The Fundamentals of Form: Disc Golf Backhand

[Brychanus]

1.0.3. is now available. I applied a light touch to most of the areas indicated in post 45.

I like Timothy's suggestion that this is a "Backhand 101" document, and excessive attention to details right now is probably counterproductive for me and any potential readers.

At this point, I am going to go throw some discs and other unsuspecting objects, fix more form funk, and keep learning.

I'm happy to continue to collect feedback on the document here & encourage people to discuss open questions in the "Big Questions" thread.

At some point it would be nice to refine the document into a more professional-grade product, but today is not that day.

 

[timothy42b]

I like Timothy's suggestion that this is a "Backhand 101" document, and excessive attention to details right now is probably counterproductive for me and any potential readers.

It's a collection of the list's current conventional wisdom, in one spot instead of having to browse the forum and read hundreds of threads. That's extremely valuable, and analogous to having all the drill videos in one spot (thanks to whoever did that.)

 

[drk_evns]

Nicely done. Read through some and will read it all tonight. I like it so far!

 

[blayed]

Point of clarification (page 47), Drew Gibson did not have elbow surgery. He saw a Physiatrist and got a cortisone injection into his elbow. Would omit the mention between spine extension and his elbow issues because the correlation is not defined and too many confounding factors (overuse? lack of warmup? other sports?), also as an example, Kristin Tattar does not throw with spine extension and got elbow surgery in this past offseason.

 

[Brychanus]

Point of clarification (page 47), Drew Gibson did not have elbow surgery. He saw a Physiatrist and got a cortisone injection into his elbow. Would omit the mention between spine extension and his elbow issues because the correlation is not defined and too many confounding factors (overuse? lack of warmup? other sports?), also as an example, Kristin Tattar does not throw with spine extension and got elbow surgery in this past offseason.

This is good, thanks for catching. I also agree with confounding factors and don't mean to say that you can directly extrapolate from a single observation in any case. The lower back & knee issues seem more probable based on other sports studies so I'll leave that caution. I'll change this now since I don't want misinformation/"perceived confidence" lingering there.

For KT - I also agree. We mentioned in her case (speculatively) that there might be something about the side shuffle hopping forms or other attributes associated with stretching parts of the form out with less space to pull/swing that that might lead to more strain on the elbow or shoulder, but of course have no basis for saying it's definitive. Just something to keep an eye on over time.

 

[blayed]

For KT - I also agree. We mentioned in her case (speculatively) that there might be something about the side shuffle hopping forms or other attributes associated with stretching parts of the form out with less space to pull/swing that that might lead to more strain on the elbow or shoulder, but of course have no basis for saying it's definitive. Just something to keep an eye on over time.

A little bit off topic - For KT I think it's even simpler. She is really a FH dominant player who managed to create a solid backhand (IMO I think PP/Henna/Eveleina have better BH mechanics and distance but KT's BH works just fine for her clearly). She throws a lot more FH than most of FPO. She seems to be doing ok now though.

 

[Nick Carroll]

The funny thing is, KT's injury last year, she said in one interview that it hurt to throw backhand, but had no pain with her forehand at all, so that's something to consider. May just be an overuse injury, not so much one created by bad form.

 

[Sheep]

The funny thing is, KT's injury last year, she said in one interview that it hurt to throw backhand, but had no pain with her forehand at all, so that's something to consider. May just be an overuse injury, not so much one created by bad form.

She had a cist or something in her elbow. It wasn't a form related injury.

 

[txmxer]

In a way, I think there needs to be a 0.01 physics of flight describing what is the goal.

Given the variation in how people achieve a great throw (bh or fh), one should begin with the end in mind.

Not that this particular document is the right place, but a parallel or similar development of the flight of the disc.

If you think about all the form stuf, it's only half the picture. From the perspective of science, results are how things are judged.

This might be better as 1.02 with 1.01 addressing the end goal at least at a high level.

There is a lot of history/threads that discuss this aspect, but they have not been curated with such effort.

Regardless, I'm blown away at the effort Brychanus has put in to this labor of love. The corollary is that this is an accumulation of wisdom from SW22 and others that have likewise invested uncounted hours to share their wisdom.

It's just a hobby or sport, but passion is inspiring regardless of where it is directed.

 

[Hampejo]

6. Integrate "get the plant leg as far out in front of you as possible" with dynamic balance theory. (Coach Taylor*, sidewinder22)

As in "north" I assume?

 

[Nick Carroll]

The funny thing is, KT's injury last year, she said in one interview that it hurt to throw backhand, but had no pain with her forehand at all, so that's something to consider. May just be an overuse injury, not so much one created by bad form.

That's good to know. I remember it being a pinched nerve but I never heard details as to what specifically was the issue, and what caused it. Glad she's better.

 

[Brychanus]

She had a cist or something in her elbow. It wasn't a form related injury.

Source? Everything I can find describes a pinched ulnar nerve, but I cannot find a reliable source on the presumed proximal or distal cause (obviously I'm not expecting to be privy to her personal health information, just want to consider all sources).

 

[Sheep]

Source? Everything I can find describes a pinched ulnar nerve, but I cannot find a reliable source on the presumed proximal or distal cause (obviously I'm not expecting to be privy to her personal health information, just want to consider all sources).

she talked about it herself on some social media. *shrugs*

I don't know what the actual issue was, but I don't remember it being disc golf related based on what she said.
I think it was on instagram.

 

[EllEstar]

she talked about it herself on some social media. *shrugs*

I don't know what the actual issue was, but I don't remember it being disc golf related based on what she said.
I think it was on instagram.

This is what she said on Instagram

 

[sidewinder22]

Point of clarification (page 47), Drew Gibson did not have elbow surgery. He saw a Physiatrist and got a cortisone injection into his elbow. Would omit the mention between spine extension and his elbow issues because the correlation is not defined and too many confounding factors (overuse? lack of warmup? other sports?), also as an example, Kristin Tattar does not throw with spine extension and got elbow surgery in this past offseason.

This is good, thanks for catching. I also agree with confounding factors and don't mean to say that you can directly extrapolate from a single observation in any case. The lower back & knee issues seem more probable based on other sports studies so I'll leave that caution. I'll change this now since I don't want misinformation/"perceived confidence" lingering there.

Drew said operation which makes it sound like surgery, guess it could just be an injection given the Dr.
The medical definition of operation is a surgical procedure.

 

[Brychanus]

Drew said operation which makes it sound like surgery, guess it could just be an injection given the Dr.
The medical definition of operation is a surgical procedure.
View attachment 315069

I had heard one medical commentator suggest the nature of the procedure for such a short timeline if it was indeed an operation, but have since forgotten the source. I'll see if I can dig that out.

 

[blayed]

If you look up D. Scott Kreiner he is a Physiatrist (non-surgical orthopedist). They do exclusively injections as a their form of intervention and are not surgeons.

Also as someone who was previously scheduled for orthopedic surgery, It takes time to see the doctor, schedule an MRI, wait for the results to come back, see the doctor again, have scheduling find an available window, two weeks preop, procedure, two weeks postop. Drew withdrew and the next week got a procedure, which is consistent with a timeline for an injection. No surgeon would recommend surgery right off the bat unless previous conservative measures (its not like drew was resting it or was doing PT) failed or nature of the illness was such that it could only be rectified surgically.

On KT I spoke to the definitive estonian disc golf source and he said it was something to do with relocating the nerves in her elbow, which given her incision site pictures seems consitent with ulnar nerve entrapment surgery/cubital tunnel.

 

[Sheep]

I had heard one medical commentator suggest the nature of the procedure for such a short timeline if it was indeed an operation, but have since forgotten the source. I'll see if I can dig that out.

he talks about it in this video.

 

[Murwen]

I usually write in LaTeX these days, but it looks like Word's table of contents page numbering can help. Added to the list for 1.0.3.!

Oh, I actually typeset a couple of chapters of version 1 using LuaLaTeX as an experiment a couple of weeks ago because the WYSIWYG typesetting generated by Word was driving me insane. Any particular reason, other than figure placement, that you went with Word over some flavour of TeX?

Would it be possible to access the original *.docx file? I'd quite like to keep tinkering with it in my spare time and I think having access to the original document would shorten the conversion process a whole lot as I might be able to use a couple of tools to automatically extract things like figures and document sectioning into TeX.