Physical tests we can perform to pinpoint areas to work on for clean/healthy form?

[hisdudeness47]

An often-overlooked truth is that no matter how much we battle for form perfection, many of us (not me of course, I am cyborg) are limited by our lack of flexibility, mobility, or strength. Whether that's in our effort to attain clean stretchy/relaxed form, pain-free form, more endurance for longer-lasting performance , more power, etc, we all have something that limits us. Even some greats probably could use some more hip mobility (example).

I've really began noticing the importance of being in solid shape more and more recently as I have really began feeling like a rubber-band recently. I am mid- full body sling-epiphany phase. I'm also sore as ****. Hitting 450-500 (occasionally) is no small athletic feat. It takes quite a bit of OORAH. It's an athletic move recruiting lots of our built-in features.

I know it's better for long-term health to get that form dialed to relaxed Gumby perfection, but there are tons of new muscle fibers and springy actions happening in my 36 year old bod, especially after The Long Winter. Not old, not young, but in the act of feelin springy and limber, I need to get a handle on my limits and get a full-body maintenance routine goin' right quick and ricky tick.

But this is for everyone. We all could use some work.

What are some physical tests we can perform that can help show us some areas that we need to work on to really, truly, perform like a cyborg on the course with Gumby form and pain-free for all eternity? Flexibility, mobility, strength, endurance, anything is fair game. Time to set a baseline.

 

[Sewer bill]

This probably varies wildly from person to person. If I had anything to pick that would help everyone even just a little I'd say try a balance board on carpet, add wrist guards if it's your first time doing anything like it though.

 

[medicinalfunk]

I just try to drink a couple of beers before I start, seems to be pretty helpful for all of that stuff.

 

[Brychanus]

I don't ever turn down a beer on the course!

I doubt I'll ever live in that distance bracket for a few reasons, but here's what I've learned pushing distance & form fighting for every bit I can get out of a rhino body:

1. Continue to work on mechanical efficiencies. IMO this is reciprocal with strength, flexibility, etc. over time. There are people throwing in the 450-500' range around here who are still leaving efficiencies on the table.

2. Use things like drills as diagnostics and tools not just for how you're moving, but for your range of motion and flexibility (two for one deal!). That has been at least as important for me as the movements themselves. For example, I kept finding problems in getting coiled up into my backswing that the door frame drills and double dragon and open-to-closed drills have helped me find and work on. I added other exercises to help.

3. In general, I replaced my old lifting routine with resistance bands, yoga, dynamic exercises and stretches that shore up areas of weakness or inflexibility. Doing more moves that help me move and improve posture and swing in general. I recently noticed that I also get limber more quickly when I warm up and less sore the next day.

4. As someone who was way skewed toward upper body strength in my exercises and by body type for my whole life, I'm a walking case study of what happens if you have weak and inflexible legs and hips and try to disc golf. Even though I still think you want all the action to be as smooth as possible, if you can't get your legs to adequately support you at impact and quickly transfer large forces, you'll always be compensating. I've learned and added a lot of pitcher diagnostics and stretches and tons of work on my leg strength for this. Rather than work on max weightlifting power, I work on exercises that involve moving and shifting abruptly pain-free. I have been willing to let a little upper body strength go since I was so disproportionate.

5. I reduced the number and intensity of throwing sessions to allow sufficient recovery after doing any significant drive load so I get the most out of each session or round. Quality over quantity for me henceforth.

6. Remember that physical adaptation can take much longer for connective tissues like tendons and ligaments than muscles. I knew it but underestimated it twice. I definitely feel the difference at 37 compared to 27, and especially since I had no throwing background of any kind beforehand. I'm probably still a year premature of some of those tissue catching up relative to when I started serious form work. It's a big effect.

 

[Sewer bill]

I don't ever turn down a beer on the course!

I doubt I'll ever live in that distance bracket for a few reasons, but here's what I've learned pushing distance & form fighting for every bit I can get out of a rhino body:

1. Continue to work on mechanical efficiencies. IMO this is reciprocal with strength, flexibility, etc. over time. There are people throwing in the 450-500' range around here who are still leaving efficiencies on the table.

2. Use things like drills as diagnostics and tools not just for how you're moving, but for your range of motion and flexibility (two for one deal!). That has been at least as important for me as the movements themselves. For example, I kept finding problems in getting coiled up into my backswing that the door frame drills and double dragon and open-to-closed drills have helped me find and work on. I added other exercises to help.

3. In general, I replaced my old lifting routine with resistance bands, yoga, dynamic exercises and stretches that shore up areas of weakness or inflexibility. Doing more moves that help me move and improve posture and swing in general. I recently noticed that I also get limber more quickly when I warm up and less sore the next day.

4. As someone who was way skewed toward upper body strength in my exercises and by body type for my whole life, I'm a walking case study of what happens if you have weak and inflexible legs and hips and try to disc golf. Even though I still think you want all the action to be as smooth as possible, if you can't get your legs to adequately support you at impact and quickly transfer large forces, you'll always be compensating. I've learned and added a lot of pitcher diagnostics and stretches and tons of work on my leg strength for this. Rather than work on max weightlifting power, I work on exercises that involve moving and shifting abruptly pain-free. I have been willing to let a little upper body strength go since I was so disproportionate.

5. I reduced the number and intensity of throwing sessions to allow sufficient recovery after doing any significant drive load so I get the most out of each session or round. Quality over quantity for me henceforth.

6. Remember that physical adaptation can take much longer for connective tissues like tendons and ligaments than muscles. I knew it but underestimated it twice. I definitely feel the difference at 37 compared to 27, and especially since I had no throwing background of any kind beforehand. I'm probably still a year premature of some of those tissue catching up relative to when I started serious form work. It's a big effect.

Point 1.
Are you saying I'm leaving some efficiency on the table throwing in steel toe boots?

 

[hisdudeness47]

I don't ever turn down a beer on the course!

I doubt I'll ever live in that distance bracket for a few reasons, but here's what I've learned pushing distance & form fighting for every bit I can get out of a rhino body:

1. Continue to work on mechanical efficiencies. IMO this is reciprocal with strength, flexibility, etc. over time. There are people throwing in the 450-500' range around here who are still leaving efficiencies on the table.

2. Use things like drills as diagnostics and tools not just for how you're moving, but for your range of motion and flexibility (two for one deal!). That has been at least as important for me as the movements themselves. For example, I kept finding problems in getting coiled up into my backswing that the door frame drills and double dragon and open-to-closed drills have helped me find and work on. I added other exercises to help.

3. In general, I replaced my old lifting routine with resistance bands, yoga, dynamic exercises and stretches that shore up areas of weakness or inflexibility. Doing more moves that help me move and improve posture and swing in general. I recently noticed that I also get limber more quickly when I warm up and less sore the next day.

4. As someone who was way skewed toward upper body strength in my exercises and by body type for my whole life, I'm a walking case study of what happens if you have weak and inflexible legs and hips and try to disc golf. Even though I still think you want all the action to be as smooth as possible, if you can't get your legs to adequately support you at impact and quickly transfer large forces, you'll always be compensating. I've learned and added a lot of pitcher diagnostics and stretches and tons of work on my leg strength for this. Rather than work on max weightlifting power, I work on exercises that involve moving and shifting abruptly pain-free. I have been willing to let a little upper body strength go since I was so disproportionate.

5. I reduced the number and intensity of throwing sessions to allow sufficient recovery after doing any significant drive load so I get the most out of each session or round. Quality over quantity for me henceforth.

6. Remember that physical adaptation can take much longer for connective tissues like tendons and ligaments than muscles. I knew it but underestimated it twice. I definitely feel the difference at 37 compared to 27, and especially since I had no throwing background of any kind beforehand. I'm probably still a year premature of some of those tissue catching up relative to when I started serious form work. It's a big effect.

I'm so glad you responded. I kind of knew you would. It's especially nice since we're the same age. I have a long athletic background (baseball, basketball) with strong soccer/hiker/mountain biker legs from my pursuits in recent years but I imagine some of the benefit of that stuff has waned as I was pretty much all disc golf last year and a whole lot of nothing through this terrible winter. As the sun is finally shining again and my full body form epiphany is happening at the same time, I really have decided to pay attention to my body the last few days. I haven't even thrown in five days. Instead I've been performing countless YouTube mobility and flexibility tests and routines to figure out my weaknesses, weaknesses that have/will continue to affect my disc golf ability and performance if I don't get a handle on it.

Much of what you said is pretty much exactly what I've been stressing to myself too, coincidentally enough. There's a lot of times that I ask questions where I already kind of know the answer but I'm always looking for other perspectives. Been doing a ton of flexibility work, mobility work, band work, and Theragun work. Definitely feeling a little bit more open and limber already. We shall see how it translates on the field/course.

For what it's worth, I have discovered that I have terrible shoulder mobility in my throwing shoulder (right). Poor internal rotation and poor adduction. Doing the Apley Scratch Test was shocking. Definitely a huge and necessary area of focus now.

I also have mediocre external rotation in both shoulders, poor "overhead" shoulder mobility in both shoulders, mediocre external rotation in both hips, and poor internal rotation in my right hip.

How all of these fit into limiting clean and long term healthy disc golf form, I'm not sure yet, but no doubt they do. Need to clean all of this up. Anyone have thoughts on how these weaknesses could contribute to a poor kinetic chain of events and limit clean form? The more I know, the better. I definitely want to start teaching and tutoring disc golf in the next year or two and I submit that this is a very overlooked part of form. There's knowing the right steps, the right moves, the right timing, etc, but then there's your physical ability to make it happen. No amount of form expertise is going to trump your body's inability to perform a move athletically and pain free. I submit that many people are trying to implement form fixes without the physical ability to do so. I'm beginning to see wisdom in taking care of any physical limitations before even trying to implement form fixes. Seems much more efficient and healthy in the long run. The itch to throw is super hard to resist though. I get it. My first tournament of the year is in 10 days, one side of my brain is telling me to get out there and practice my gaps and approaches and putting and driving and all of it. The other part of my brain, which has assumed an executive power in the last few days, just wants my right index finger to be able to touch my left shoulder blade behind my back. Honestly I might not even get a ton of prep in for this tournament and lower my expectations of myself. Honestly I will probably play better because of it. Anyway, this delayed satisfaction/physical improvement mindset is winning right now instead of just going out and disc golfing every day. I know it's better in the long run.

I found that the GOWOD app is pretty cool. It puts you through a series of mobility tests and has some personalized mobility routines based on your weaknesses. It also has every exercise available in the free version which is nice. I will drop some screenshots of my inabilities :-(

 

[Brychanus]

Point 1.
Are you saying I'm leaving some efficiency on the table throwing in steel toe boots?

If those boots help you carry medicinalfunk's keg around, it might just be all the efficiency that you need.

 

[BillFleming]

Perfection. It's not just about body looseness, or anything else physical. Not really. People with stiff-ish bodies can still throw extremely well. Perfection is mainly due to an action being 100% repeatable. When you do an X-step for a straight throw, do your feet hit the exact same spots every time? Does your throwing arm move the exact same way every time? Does your body move forward the exact same way, with the exact same timing? Most likely, not....maybe not even close to the same every time.

No matter what shape a person's body is in, it all comes down to our movements being repeatable. For me, I know that is one of the things holding me back from performing better....and I have physical limitations....if I could just spend more time on making my form as close to 100% repeatable as possible, my game would drastically improve.

 

[hisdudeness47]

Perfection. It's not just about body looseness, or anything else physical. Not really. People with stiff-ish bodies can still throw extremely well. Perfection is mainly due to an action being 100% repeatable. When you do an X-step for a straight throw, do your feet hit the exact same spots every time? Does your throwing arm move the exact same way every time? Does your body move forward the exact same way, with the exact same timing? Most likely, not....maybe not even close to the same every time.

No matter what shape a person's body is in, it all comes down to our movements being repeatable. For me, I know that is one of the things holding me back from performing better....and I have physical limitations....if I could just spend more time on making my form as close to 100% repeatable as possible, my game would drastically improve.

Training my muscle memory to repeat a form that has a kink in the kinetic chain and/or has the potential to cause injury, both short-term and long-term, is exactly what I do not want to do, especially if it's because of some physical limitation.

I totally get what you are saying by the way. There's a lot of truth to it. I suppose it depends on a lot of things, namely how much you play and how good you want to be. The royal you, of course. If you're content with where your game is at and you're not playing much and you're not hurting much, well, I suppose physical limitations aren't as important, and repeatability is. You will definitely be better right now than us tinkerers. However, in 10 years, you never know. A form flaw or physical flaw could catch up with you. I submit that flexibility and mobility are hugely important for anyone, regardless of whether they are disc golfers or not. We should be nipping this one in the bud separately. This discussion is related to disc golf, but it also isn't.

 

[BillFleming]

Training my muscle memory to repeat a form that has a kink in the kinetic chain and/or has the potential to cause injury, both short-term and long-term, is exactly what I do not want to do, especially if it's because of some physical limitation.

I totally get what you are saying by the way. There's a lot of truth to it. I suppose it depends on a lot of things, namely how much you play and how good you want to be. The royal you, of course. If you're content with where your game is at and you're not playing much and you're not hurting much, well, I suppose physical limitations aren't as important, and repeatability is. You will definitely be better right now than us tinkerers. However, in 10 years, you never know. A form flaw or physical flaw could catch up with you. I submit that flexibility and mobility are hugely important for anyone, regardless of whether they are disc golfers or not. We should be nipping this one in the bud separately. This discussion is related to disc golf, but it also isn't.

I'm not saying flexibility and mobility aren't important. I'm just saying they are second to having a repeatable form AND actually being able to repeat that form. You can be 100% flexible and mobile, but still play badly if you can't repeat your actions consistently. But if you have repeatable actions and can consistently repeat them, you'll do well even if you aren't flexible and/or mobile.

It's not about repeating a form that has a kink in it. It's about training a repeatable form that works for the person's limitations. If you have a stiff back and can't bend over well, you need some other repeatable form that lets you throw a hyzer. Exercises, etc can't always fix/improve physical limitations....but finding a repeatable form that compensates for it can help.

In my case, I am 63 with scoliosis (my spine curves the wrong way) which causes my hips to be off level (not a whole lot, but noticeable). If I lay down flat, the scoliosis gives the impression that one leg is longer that the other. Can I change that? No. Can exercising improve that? No...it can help reduce the pain, but it can't change what I am physically capable of doing. However, I can find a form that works for me and continue to work on that form until it becomes repeatable without me thinking about it.

 

[hisdudeness47]

I'm not saying flexibility and mobility aren't important. I'm just saying they are second to having a repeatable form AND actually being able to repeat that form. You can be 100% flexible and mobile, but still play badly if you can't repeat your actions consistently. But if you have repeatable actions and can consistently repeat them, you'll do well even if you aren't flexible and/or mobile.

It's not about repeating a form that has a kink in it. It's about training a repeatable form that works for the person's limitations. If you have a stiff back and can't bend over well, you need some other repeatable form that lets you throw a hyzer. Exercises, etc can't always fix/improve physical limitations....but finding a repeatable form that compensates for it can help.

In my case, I am 63 with scoliosis (my spine curves the wrong way) which causes my hips to be off level (not a whole lot, but noticeable). If I lay down flat, the scoliosis gives the impression that one leg is longer that the other. Can I change that? No. Can exercising improve that? No...it can help reduce the pain, but it can't change what I am physically capable of doing. However, I can find a form that works for me and continue to work on that form until it becomes repeatable without me thinking about it.

Totally understand ya. There certainly are limitations that can't be cured, per se. Whatever we do for our body and game is highly individualized based on what we're working with. I suppose I was talking about the physical limitations we do have control over and can improve. Just being aware of them is half the battle. I had no idea that my internal rotation on my throwing shoulder was so bad until finding the Apley Scratch Test. Now I can work on it and think about how that could affect clean and healthy form, past, present, and future. I don't have the answer to that but I bet somebody does. Can't hurt to improve it though!

 

[Brychanus]

I'm so glad you responded. I kind of knew you would. It's especially nice since we're the same age. I have a long athletic background (baseball, basketball) with strong soccer/hiker/mountain biker legs from my pursuits in recent years but I imagine some of the benefit of that stuff has waned as I was pretty much all disc golf last year and a whole lot of nothing through this terrible winter. As the sun is finally shining again and my full body form epiphany is happening at the same time, I really have decided to pay attention to my body the last few days. I haven't even thrown in five days. Instead I've been performing countless YouTube mobility and flexibility tests and routines to figure out my weaknesses, weaknesses that have/will continue to affect my disc golf ability and performance if I don't get a handle on it.

Much of what you said is pretty much exactly what I've been stressing to myself too, coincidentally enough. There's a lot of times that I ask questions where I already kind of know the answer but I'm always looking for other perspectives. Been doing a ton of flexibility work, mobility work, band work, and Theragun work. Definitely feeling a little bit more open and limber already. We shall see how it translates on the field/course.

For what it's worth, I have discovered that I have terrible shoulder mobility in my throwing shoulder (right). Poor internal rotation and poor adduction. Doing the Apley Scratch Test was shocking. Definitely a huge and necessary area of focus now.

I also have mediocre external rotation in both shoulders, poor "overhead" shoulder mobility in both shoulders, mediocre external rotation in both hips, and poor internal rotation in my right hip.

How all of these fit into limiting clean and long term healthy disc golf form, I'm not sure yet, but no doubt they do. Need to clean all of this up. Anyone have thoughts on how these weaknesses could contribute to a poor kinetic chain of events and limit clean form? The more I know, the better. I definitely want to start teaching and tutoring disc golf in the next year or two and I submit that this is a very overlooked part of form. There's knowing the right steps, the right moves, the right timing, etc, but then there's your physical ability to make it happen. No amount of form expertise is going to trump your body's inability to perform a move athletically and pain free. I submit that many people are trying to implement form fixes without the physical ability to do so. I'm beginning to see wisdom in taking care of any physical limitations before even trying to implement form fixes. Seems much more efficient and healthy in the long run. The itch to throw is super hard to resist though. I get it. My first tournament of the year is in 10 days, one side of my brain is telling me to get out there and practice my gaps and approaches and putting and driving and all of it. The other part of my brain, which has assumed an executive power in the last few days, just wants my right index finger to be able to touch my left shoulder blade behind my back. Honestly I might not even get a ton of prep in for this tournament and lower my expectations of myself. Honestly I will probably play better because of it. Anyway, this delayed satisfaction/physical improvement mindset is winning right now instead of just going out and disc golfing every day. I know it's better in the long run.

I found that the GOWOD app is pretty cool. It puts you through a series of mobility tests and has some personalized mobility routines based on your weaknesses. It also has every exercise available in the free version which is nice. I will drop some screenshots of my inabilities :-(

As a fellow headcase passing his physical prime, it's important to know that bodies can still improve late into life. Just more slowly, and the ceiling creeps down at different rates for different people. Per your post above, I'm mostly reacting with:

1. Be careful not to confuse individual anatomical limits with pathology. There are real differences in connective tissue composition, bone structure, etc. I think finding the distinction between your own anatomy & pathology is pretty important. If you try to "rehab" anatomy it's probably steering you wrong.

2. Weaknesses & limiting form: I'm very happy I followed SW/seabas philosophy to learn & work in the full range of motion. I do think that if you don't learn the form in a full range of motion (i.e., however your body achieves that), there are limits you're imposing on your ceiling & a tax you are putting somewhere on your kinetic chain that you could otherwise improve. I do think that specific limitations to my legs & injury history have been a large barrier to progress. The solution is still the same - work on gains, and if I encounter limits or pain slow down to work on that issue. Learning the long game of patience has been the hardest part for me.

3. Expectations: I think it's healthy to have clear, reasonable goals you can achieve in weeks or months that are supported by evidence. You can also have aspirational goals that you suspect might be too hard to achieve, but keep you motivated to find whatever ceiling you have. The trick there is not demotivating yourself if the road to the aspirational goal is longer than you expected, or indeed impossible.

4. A point about standstill and x-step that is worth mentioning:

Learning a full range of motion in standstills (Figure 8 standstill) is a brilliant way to address the above issues. Another thing to keep in mind is that as you add momentum and force in the x-step (let's call it 20%), there's just that much more load going through the system. Working on optimizing the x-step is harder, and I notice a bigger impact effect on my body even as I'm moving better - simple physics of adding more force to an extent. I was basically forced to space work on it out with a few rest days in between to make sure I am getting full recovery cycles.

So from a longevity perspective I've been very pleased to develop a standstill that can reach pretty much any non-touring pro level hole in my vicinity. But there's a threshold where my body is throwing faster, and the added impact at that threshold lengthens recovery time, and I am still building resilience in the long run. Finding that "sweet spot" of making progress without needing to shut down or getting hurt is a really tough balance. It's only tougher if you're learning when older w/ less resilience to begin with.

 

[medicinalfunk]

If those boots help you carry medicinalfunk's keg around, it might just be all the efficiency that you need.

No need for the boots, that's why I bought a cart.

 

[hisdudeness47]

DG Strong has some very related wisdom here. Nothing Earth shattering, just some applicable philosophy.

https://youtu.be/z0yFSGJBl4g

 

[ninjabq]

I found that the GOWOD app is pretty cool. It puts you through a series of mobility tests and has some personalized mobility routines based on your weaknesses. It also has every exercise available in the free version which is nice. I will drop some screenshots of my inabilities :-(

Lol if you think you have inabilities, you should see mine. I just downloaded the app and did the test and got a 40% overall. Thanks for the rec though, cool app!

3. In general, I replaced my old lifting routine with resistance bands, yoga, dynamic exercises and stretches that shore up areas of weakness or inflexibility. Doing more moves that help me move and improve posture and swing in general. I recently noticed that I also get limber more quickly when I warm up and less sore the next day.

I've been trying to switch around my gym routine with things to help with mobility/flexibility/explosiveness and keep just enough strength training in to maintain what I currently have, but I have had a hard time settling in on a routine since I've never really built one myself. Would you be able to provide some detail on your routine these days?

 

[Brychanus]

I've been trying to switch around my gym routine with things to help with mobility/flexibility/explosiveness and keep just enough strength training in to maintain what I currently have, but I have had a hard time settling in on a routine since I've never really built one myself. Would you be able to provide some detail on your routine these days?

Sure! It varies since I cycle moves and like to keep it fresh, but I probably go through these the most right now. I try to get at least 4 workouts per week in. I am only throwing 2x per week to ensure 100% recovery between drives for now.

Dynamic functional exercises for legs (I shoot for 2x/week):
-I always allow at least one day between this day and any sort of throwing. I sometimes combine a few of these with Core day depending on how my knees are feeling (below).
-I do some seabas drills as part of my leg routine. Hershyzer, Ride the Bull in particular. It's important to make sure you're doing those correctly if you also want to use them as a workout - get them checked if so.
-I started to do a lot of walking/multidirectional lunges otherwise. Anything that emphasizes leg recruitment and resistance like walking & dropping (like Crush the Can). Forward and back, side to side, etc.
.

-I do some one and two leg hopping exercises that often help isolate the calves (big area of weakness for me), and especially supporting core and hip muscles. I do some with arm swings to help fluidly swing with all my mass (like a DG swing). Personally I don't think of these from an explosive* angle as much as compressing and resisting and moving my whole body more easily and efficiently. IMO these are where I'm making up the most for "lost time" not having a significant athletic history.

Core (technically every day, but focus on it 1x/week:
-Various kettlebell swings/medicine balls. For the most part I focus on oblique slings with these. I try to be very mindful of getting my legs recruited for these because I used to muscle 'em through the upper body too.

-Planks are fine, I prefer dynamic variants like these:

-Also a few good mornings and other moves that recruit the posterior chain.

Upper body (1x/week full session, 1x/week just 15 minutes of bands):
-Not too fancy, I basically still use tubes with handles that are fairly "heavy" here for one or two-arm curls, triceps extensions & their variants.
-Also use simple resistance bands to do spread exercises for pec, back, and shoulders.
-Door anchor for resistance tubes: I do rotator cuff exercises, arm circles, and lumberjack swings. Don't use too much resistance for rotator cuffs or circles - those are more about limbering up with gentle resistance
-Some good 'ol pushups and pullups. Mostly for posterity/muscle maintenance.

*On "explosiveness":
I still have a wary relationship with the idea of "explosiveness" in terms of exercise or the DG swing. As I've learned more, what appears explosive is hard to distinguish from "mechanically & athletically efficient." E.g., I independently had encountered things from the "Weck method" and decided to tinker with it more after SW mentioned it in a form critique. After I did it, I realized that what might look "explosive" about this move is more about getting compressed and dropping efficiently into the "plant" - just like a disc golf throw. When you do it right, it feels way more like you're getting coiled and shifting and dropping automatically - athletic, and definitely quick. Some people don't get the connection if their swing isn't developed enough yet, but it's IMO definitely there if done well. I'm not sure if that's what people mean by "explosive." Definitely fluid, efficient, powerful athleticism and something I've needed help training. It's also interesting to me that the "best" move always feels the lowest effort - and yet still definitely "athletic."

 

[Thediscgolferguy]

I love this thread and topic, what would be interesting is if you guys would list all the specific mobility tests that you would assume to be disc golf relevant, I would be curious to try some tests out and see if there's anything to work on mobility-wise.

One that I can think of is internal and external hip rotation, if either one is quite limited I would not be surprised if it could limit once form a bit.

 

[Thediscgolferguy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQXcV3_JQdU (to check your hip internal rotation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53tRgkZ-BEM (3 simple exercises to increase internal hip rotation and control)

I would assume this can be very relevant for disc golfers, especially the ones that struggle to coil fully and engage the hips.

 

[timothy42b]

I came across these while looking for info on shoulder adduction:

https://www.mytpi.com/articles/fitn...your_result?search=Seated Trunk Rotation Test

That one is about thoracic spine mobility, something I lack after 30 years office work.

This one talks about age related changes in shoulder mobility in ball golfers.

https://www.jospt.org/doi/pdf/10.2519/jospt.2003.33.4.196

 

[Sewer bill]

I came across these while looking for info on shoulder adduction:

https://www.mytpi.com/articles/fitn...your_result?search=Seated Trunk Rotation Test

That one is about thoracic spine mobility, something I lack after 30 years office work.

This one talks about age related changes in shoulder mobility in ball golfers.

https://www.jospt.org/doi/pdf/10.2519/jospt.2003.33.4.196

Lat test is interesting. I can put both my hands on the wall palms out. I don't know what that means but it felt like a nice stretch.