Power pocket

[krooster]

Had kind of a breakthrough today so I wanted to share in case it helps anyone else.

I think I've been completely misunderstanding the power pocket. Going back years ago to when Dan Beto's right pec drill was popular, I had always thought the power pocket was getting the disc near your right pec and exploding out from there. Recently I have watched other videos like one from Ezra Aderhold where they explained that the power pocket is actually when the disc is in front of your left pec and your upper and lower arms are making a 90 degree angle. I thought about this and tried it out today. I had some of the most consistently effortless longest throws so far.

My footwork is a mess, so is my off arm, so I have a lot to work on. Still only hitting the 320-340' range on a golf throw with distance drivers (at least today). But I think this is a piece of the puzzle and something I have fundamentally misunderstood for years.

 

[twistedraven]

I think left pec vs right pec isn't too important. You gotta remember that a lot of the disc golf pros have really lengthy arms which allows them to throw far. Paul McBeth's arms are so lengthy for example that his disc is by his left shoulder or beyond when he gets into the 'pocket.'

Keeping the angles between the body and shoulder at 90 or larger is very important though, and so is keeping your elbow at 90.

To me, the motion is rather simple. You are extending your throwing arm out and away from your body, bringing it back in to your body, then extending it out again as you're releasing. Some of the biggest roadblocks that prevent people from developing a power pocket would be rounding, where they reach back behind them and their body gets in the way, so instead of having the space to cleanly pull the disc into their body, they end up arching their arm around to avoid their body. The other two big factors would be pulling too early, which leads to a tense arm that's too straight to get into the pocket, or they open up too early, which collapses the angle between their body and shoulder.

It's really all about a waiting game, and looseness with a late acceleration that forms the pocket.

 

[Brychanus]

I think left pec vs right pec isn't too important. You gotta remember that a lot of the disc golf pros have really lengthy arms which allows them to throw far. Paul McBeth's arms are so lengthy for example that his disc is by his left shoulder or beyond when he gets into the 'pocket.'

Increasingly I can't help but notice not just how high the Ape Index of many top pros is, but especially how long the forearms and hands are on a lot of the longest throwers regardless of height. Very long levers in the ideal anatomical position - near the end of the whip.

 

[krooster]

I think left pec vs right pec isn't too important...

Keeping the angles between the body and shoulder at 90 or larger is very important though, and so is keeping your elbow at 90.

If you have the disc really close to your right pec, your elbow is necessarily making a less than 90 degree angle, and your shoulder is necessarily making a greater than 90 degree angle.

 

[twistedraven]

Some of the biggest arms in disc golf like Garret Gurthie and Thomas Gilbert actually in a sense 'extend' their power pocket further out in front of them by creating an angle far greater than 90 degrees between body and shoulder-- sometimes up to 130 degrees. This in effect creates a much snappier whip.

Thomas:

GG:

David Wiggins:

Basically what I'm trying to say is that I don't actively think about which pec I'm bringing the disc in to. I do what feels natural and what allows my arm to have enough space to come in then out again. Danny Lindahl has coined a bunch of different things in the backhand form that I feel just don't make sense. 'Power Pocket' is too vague and open to interpretation on when exactly it starts and ends. 'Reachback' is a misnomer and can lead to lots of rounding issues, etc.

Also it's been a while since I've watched that oldschool David Beto vid, but I do believe it was for the sole purpose of getting accustomed to late acceleration, once the disc has already entered the beginnings of the 'power pocket', and slowly guided towards the front of your body the very instance before it gets whipped out. In order to get the disc deep enough into the front pec and beyond, you have to stay loose, and you have really late acceleration.

 

[sidewinder22]

 

[Brychanus]

Had kind of a breakthrough today so I wanted to share in case it helps anyone else.

I think I've been completely misunderstanding the power pocket. Going back years ago to when Dan Beto's right pec drill was popular, I had always thought the power pocket was getting the disc near your right pec and exploding out from there. Recently I have watched other videos like one from Ezra Aderhold where they explained that the power pocket is actually when the disc is in front of your left pec and your upper and lower arms are making a 90 degree angle. I thought about this and tried it out today. I had some of the most consistently effortless longest throws so far.

My footwork is a mess, so is my off arm, so I have a lot to work on. Still only hitting the 320-340' range on a golf throw with distance drivers (at least today). But I think this is a piece of the puzzle and something I have fundamentally misunderstood for years.

I've been thinking about this more recently. I think this falls into the category of "coaching points" that get handed down and can sometimes help people initially get into better postures, but like the montages SW22 shows, it's not entirely clear that 90 degrees is a "goal" to achieve. I also noticed that sometimes (but not always) it seems to cause people to come through with their upper and lower body at the same time rather than get lag/separation moving up the chain.

E.g., when passing in a wide-narrow-wide angle pattern from backswing to the hit, yes, the upper arm will pass through 90 degrees relative to the shoulder (starting at a wider initial angle, then a narrower angle, then a wider angle again).

But you can see in the montages above that the exact angles differ across players and the 90-degree point also differs. For instance, Gibson goes sub-90 degrees in the montage above, which is different than what things like the Overthrow "Box drill" teaches and from the explicit Aderhold or Buhr 90-degrees advice. I'd be curious to see an overhead of Gannon etc. actually throwing in that case.

You still need a good relationship between the ground action and upper body to achieve the "whippiest" upper body action. As TwistedRaven mentioned, part of what differentiates pros' exact swing paths and angles is anatomy - and as they train, a "natural selection" process will start to shape the throw path as they weed out less powerful paths with (lots of) practice. It's also possible/likely that little tweaks here and there could improve top players' form to yield more speed/less effort; I imagine we'll start seeing more and more advanced "late stage" form tweaking at the highest level as the sport grows like you do in other sports. I noticed Buhr himself mentioned in his post-win interview at the Masters Cup yesterday that he was tinkering with form this past week for more power (daringly mid-season! this kid really is in it to win it) and broke something.

Monday morning philosophizing, but these are things I think I'm learning.

 

[Sard0nyx]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caALsYXIHPY&ab_channel=DanBeto

The Beto Returns. Any thoughts on this?

 

[RowingBoats]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caALsYXIHPY&ab_channel=DanBeto

The Beto Returns. Any thoughts on this?

It's so hard to know if this is a good drill lol. This makes the goal a little bit more well defined, but it still assumes some things that you have to know for it to work, at all. It is way, way easy to watch this and get the wrong idea imo.

I vividly remember trying the Beto drill when I was first learning, it was bad lol.

 

[sidewinder22]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caALsYXIHPY&ab_channel=DanBeto

The Beto Returns. Any thoughts on this?

It's so hard to know if this is a good drill lol. This makes the goal a little bit more well defined, but it still assumes some things that you have to know for it to work, at all. It is way, way easy to watch this and get the wrong idea imo.

I vividly remember trying the Beto drill when I was first learning, it was bad lol.

I never really got the OG right pec drill when I was learning way back when and fractured my tibia with bad weightshift. Most of the info in the vid and the thread is great though and Dan is really a nice guy.

I was working on the right pec drill last year and get the drill now, and what was missing was the "shift from behind". I think he kind of touches on it with the new video, "staying closed and then spin out at the end".

 

[RowingBoats]

I never really got the OG right pec drill when I was learning way back when and fractured my tibia with bad weightshift. Most of the info in the vid and the thread is great though and Dan is really a nice guy.

I was working on the right pec drill last year and get the drill now, and what was missing was the "shift from behind". I think he kind of touches on it with the new video, "staying closed and then spin out at the end".

Oh I agree, the concept he is explaining is very helpful. I just don't know if its helpful until you kind of already 'get' it.

I started to get it with larger movements personally. But that was just starting to get it. I was still off base because I was moving way, way to fast early in the swing. So...this drill could help prevent that, but only retrospectively now.

I still remember him saying "PUNCH IT" and whooo boy, that made me do some dumb stuff.

 

[sidewinder22]

I still remember him saying "PUNCH IT" and whooo boy, that made me do some dumb stuff.

Funny, that part actually helped me.

 

[Brychanus]

It's so hard to know if this is a good drill lol. This makes the goal a little bit more well defined, but it still assumes some things that you have to know for it to work, at all. It is way, way easy to watch this and get the wrong idea imo.

I vividly remember trying the Beto drill when I was first learning, it was bad lol.

I never really got the OG right pec drill when I was learning way back when and fractured my tibia with bad weightshift.

:-(

I was working on the right pec drill last year and get the drill now, and what was missing was the "shift from behind". I think he kind of touches on it with the new video, "staying closed and then spin out

Seems like it's kind of like a Rorschach effect drill. This made me realize that back in my initial form critique part of the reason I was like a stiff robot was that I was trying to get the right pec part of the drill to function and put way too much focus on it. I saw the big strong Beto arm and I guess my body took the idea to clamp down way too far and my arm got super overmuscled. Now that you mention it, I think the lack of a weight shift just made that strong arming more likely. The "punch it" part still stuck with me though to seek the late acceleration.

 

[seedlings]

The hardest part for me is waiting until shoulders come around to explode out of the pocket. I can do it for putters, but not drivers nearly as often.

 

[twistedraven]

Indeed it's very much a waiting game, and it goes against natural intuition on what a powerful throw should feel like, but damn when you do it, it comes out effortlessly, cleanly, and with lots of speed.