"The Method" by Brian Weissman

[sidewinder22]

I won't endorse anyone who teaches the forced back leg twist, let alone the back leg push down, as the source of power.

FYI this is also what Trebuchet/Owen is teaching, he's even in one of The Method vids.

 

[StupendousMan]

Went through the videos last night. As a former MTG geek in high school/early college, the Pat Chapin cameo popped me pretty good. Production quality is fantastic. I also appreciate the intent to make the actual learning tool as simple as possible. (Not the language throughout the page, but the actual drill(s)).

I struggled with most of it. I did try to put my own biases aside and tried the drills in case I was missing something. My trail leg hamstring instantly lit on fire, and not in a good way. That immediately told me I was getting exactly zero real engagement from my gluteal muscles in initiating the throw. Typically when I execute "good mechanics" (knowing full well I'm a work in progress) that are more in line of what Seabass, etc teach, I feel the biggest contributions coming from my trail leg glute med and my lead leg glute max. Intuitively this seems to make sense to me that those muscles would be contributing highly to the throw. I could be way out to lunch there.

The two videos that resonated with me were the one from the co-creator about an "alternate brace" which really just explained weight shift/hip extension, and the one with the S&C guy. But both of those clips seemed to be somewhat at odds with Brian's wordings. The alternate brace essentially took the back leg IR out of the equation completely as any sort of active movement (which, to be fair, he did say alternate). The S&C guy did talk about internal rotation in the back leg, but more as a synergistic type movement with external rotation of the front leg, as opposed to being the prime mover in the entire through, which was the impression I got from Brian's explanation. Trebuchet did mention earlier that he thinks of it as a teaching tool, and that the actual motion is more passive when throwing. I don't think it's a teaching tool that makes sense for me personally, but if it achieves the correct outcome then it's working for those people. I can think of other sporting motions where different teaching ideas can sound completely at odds with each other, and both achieve the same outcome in the end. A lot of the time it seems to be athlete dependent and experience dependent. For me, this series did not exactly speak to the way I think about human movement, so it didn't really move the dial for me in a positive way.

Relative to Weissman's strength levels. I can see a certain level of strength being beneficial, but also a very fast point of diminishing returns. I lift for fun these days and am nowhere near as strong as I once was, but I know what movements felt like at each strength level, and I don't really think it would have had any real major impact. Granted my "for fun" strength levels are still relatively strong all things considered, especially compared to the majority of the disc golf population, so maybe I'm just completely oblivious to the benefits they're providing. Taking my mobility work way more seriously on the other hand (more for Olympic lifting than anything), has been a game changer. I noticed in a couple videos recently how much easier it is for me to coil now, etc. Which, is slightly tangential to the topic at hand, but in a way not, because hip rotation is something that is actually much easier and more comfortable for me now than it ever has been in the past, both internally and externally. Meaning, forcing internal rotation in the hip is more doable now for me than ever before, so if it was ever going to be successful for me as a teaching tool, now is the time.

So, in conclusion, definitely not for me, and I can't say I agree with the concepts on a fundamental level for how I think about this, or any sport really, but if it works for others, that's great.

 

[Brychanus]

I can think of other sporting motions where different teaching ideas can sound completely at odds with each other, and both achieve the same outcome in the end. A lot of the time it seems to be athlete dependent and experience dependent. For me, this series did not exactly speak to the way I think about human movement, so it didn't really move the dial for me in a positive way.

Relative to Weissman's strength levels. I can see a certain level of strength being beneficial, but also a very fast point of diminishing returns. I lift for fun these days and am nowhere near as strong as I once was, but I know what movements felt like at each strength level, and I don't really think it would have had any real major impact. Granted my "for fun" strength levels are still relatively strong all things considered, especially compared to the majority of the disc golf population, so maybe I'm just completely oblivious to the benefits they're providing. Taking my mobility work way more seriously on the other hand (more for Olympic lifting than anything), has been a game changer. I noticed in a couple videos recently how much easier it is for me to coil now, etc. Which, is slightly tangential to the topic at hand, but in a way not, because hip rotation is something that is actually much easier and more comfortable for me now than it ever has been in the past, both internally and externally. Meaning, forcing internal rotation in the hip is more doable now for me than ever before, so if it was ever going to be successful for me as a teaching tool, now is the time.

Hey @StupendousMan I was curious about a few things since you have an S&C background if you don't mind doing a "peer review" of what I'm trying to learn. I'm interested in this in general for player development and for a couple personal reasons. I'm also including some bits that come from the sparse data we have on high-level throwers but will keep it de-identified because I was asked to. Thanks for any thoughts/discussion you're willing to have

1. I would never contest that mobility is incredibly important, and I think this is the single biggest thing most adults would benefit from. I sure as heck have & do!

2. It seems important to distinguish broadly (a) pathological, (b) normative athletic, and (c) elite athletic conditioning and strength at any stage of life. I guess in general if it's pathological, you should prioritize and accommodate to that, e.g., in a pathway from rehab to bolstering strength, and addressing areas of relative weakness.

3. It seems like literal muscle mass in general helps protect joints, but there are diminishing returns.

4. Disc golf specific: it seems like the most "muscular" part of the move is that very brief moment when the plant leg is taking and transmitting the brunt of the ground force reaction (by some estimates 2-3x the body weight, or potentially higher in some cases). In that phase of the plant, the strength of the relevant plant leg and postural chain maybe needs to be able to have a peak force resistance of at least that amount. But handling it transiently doesn't mean a 200lb person needs a 400 or 600 lb. one leg deadlift, right? Theoretically, maybe adding more strength to a plant leg means adding more potential ceiling, but there are likely diminishing returns mechanically based on how the move works (or should work). It also means that if you are physically heavier you need enough strength to bear the brunt of that transient impact (and repetitively). I'm not sure how the raw strength/"slow-twitch" parts of the chain would matter beyond that. What you said about rear glute med and front glute max makes some intuitive sense to me too based on most forms.



5. There is the peak slow twitch strength, and apparently there is peak 'reactive strength index' that is related to how quickly a leg can transfer plant impact forces. I can't tell you details, but I can tell you that it is quite high in some of the most elite throwers on the planet. It is also apparently the case that less massive or longer levered people can have less RSI (but still quite high) in the legs or plant leg and still achieve great distances, so it is making me think this is mostly about resisting brace impact forces and transferring them, and one takeaway is that less advantages body types can potentially find benefits in developing reactive strength (while also potentially using different extremes in form to make up for shorter levers). Spencer Strider in MLB remains my favorite example. Some people apparently have scales for this and there are tests discussed in a meta-analysis here.

So I'm really just trying to consolidate what I think I am learning for general takeaways, but as usual I am not 100% confident I am getting it all squared.


*Anecdote alert: I was/am one of the rehab-to-bolstering cases. Most of my adult life I've been around 240lbs. I used to be able to bench 1.3x my weight x8 reps, and could never do that with a deadlift (posterior chain lift). It wasn't really intentional; I just was always lagging way behind in that lift, and during COVID my legs became quite weak relative to my size (i.e., requiring rehab). When learning to backhand, I've accordingly had a lot of trouble with my legs and resisting collapse that some people apparently just don't have. But those people usually didn't dip into the pathological weakness range, and are usually not as big and "inverted" as I am physically in terms of levers, and muscularly. After spending a lot of time on one-legged lifts it has at least given me many fewer "collapse" issues at impact. Some of it is neuromuscular, but some of it was certainly muscular in my case. But I am maybe not your average customer because I have mostly been rehabbing and shoring up the muscles for longevity and safety at my size. I am not really sure the next thing for me is to go deadlifting 500 lbs as much as working on mobility and balance and quickness and maybe some of the reactive parts of my otherwise very slow twitch and sluggish chain through the lower body.

I also found it interesting that my vertical jump height and quickness has increased somewhat just from learning to backhand. So of course learning to do the move is also conditioning the body, but in general there appear to be reasons people in every other throwing sport do body conditioning including strength training and I'm just as usual insatiably curious.

 

[StupendousMan]

@Brychanus

Figured I'd just tag you instead of making a huge quote chain. Happy to contribute where I can here. With the obvious caveat that like anything, I'm only one person in the S&C world and there are going to be people more educated than me in that field, blah blah blah.

That said:
The tl;dr version is I think overall your assessment of the situations are bang on and very consistent with how I view it as well. Meaning, if I don't address a specific point in my response, just assume I've agreed nearly verbatim with what you've said . Specifically I'm just going to skip points 1-3 because I don't think they need any more fleshing out than what you've done, and I agree completely.

Regarding 4, this again I agree with, but it also made me think of a couple examples.
I also suspect that is the most "muscular" or "violent" part of the movement, but that is just going off of thinking about it in general as opposed to having any studies or data to reference here. So, very open to someone with some data to come and tell both of us we're wrong and why we are. In general, I tend to think of the plant in disc golf as being relatively similar in concept as the block in a Javelin throw, and to some extent the high jump as well, though that is obviously trying to direct the force far more vertical than disc golf or javelin. The other athletic event that comes to mind in terms of the forces needing to be managed by the plant leg is the triple jump. One of the people that comes to mind is Jonathon Edwards, still current world record holder. He was known for being more of a 'freak' in the gym even amongst triple jumpers, having a monster of a power clean and half squat for his weight. That said, I think* I would argue that it's far more of a case of "He can powerclean 150kg and half squat 235 because he can triple jump 18m" as opposed to "he triple jumps 18m because he cleans 150kg". Obviously a fair amount of gym training went into those gym numbers, but I think it was more a reflection of his athletic abilities as opposed to being a bigger performance aid for triple jump than say just cleaning 120-130kg, which would likely be more in line with other TJ'ers of his weight. I don't know about current estimates, but at one point the estimate was that triple jumpers had to accept approximately 15 times their body weight in terms of force upon impact. I don't know if there is a gym exercise in the world that can replicate that kind of impact force. Long story short, I think there is a good amount of evidence that there is a level of "strong enough" for almost any sport, and at a certain point, the ability to express that strength as dynamically as possible and injury prevention exercises tend to take the focus of training as opposed to just building strength. I can think of a Canadian thrower example (Dylan Armstrong) who was insanely strong, but the part that mattered to getting him up that final tier was more how he expressed it dynamically. Watching that man push press 315 for sets of 8 at a speed I couldn't even comprehend. (And I did learn this at a seminar hosted by both his developmental coach and his post collegiate coach). Injury risk pops up as another factor at certain levels too. Even when 500lbs felt light on my back, it was still 500lbs, and the injury risk for one false movement was very real. I'm positive this factors into many elite athlete considerations when training. The last thing any athlete wants is to get hurt doing the supplemental work.

With RSI:
I'm genuinely very curious how this may or may not translate into the disc golf throw and in what populations. Your comment about the long levered folks with smaller RSI's especially is what I was thinking of. I don't think anyone would argue that Ben Johnson has a higher RSI at his peak than Usain Bolt at his peak, but they were both the best in the world at their time. Their 100m races were structured very differently of course. Anecdotally, without having done the actual RSI tests, I have a hunch my RSI would measure fairly high for my current age bracket. (I'm 35). I'm still fairly fast off the ground, and have a pretty respectable vertical still for my weight and age. I grew up in sprinting/long jump, so the fast twitch stuff has always been there, along with reasonable levers for my height. That said, I'm only 5'8, and while that is fine for sprinting, I get outthrown regularly by people who are 6'2 with objectively worse form and speed, regardless of whose methodology you subscribe to. They aren't beating me in the RSI department or in the gym, but they're sure as hell throwing futher than me on the course. Likewise there is another local thrower who can outthrow me who is maybe 5'10-6, nothing special about his limb lengths, but he is still active in badminton, a very twitchy and reactive sport with a ton of directional changes and bracing involved. I expect your guess on this matter is at the very least, close to the mark if not on it.

That was a long winded way of saying I feel like pretty much everything you said is bang on and consistent with how I'm thinking about things. The only real hiccup is I'm still only 3.5 years into disc golf so very much a novice in terms of that knowledge. So I'm completely liable to be wrong about smaller applications to disc golf in some sense, but the overall principles I don't think I'd be far off the mark on.

I agree with your strength assessment, deadlifting 500 is cool, and if it's your goal outside of disc golf absolutely hammer on it and get it done, but if the primary purpose is for disc golf, there is no need to overdo it. Let the strength come as it comes and it absolutely matters for general health, but you certainly don't need to be ready to walk out into an oly lifting comp or a powerlifting comp to get the benefits for disc. I have zero data for this number, but my gut instinct is after around 2x b/w deadlift we'd probably start seeing some real diminishing returns in sport application. But I made up that number on the spot so don't take it as gospel or anything more than a 5 second guess.

 

[Putt for D'oh]

Just as a complete aside the mention of Ben Johnson and Usain Bolt and different kinds of races.

Johnson far right. I couldn't find it quickly but I thought I had seen something long ago Johnson had one of the fastest ever recorded reaction times.

 

[Brychanus]

@StupendousMan

Wow, thanks for all this, it is frankly reassuring in general and personally.

I had never watched Jonathan Edwards. It is plain spooky to watch him moving.



Intuitively I "understood" some of what the plant and ground force reaction are doing jumping crush the can drills and throwing right out of them. Some of the ideas behind e.g. kick the can drills are the same, or people jumping, throwing, then jumping off the ground as part of the throw. I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with even without strength deficiencies. It's good know it's like "getting a jump into the disc" from a more general S+C perspective, potentially. In some ways building form for me has been making that basic body insight and then trying to build stuff around it and keep trying to optimize.

Expressing it as "dynamic strength" and the gym as additive and supplementary and injury protective around the base skill is helpful. It seems like after any real deficits in body function are addressed, there's a general wisdom there and of course exceptional bodies and athletes just do exist even among very elite people.

I think you're picking out a lot of the multidimensional stuff that likely matters when it comes to throwing far. I always find it interesting to think about individual differences in where the relative sources of power come from.

Personal takeaway:
Based on my read here, I'm probably not too far off the right track continuing to shore up weak areas and do things that help develop neuromuscular advantages overall that help "make up for lost time." After a certain slow twitchy strength level, working on the more reactive end of the spectrum is probably not a waste of time since I've been deficient there my whole life. That can also have a "virtuous circle" effect with form work. It sounds like there's agreement that working on throwing is its own form of body training, so I can just supplement it and have fun with that too. I'm someone who can accept age and body type differences but will still want to work on injury prevention, and if those things also can incidentally add a bit of "pop," why not?

@Putt for D'oh, that's an awesome image. Some of us are just "faster off the line" than others in life more broadly, I reckon.

 

[SocraDeez]

RE: jon edwards. It's bad form etiquette to thumbs up a post without consuming all of the post's content, B.

The Power of Posture

Forgive me if a repost by title, but I didn't find a dedicated one and it might be good to have a fresh discussion anyway. I keep finding more and more synergies between SW22 DG coaching and the waltz in particular, and thought that a general thread helping people with posture concepts and...

www.dgcoursereview.com

RE: strength stuff. At the far eastern ends of athletic skill bell curves, the ability to relax/deactivate/transition/get off that thing is probably a greater delta/skill separator than the inverse. Guarantee that rear leg ground force reaction over time observations are well-correlated with throw disc far, with the high skill end rear leg ground force observations peaking earlier + having a steeper drop. I have no post-second-industrial-revolution-scientific-method data to support this claim, Neil, but you're gonna like the way you look, I guarantee it. Jon Edwards tie-in for this last point: watch how he "creates" most of his ground force reaction while in the air/positions his body to get that sweet sweet early force peak. The rest is almost reactionary/involuntary when one is well set up in the air/prior to ground strike.

 

[Jaani]

FYI this is also what Trebuchet/Owen is teaching, he's even in one of The Method vids.

I haven't seen that from Treb.

 

[Brychanus]

RE: jon edwards. It's bad form etiquette to thumbs up a post without consuming all of the post's content, B.

The Power of Posture

Forgive me if a repost by title, but I didn't find a dedicated one and it might be good to have a fresh discussion anyway. I keep finding more and more synergies between SW22 DG coaching and the waltz in particular, and thought that a general thread helping people with posture concepts and...

www.dgcoursereview.com

RE: strength stuff. At the far eastern ends of athletic skill bell curves, the ability to relax/deactivate/transition/get off that thing is probably a greater delta/skill separator than the inverse. Guarantee that rear leg ground force reaction over time observations are well-correlated with throw disc far, with the high skill end rear leg ground force observations peaking earlier + having a steeper drop. I have no post-second-industrial-revolution-scientific-method data to support this claim, Neil, but you're gonna like the way you look, I guarantee it. Jon Edwards tie-in for this last point: watch how he "creates" most of his ground force reaction while in the air/positions his body to get that sweet sweet early force peak. The rest is almost reactionary/involuntary when one is well set up in the air/prior to ground strike.

Well, let's chalk that one up to my failing memory or comprehension systems (and probably some "body blindness") and my penance is to look more at booties and load-unload dynamics again. Apologies! I'm glad you're here as always.

Just to draw that out again, one thing @SocraDeez occasionally has oriented me to is the dynamic load during forward or sideways movements and watch the recoil or elastic rebound effect of the legs under load when the weight shift completes. It's part of how ideally an athletic compression and decompression phase works in transition moves, including ideally an X-step. One of the "mysteries" that may have led to the back leg throwing movement is that the impact of posture helps solve the kind of work the rear leg ought to be doing, and it involves (I now think) a lot of the answer to why there are so many differences in emphasis or opinion on the rear leg.* The better the posture is in transition, the more you get an efficient loading and unloading phase. That's why pro-level rear leg transitions appear relatively low effort in the drift phase, but there is a rebound effect with the unloading. The booties are part of the athletic motion and one difference I often notice in the best forms is the dynamic booty action KJUSA sticks out as a particularly boisterous booty, but you can start to see booty pops, jiggles and wiggles like an athletic dance.

My memory/body comprehension doesn't fail me entirely:

The Finish & Address Position & Pre-Shot Routine

Beautiful pre-shot routine from Heather Young. Note how she walks forward to end of tee and pauses after the shifting into plant with elbow forward and then reverses to top of backswing with front heel lifting and re-planting(can't see her feet in this) and then swings thru to finish position...

www.dgcoursereview.com

For some reason (and possibly because I can move more like Eli than Edwards if I try), I still always remember this booty action. I started letting him feet move around and feel my booty move and wiggle a little again and it seems to help my body gets in "the mode" a bit better this time.

I've always found it interesting that there's dance muscle memory help, but also interference. E.g., I got decent at salsa and there's this somewhat famous trend of men having pretty rigid hips, so I worked for a few years on that and developed respectable booty action and rock and wiggle. But when I switch that over into athletic posture and mode it's a bit different, and I knew it was "sorta" like salsa hips, but not quite the same. More reactive force and loading and unloading and different posture. So in any case I found athletic "attack" or linebacker thoughts more effective, but it has taken a while before they would get remotely any power into discs. Just a little Eli booty step and shake helps even if I am not as poppin' as Edwards.

Last on your quote here:

"Guarantee that rear leg ground force reaction over time observations are well-correlated with throw disc far, with the high skill end rear leg ground force observations peaking earlier + having a steeper drop."

I still suspect this is almost certainly true, and it's one of the most difficult things to see and think about in transition. To get too self-indulgent for a moment again, having a slightly busted rear side in my case probably means that with slightly unstable ground leverage into the hip, dynamic posture will always be slightly dorked. But the move can still entail some form of "booty-lite" action, ground force reaction and spring in a quick(for me) transition, and accordingly aid the ground force reaction and quickness in the plant. It won't be as elegant as some dances, but I should probably be Krumpin' there and pulling an Edwards with some of the pop, not Waltzing.

Maybe. Possibly. I hope.

*I'm also empathetic to people who have physical troubles that affect how they think about or try to instruct these movements. I appreciate recently and even while writing this post better than ever what is truly "sneaky athletic" about the rear leg transition, and its nature is partly exposed by the struggle many people have learning it, and also what gets more.difficult when accommodating for physical limits in one form of another. But I'm still interested in "good enough/compensatory when needed" and mechanical concepts in my own case and in general.

SocraDeez, I "liked" this post too, then I "unliked" it to avoid the cognitive "completion" effect and replaced it with a wow face of shame. Hopefully I remember it better after some new processing ;-)

 

[Brychanus]

@SocraDeez @StupendousMan @sidewinder22

Wow, WTF.

Two things:
1. Let's talk about booty presets, loads, and unloads in dynamic transition
2. Let's revisit glute medius vs. maximus loading and phases

The preset booty in all its glory in Edwards. Notice the sharp transition in the booty as his leg lands and body passes over it, then notice the reflexive "kick in" rebound effect in transition. Watch that buttcheck POP. This is the "same" as what SocraDeez once had me stare at with high-level cricketeer.

The "same" booty pop and rebound:

What I think eluded me and others is that once you take that "same" mechanic more lateral, it is kind of hidden depending on your visual frame of freference. This is the "same" action in Wiggins:

It's sneakier in some players and postures than others, but it's there. At first they look different than Big Wigg, then suddenly they look mechanically the "same" to my in transition, complete with Booty Pop:

If you take the posture from a triple jump and make it a pro level X-step, you understand the importance of posture coming into the move, the booty pop and the action of the trailing leg into follow through.

2. @StupendousMan Glute max vs. Medius - check my work.

I suddenly thought to follow up - I think in general you tend to see a progression on the rear side in good posture from a gluteus maximus load , a transition through glute medius as the "lateral" pat of the shift completes, and then a gradual opposite phase from glute medius on the plant side to the glutes medius as the plant is briefly bearing the full impact force. I find looking at butt-on views helpful here. Even though mine is somewhat gimped, I definitely notice that "swinging the battering ram" posture or Double Dragon help train this action (Hershyzer too). Even with some issues on my rear side physically*, I can apparently achieve some version of a "booty pop" that has a phase of peak gluteal load. My best guess is that it is kind of like a mirror image of the plant side - the peak gluteus maximus load on the rear side is probably exactly when the rear side is transitioning through the highest weight portion of the move, and the posture ideally determines the after-image of the move. I do think there is variation across pros - Simon, McBeth, and Eagle have very clear "Battering Ram" posture in transition most of the time. Someone like Gossage looks a bit different to me and maybe the phases and peak load sequence differs with his posture and rhythm, but he still goes through all the "main beats" of this sequence.

Bonus: compare Sexton and McBeth's transition moves. Sexton gets a bit of the "booty pop/boost." But his posture traps him partly behind his X-step in transition. Compare Paul's superior "battering ram" posture in transition and the resulting "booty pop:"


*Another anecdote alert: (if you're lurking this and trying to improve your own form, PLEASE be careful. I probably would have ruined something with this move without a ton of prerequisite work w/ Sidewinder).

I've been messing a bit with trying to get more "athletic" in transition trying to figure out how to help SW get me through my weird leg issues (which is a real gait impairment in my "Figure 8" on the rear side and always forces my rear knee "out and away" from my body unnaturally, including when I walk). I'm gradually realizing it needs to function more like I described above (unwittingly but inconsistently including the "booty pop" despite SocraDeez's previous efforts), I definitely notice that when I'm getting better "sweet spot" moves with higher peak power at low effort that my glutes are putting in some work on both sides. My guess is the peak force is likely higher on the plant side but I'm curious how that plays out because clearly the rear leg is doing it's own version of efficient work (ideally).

I'm going to ask sidewinder to forgive the posture errors this one time - this is one way a big, slow, aging, and slightly busted man can find a bit of his "booty pop." Pitter patter around like Eli Manning or KJUSA before the move, get a little more "athletic" in transition, and let that booty load, pop, and release in transition.

In that particular throw I was focusing also specifically on "get athletic and swing through my center" (many instructors never really think about this and unfortunately I think has deep implications for their teaching). Notice how low and tight my "power pocket" is up there and look at the classic Wiggins gif:

... and in the finish suddenly we see this despite the blemishes in my move. Notice the differences in the trailing leg and how "on the toes" Wiggins is, which are issues very well known to me at this point in my own form (and why I work on my own leg conditioning much more deliberately now). He's still Big Wigg and has a top tier transition move and is getting the Edwards and Gazelle effect - I'll never move that well so I'll just adopt what I can. But what I find interesting is that just getting a little more postured and athletic with th "smash through the center" thought evoked the "booty pop" and made this happen automatically when I landed in the plant. This is the "force bow" of posture. F@#%ing fascinating:


So nice it's worth posting twice:

 

[Brychanus]

I haven't seen that from Treb.

I'll step in on this one because I think you now appreciate that when I talk about this stuff it is never personal and only ever in the spirit of learning, teaching, and resolving differences in concepts or opinions. I like Treb and hope that we would both agree that we are on good speaking terms with each other, and I am always open to critiquing myself.

Also remember that I have spent a ton of time comparing weight shift models and have done a lot of independent study alongside what Sidewinder teaches. So I'm not just "preaching from the choir" myself here.

Here's where at least a few differences between Sidewinder and Treb's models for one leg throws exist, which I think also illustrates a lot of the bases for confusion about balance, the role of the rear and front legs, dynamic balance, and action through the upper body. I'll avoid a level of technical depth that some people don't like in favor of "natural" move speak.

Notice that Treb's feet are both pointing toes pigeon-toed in and his body is tipping away.

It's because:

(1) in his transition form the rear leg, his body mass (and technically theoretical center of mass) is trapped "inside" his rear leg, which (almost?) always causes a player to "spin" more off the rear foot, resulting in the toes turned in and heel farther away from the target and

(2) his balance is "behind" his brace leg rather than stacked fully "on top" of it like hopping up and down on one leg.

Try to do Treb's move while hopping. You will fall back away from the target off balance. If he picks up his rear foot in that finish position, he will likely start to fall back away from the target. Seabas will be able to keep standing up on the front leg into the finish position.

When you watch his arm action in real time, it "hinges" like a gate more than it rotates like a natural torque-transferring move, and he takes the move "over the top" of the brace as he stops his forward momentum, but the motion of the arm and its trajectory differ from the others because he's taking a flat plane over the leg rather than an athletic motion "on top" of the brace. FWIW I've messed thoroughly with the differences for hours and these things are always related in my motion, and that also appears to be the case. Another way to say it is that Treb's arm motion is compensating for trapping his body mass behind the brace rather than being dynamically stacked on top of it.

Another usually reliable "diagnostic" is the orientation of the rear foot in the finish position. The heel turning away is almost always a sign that the player "spin shifted' off of the rear foot. Regardless of dramatic camera angles you'll usually see the opposite pattern in the highest-level pro movement in that respect (i.e., toe farther from the target than the heel).

BTW everything I'm saying here is a matter of degree - there is a continuum from a purely spin-shifting move to a purely non-spinning move.*

IMHO one implication of this Seabas, Simon, Ellis, etc. are all more likely recruiting a "gluteus maximus" phase in athletic transition way more than Treb's move, and way more than Weissman's move.

Which one is "right," or closer to it? Try it out!

Once again, I repeat "nothing personal." Just some very well-intended observations.

*Rear leg physical issues obviously also impact the quality of the move and can lead to compensation - I'm the first to rush to the "middle ground" there in my personal case.

 

[timothy42b]

Notice that Treb's feet are both pointing toes pigeon-toed in and his body is tipping away.

It's because:

(1) in his transition form the rear leg, his body mass (and technically theoretical center of mass) is trapped "inside" his rear leg, which (almost?) always causes a player to "spin" more off the rear foot, resulting in the toes turned in and heel farther away from the target and

(2) his balance is "behind" his brace leg rather than stacked fully "on top" of it like hopping up and down on one leg.

That part still confuses me a bit - how do you stand balanced on top, but at the same time be resisting lateral motion? I've done a lot of OLD and I think not understood the "feel" of it though I probably occasionally do it right. Weight moving behind seems to make a little more intuitive sense. Like walking, where your plant leg catches you. Brian's attempt to teach people the feel of the brace is probably a good idea although I'm not sure if the rear leg IR will do it. Sebastian's alternate made more sense to me.

Speaking of which:

 

[Jaani]

We are also comparing dynamic moves done by actually throwing to ones done by showing to the camera while talking. You can't compare them. Trebuchet's teaching, to my knowledge, has nothing to do with twisting the rear knee or pushing down the back foot to throw, which are the fundamentals of BackLeg disc golf I refer to.

Or they used to be. Sling just posted a new video which shows him to be yet another step closer to teaching the brace and stopping the momentum on the front leg and then throwing, which is good.

 

[Brychanus]

That part still confuses me a bit - how do you stand balanced on top, but at the same time be resisting lateral motion? I've done a lot of OLD and I think not understood the "feel" of it though I probably occasionally do it right. Weight moving behind seems to make a little more intuitive sense. Like walking, where your plant leg catches you. Brian's attempt to teach people the feel of the brace is probably a good idea although I'm not sure if the rear leg IR will do it. Sebastian's alternate made more sense to me.

Speaking of which:

IMHO as usual these are good questions and "double bounce" was on my mind too.

Not sure if there's learning value in this but I'll summarize a few things that may be related to it in DG BH training:

I think when I started messing with increasingly subtle little changes I started to notice some moves are a little more "bouncy," some are a little more "smooth redirecty" and some are in some space in between or both (or however we want to say it). It's some weird interaction between the posture, athletic "mode" your body is in, and how the body is balanced at the exact moment the leg starts to interact with the ground in the plant (ideally with a toe lead; I'm always pretty flat-footed and that's still partly related to my sluggish legs and especially calves).

I think I learned something "new" (physically) in my exercise regime. Specifically, I would take two dumbells and do traditional lunges forward, sideways, and reverse. I would brace my knee inside my ankle in each direction. These were kind of "slow twitch" lunges emphasizing mobility and dynamic stability as much as one-legged strength (well, you still have some weight on the rear leg, but most weight shifts to front leg). I also was doing static one-legged lunge holds for 3 minutes per leg like Spencer Strider started with to enhance isometric strength. Then I started walking with the dumbell lunges forward and reverse (dynamic stability and strength).

After I could do all of that pretty effortlessly with 40lb dumbbells I was studying some of the "reactive strength" stuff before I knew about "reactive strength index." Apparently from a safety and performance perspective it's helpful to shore up the slow twitch and isometric chains before you get more reactive and dynamic and "bouncy." Makes some intuitive sense I guess.

So I added a more "reactive" lunge with the same dumbbells even before I realized there are videos about it. Here's a raised box one I haven't tried but will next leg day. I do exactly this, but on flat ground with the dumbbells. It is clearly making each of my legs recruit more of the "reactive" chain than the slow twitch lunges.


Then I added these with body weight only:


And these:


Somewhere in these you get some "double-clutchy action",

And some of the top throwers in Europe on the "Elite" end of the spectrum use even more advanced moves and weights etc.

My guess is that "double bounce" training can benefit from Crow Hop style drills like you see used in Major League Baseball. Sidewinder's hopping drills from leg to leg all do it too, ideally.

 

[Brychanus]

We are also comparing dynamic moves done by actually throwing to ones done by showing to the camera while talking. You can't compare them. Trebuchet's teaching, to my knowledge, has nothing to do with twisting the rear knee or pushing down the back foot to throw, which are the fundamentals of BackLeg disc golf I refer to.

Or they used to be. Sling just posted a new video which shows him to be yet another step closer to teaching the brace and stopping the momentum on the front leg and then throwing, which is good.

Hey man, I think you and I will end up half-agreeing on this point. Please keep in mind I am being conversational and not confrontational in tone and I value our rapport, and any conversation we have about this!

I think it will help for me to be very clear about what I currently think (1) drills and throws tend to have in common, and (2) what they do not.

I think an example will help, and it's better if I take one from outside of disc golf first. My favorite example is comparing a fully slowed down move to its real-time version:



One way I think about drills vs. live throws is that there are fundamentally two parts:

1) The slow twitch part of the move that can be pretty much fully slowed down, isolated and controlled, albeit with some caveats of less "tilted" balance,

2) The fast-twitch, dynamic, and reactive part of the move kicks in for real-speed moves in proportion to the speed of the move. You can't "fake" ground force reactions and elasticity in the body and momentum and their effects. You need actual ground force and momentum and elastic loading and unloading for them to kick in. This is something I keep appreciating better and better by the day, and part of what your own kinetic chain has that mine lacks. It is part of what I see to be different in Hogan moving fast vs. moving slow- it's all that extra "dynamic stuff."

In the Hogan video and disc golf slow vs. fast movements is that the weight shift mechanics and "shape" over the overall move are almost always related. In slow vs. fast movements, the overall weight shift mechanics and balance are almost always similar if not the same. If you do not care much about those things, it won't matter much to you. But I do, and now I can't "unsee" it (but am willing to be shown wrong if I am).


DG Case Example of the "honest drill effect" in weight shifting mechanics:
In the case of Treb specifically (once again I am saying nothing personal and we could have swapped in any other example), his drill motion weight shift mechanics and posture specifically are "tells" for his live throwing.

He uses very similar/if not the same shift mechanics (or at least did at the point I found this video - again I'm just making an example). Notice that this is part of why I put "spin-shifts" off of the rear leg and on the front leg on a continuum - Treb's is much less significant than some other people out there, and the overall shape of the movement is otherwise much better than average.

However, you can see the after-effect of the effects of a slight spin-shift if you compare him to E.g. Simon or most other top throwers. You are seeing the postural after-image of his One-Leg Drill. Notice that in the OLD he has his brace orientation at odds with his CoG whereas Simon's is stacked right over top of it* (it takes several camera angles to convince yourself of this in my experience and of course there is a bit of variability in pro movement). Simon's rear side has the toes behind the heel, his posture and head come slightly more forward completely over the plant foot, and his throwing arm ends up clearing faster and more freely with the rear side doing the same into follow through. Treb's actual mass and center of mass are trapped slightly more "behind" his brace at the same point in the transition, the trail side leg and arm are not fully counterbalancing, the trail foot toes are closer to the target than the heel, and the head is somewhat more trapped accordingly with his body/posture.



This is why I am very public and very open to critiquing my own movement in drills and live throws, and why I consider taking old content down. Of course drills and live throws will differ to an extent. But where I differ from some others' opinions perhaps is that drills are also diagnostics for motions to an extent, for the slow chain part and weight shift, at least. Some people think of them as entirely different things. To me, they are about fundamental motion and balance in the absence of some dynamic effects as described above. Drill motions are often surprisingly "true to form" for where people carry their balance and how they shift their weight overall, throwing or not.

Need to look at it case-by-case.

Never personal, only meant to be instructive and discussed.

*Here again because IMO people find it debatable - real mass is different than theoretical center of mass. The imaginary pink orb is just a reference point in the cases where I bring it up to help emphasize certain points. I am very aware that not everyone agrees about the relevance of the concept, just pointing out what I have found instructive.

 

[Brychanus]

Or they used to be. Sling just posted a new video which shows him to be yet another step closer to teaching the brace and stopping the momentum on the front leg and then throwing, which is good.

Sorry, I meant to reply to this too:

I think really my only goal in the long run keeping people talking to each other is to encourage consensus in the long run if it can be found. I'm hopeful that anyone who cares as much as we do about this stuff in the long run talks more than they shut down (including me).

 

[Jaani]

I hope my shitty form is never compared to the fundamentals I teach . I mean, I throw that odd 500' or so (given the right disc and a little tailwind and 360 run-up, I could even hit 600') but I would never tell anyone to copy what I do, but what I say. Right? That's what separates coaches from, say, world records holders and multiple time Major champions.

 

[Brychanus]

I hope my shitty form is never compared to the fundamentals I teach . I mean, I throw that odd 500' or so (given the right disc and a little tailwind and 360 run-up, I could even hit 600') but I would never tell anyone to copy what I do, but what I say. Right? That's what separates coaches from, say, world records holders and multiple time Major champions.

Yes, this is also a fair take in spirit and why I think we (at least) half agree. I'm really not interested in personal "hits" in any way shape or form. I myself am very aware that I will have lifelong limitations in some movements, so I try to be very careful to separate understanding vs. "knowledge." Mostly I just aim to point out that when people see and do different things, there are usually reasons. I think it is up to each person what they really take away from it - I just personally value sharing and "talking it out."

 

[StupendousMan]

There's a couple really cool pieces of information here that remind me of a couple of things.

I was listening to a lecture from a local S&C guy who is currently working a lot with football players (CFL level, if that means anything to anyone) and a couple of upcoming olympic athletics women. B's about isometric strength immediately reminded me of an exercise that the lecturer indicated they've been using with their football guys in prep for the combine. They have a very fancy and expensive machine that can measure force production. So, they do isometric deadlifts essentially by setting up safeties around mid pull height for a deadlift and have the athletes try to deadlift the bar through the safeties as hard as they can for x seconds. What he did caution is that without the machine to measure the contraction (they tested this by not telling the athletes the results I believe*) it was more difficult for the guys to actually generate maximum power output, but as soon as they had a way to measure it they were generating more force this way than on regular deadlifts. Not dissimilar to a phenomenon in a lot of strength based activities where it becomes hard to produce maximum force when it isn't required. Connecting this to disc golf, it made me think of Seabass' hammer drill and how it more or less teaches you how to 'trick' your body into inputting maximal force into the disc. A little bit of an aside, but I thought it was neat, and relates well to the hammer drill.

Dumbbell jump squats are a staple in my 'pre-comp' warm-ups for the track kids I work with. Reminds me of an old "russian lifter trick" that some of the strong guys would use in the warmup room. They'd overload the bar beyond what they were capable of and just do the eccentric portion of the movement before heading out to the platform. Then, when they actually went to lift the weight they intended to lift, it would "feel" lighter to them and they'd attack the movement with more confidence. I've been meaning to play with this idea in the field trying to "bomb" some throws.

The last point that really stuck out since my last post was the idea of drills as a diagnostic tool. I think there's a huge amount of wisdom to this. Regardless of what sport anyone coaches, there are some really cool videos on youtube from Dan Pfaff (imo the GOAT of athletics coaching) about using the warmup as a movement screening tool. Even if nothing from it specifically is applicable to the sports people are interested in, just observing his thought process in all of it can be a great learning moment. Drills can and absolutely should also be able to be used in that context, in addition to their other values.

I'm not ignoring the stuff about CoM in the brace etc, that's just the area where I feel like my noviceness in the disc golf world comes through, and any thoughts I'd have would be relatively ignorant.

Connecting all this back to "The Method", and I'd be very, very curious to see how Brian moves doing other physical activities and how that relates to his journey in disc golf. Likewise, when it comes to his concepts with the method, using his drills in a diagnostic way is quite interesting to me. Again, in the most respectful way possible his drills just did not land for me in a way that makes sense for how I think about this sport and athletic movements, but, I definitely found diagnostic value in them. Didn't tell me anything I didn't already know about myself and what I need to address movement wise in general, but had I not already known those things it absolutely would have exposed them!

 

[HyzerRoc]

I think in general it's wise not to infer too much from one's own motion alone. Theoretically "ideal" rear leg does kind of a "corkscrew" maneuver as it takes weight and balance on the rear side, but you shouldn't have to intentionally corkscrew the leg in real time. It should ideally work as a unit with the body's posture in transition. Speaking of being a bit careful relative to one's own throws: this is a case I'm bringing up just because I can't do it completely on my rear leg side, but some version of that is true in advanced movement.

Good read on McBeth IMHO. Now go back and watch Weissman's posture and balance over the rear leg, and figure out why his legs move like that into the shift and why his shoulder and elbow take the trajectory they do. Hint - it involves where his balance is (or isn't) in transition.

Those 3 pics are from his introduction video where he does a short drive. The yellow line is where I would see his tilted axis. In the last pic it is a little weird, because he still has both feet on the ground but I picked that position because it shows him in his doorframe position.

My impression is that the steps he is taking are really short and lack weight. Watching him it feels like he is tiptoeing and his lower body is disconnected from his throw.

In the leftmost pic he is already turned backward/south when he should be squared up above his left foot. The left foot is also turned already which will make it really difficult for him to push off of it/get leverage against his instep.

In the middle pic he would fall over if he pushed off his drive leg. The stance is too narrow and his knee is angled inwards (like mine).

In the rightmost pic his knee is left of his front hip. Swiveling on top of that hip wont work well. He also takes a massive stagger.

His shoulders look a little flat to me, he doesnt have a lot of tilt in this throw. This might also be because of the short drive he takes here. He also barely drops into his plant, instead staying upright the whole time.

First time doing this, so likely to be very wrong. Im open to criticism tho, if you want to point something out.

I hope my shitty form is never compared to the fundamentals I teach

. I mean, I throw that odd 500' or so (given the right disc and a little tailwind and 360 run-up, I could even hit 600') but I would never tell anyone to copy what I do, but what I say. Right? That's what separates coaches from, say, world records holders and multiple time Major champions.

I also agree with Jaani here, but wanted to take you (Brychanus) up, trying to find something out about Weissmans move.