hit - and it just slowed down my eventual discovery of a hit.

I have no clue what an average player will do. I think it's probably dependent on how long it takes somebody to figure out the countless "ah-ha" moments.

I think a solid goal is to be able to throw a putter 250' accurately, with a clean release, no wobble and zero effort from a 1-step.

That's a huge amount of my fieldwork:



RE: why you lose the feeling when you speed up:

The "harder" we through, the more likely we'll blow off the rim before we get to the last part of the throw, where we transfer all the momentum we've built up INTO the disc. That happens in the VERY last second of the release.

 

[Timhawk33]

HUB- I definitely agree with your description of my mind giving up on waiting for the hit. I think every time I feel like i'm getting it, my mind decides "ok that felt right, now let's do it FASTER".

Dan- Putters on a good throw for me go 225-250
Mid ranges on a good throw go 275'
Drivers on a good throw go 300'
(those are all distances for a good throw and are above my average)

 

[Dan Ensor]

Those are decent gaps. I'd go with working your hit. Bonus points for making a video and posting it in form analysis.

 

[Dan Ensor]

 

[horsethief]

BTW I am the friend that Timhawk is referring to. I feel like I am in the beginning stages of developing the "hit" (as you say). Right now my 90% power throws go the same distance as my 50-60% throws (around 250' with a midrage/fairway driver). At times I really do feel the disc tugging slightly on my finger, but when I try to ramp up the speed on the next throw the extra power seems to do nothing. Do I need to keep throwing at a lower power level until I get a better hit?

I know that fieldwork and repetition will improve our skills and distance over time (good thing daylight savings is coming soon!), but how can we accelerate the process of learning the "hit". I would also like to know the natural progression of throwing distance for the average player. Like how long after starting disc golf does one normally hit 200', 250', 300', and so on. I like to say timhawk and I are fairly naturally athletic people, and I feel like we are having more issues with gaining distance than we should. Thanks for your reply.

EDIT: also I noticed that the OP said "snap", and you reference "hit". Are these words interchangeable, or are these two separate concepts?

I think most people by 2 or 3 years that are pretty athletic will peak at the 350' teebird plateau. Most people will never break this plateau, because the way you have to throw to break this plateau is kind of against everything you learned to get to this plateau.

Here's an example, using driving (everyone will hopefully relate to this):
Getting to the 350' plateau:
The tempo of the x-step is like starting off in 1st gear, dumping the clutch and powering through the gearbox up to about 3rd gear, then about the time you get to max-reachback, you push in the clutch and hit the rocket thruster/NOS button and let everything rip as fast as humanly possible. By the time the disc gets to your right pec, your shoulders will be maxing out in how far they can rotate and will rip the disc out of your hand as your hand is starting to go sideways towards the target, and your shoulders will be going backwards away from the target. The moment the shoulders "catch" the disc slips out of your hand.

Beating the strong-arming plateau and getting to the half-hit and full-hit stages:
Using the Hammer pound:
going through your x-step is a nice casual start from 1st gear, shift into second maybe around 3,000 rpm's, get to your max-reachback, shift into 3rd now you're cruising through a residential zone until you can get to the right pec. Once you arrive at the right pec, you start pushing down the pedal and getting to the top of 3rd, shift into 4th, going going, get to the hit, mash the gas pedal and hit the nos/rocket thrusters and sling that thing down the fairway.

Rail:
everything through the residential zone is basically the same. Now you get to the right pec, and you can start going through the gears more aggressively, hit the top of 3rd, shift to 4th, hit the top of 4th, shift to 5th, get to the top of 5th, hit those rocket boosters!


The fact that you are trying to increase the speed/strength and aren't getting any distance gains just kind of solidifies that you are applying the power in the wrong places. Blake once used an example that went something like this: Imagine you're trying to push a refridgerator across the room as far as you can in 1 push. The way most people throw a disc, is like running up to the fridge as fast as possible and smashing into it. The way you will get the best result though, is if you stand facing it, about an arm's length away, lean into it like you're doing a pushup -- then as your chest gets almost to the fridge you push it away from you as hard as you can. Hopefully that makes sense.

Baseball analogy (I didn't play baseball so hopefully this is right): Right now you're trying to swing the bat as hard as you can and it just so happens to be hitting the ball. Instead, you need to make contact with the ball and then drive the ball.

 

[Kodachrome]

nose down will contribute immensely, but your issues lie in fundamentals.

peeps who throw faster than me don't throw as far because of nose angle and release angle/height issues. i throw 60-63 mph. that translates to 450 for me on a good day. sometimes longer if i really get hold of one, but then i suspect i'm throwing that one faster than my usual speed range. i throw pretty darn nose down.

 

[slowplastic]

I haven't had time to read through everything in detail, but an easy (general) way to tell if you are getting any "snap":

Is the disc flying at the speed of your forearm/arm...or is it coming out of your hand way faster than the arm?

To put this in baseball terms, palm the ball and throw a changeup. The ball comes out only as fast as your forearm speed.

If you have the ball in your fingers and snap your wrist like you should on a throw, the ball comes out way faster than your forearm. This is similar to involving the correct body positions/wrist in your throw.

This is not perfect, etc. etc., but this is a very easy way to visualize if you are getting any wrist/lever "multiplier" on your throw.

 

[Timhawk33]

Awesome guys. Thanks for explaining this again for me. I know you guys have typed this out a few times now and it seems like every time I read a new iteration of this explanation I get closer to the feeling of explosive acceleration/disc traveling faster than my arm.

It's freezing rain outside so I'm throwing into a pile of blankets. At first it seemed like a bad idea but I think it's helping me focus on just the weight of the disc rotating around my pivot. The feeling of that I think is most important I I will strive to maintain that feeling as I feed in the rest of the body. Then when it is nice I will take videos and possibly post it. Thanks all!

 

[garublador]

There has been a ton of great advice in this thread. I'll just reiterate that a vast majority of players never develop "snap." Many will claim it, but unless you're crushing fairway drivers close to 400', you probably aren't really getting it.

The best approach is probably to develop a decent throw to get to that 350' with fairway drivers (the fairway driver part is important) plateau so you have many of the basic movements down. You need to be able to throw without letting go of the disc, you need to get weight forward, you need to have your grip figured out, etc. At that point there are drills that help you learn the feel of snap. Or you can just start working on everything else. Unless you're looking to compete at a high level is isn't really "necessary" to throw that far. Some like to figure it out because that's what they enjoy, but it's not something you really have to do.

 

[Quinum]

Wow, there is some great information in this thread! I am really working to develop more "snap", and a lot of what folks have said here is invaluable.