Vertical flight trajectory of a disc

[Pavel]

Since I got so nice and friendly replies to my first question, I got enough courage to ask one more

With vertical trajectory I mean the shape of the altitude of the disc. After 2 years of (recreational) playing I found out, that the longest (and incidentally also the most precise) shots resulted from throws where the altitude was almost constant, i.e. when thrown in parallel with the ground. When I threw it higher, it eventually reached the point when it broke to the right (RHFH) and fell down. Due to this, the precision suffered, but also the length.

Still, when I checked some videos or saw some better players, they almost always throw much higher. But their flight trajectory is similar to ballistic trajectory.

I am not sure I can be understood. Here's what I think it looks like when I throw higher than parallel. I also drew how I believe the disc is tilted. Hard to guess, though, especially in the right part.

Is my observation correct? If so, what am I doing wrong? Is it just insufficient power (but it happens to me even with mid range discs), wrong technique or an issue of the sidearm throw?

And if I may have another question, more general. I am aware of the fact, that vast majority of players are back hand throwers. Even many which used to be side arm throwers, converted. Why is that? Is it more flexible, more healthy, more natural or even more powerful? Because to me it looks like less powerful and much less natural. But that's just me

Thanks in advance!

 

[Curtis_Valk]

You are very correct in your observation. Throwing nose down is one of the hardest things to completely nail down. Nose up issues creep into my throw at least once on every round if I'm not conscious of my throw.

Throwing nose down on a high trajectory, or uphill is even harder. Keep working at it, you'll get there eventually. I would start with examining your grip and work from there. https://www.dgcoursereview.com/dgr/resources/articles/gripittoripit.shtml

 

[DiscFifty]

The disc appears to be nose down at the end of it's flight when throw correctly, but more than likely it's simply at the final fade of it's flight and is hyzering (or anhyzering) at an angle when it hits the ground. I've never seen a disc fly straight, level, and end pointing down without any hyzer.

 

[Lewis]

Probably the main reason to learn to throw backhanded is for distance, since almost everyone who learns both ends up being able to throw farther backhanded than forehanded. There are advantages to the forehand as well, and if you can learn to throw both well, you'll have an advantage over people who can't.

 

[slowplastic]

Nose down is 100% the issue. Nose up shots will climb and then stall like a plane, then drop off to the side. This is not what you want.

Nose down shots will plow forward, and more gradually fade while dropping in height, rather than reaching an apex of no return before dive-bombing.

If you throw forehand, make sure you angle the nose downwards (if you see the flight plate during throw, this is bad news). If you throw backhand, then grip like this: https://www.dgcoursereview.com/dgr/resources/articles/gripittoripit.shtml

 

[Geek13]

Since I got so nice and friendly replies to my first question, I got enough courage to ask one more

That is the stupidest questi... oh wait I want to know this too, thanks for asking

 

[sidewinder22]

Nice drawing! Yes you are correct. It's both power/speed/spin(snap) and nose angle issues. More (snap) allows more nose down and higher throw. The pros are throwing up to the apex of it's flight and getting the nose down from there and the disc rides out. FYI it's really hard to try and throw a flat release high and nose down. You typically want to throw with hyzer or anhyzer release angle and let the disc turn nose down. Grip/disc alignment, swing plane, and weight transfer are also major factors of nose angle.

BH allows you to create more angles on the disc before release to help with spin, better grip, and more distance potential than FH.

 

[Pavel]

OK. Thanks a lot for all your replies. It's amazing community here.

I've checked some guides and some videos about "nose down" (found out that like 95% of them is for backhand) and based on that and on the answers here I'd like to summarize it a bit. Please correct me if I am wrong.

• My drawing is actually wrong - the correct throw on the right has the disc depicted incorrectly. Instead flying like a dart (nose up, straight, nose down), it is nose down whole the time.
• It's quite hard (impossible?) to throw nose down with sidearm. But it should be easier to throw with hyzer and let it turn somehow (anyone knows any good video or guide for this? I can't quite imagine that )
• BH is better than FH in all aspects, but sometimes you may want to throw disc in a way, that it turns to the right at the end of the flight - that's when you choose FH

 

[ihatepickles]

Great drawing, it illustrates the point perfectly. Better throwers have already said it's nose angle and I agree.

For me, nose angle issues were fixed by doing some field work. I exaggerated the nose down angle (really exaggerated) to get a feel for what I wanted. I gradually brought the nose angle back up until I felt I was in the sweet spot. I immediately started getting 20 more feet on my low flat shots and my upward shots really improved by 50 feet.

It took me a few weeks to put it all together and the first few field trips were awful. Stick with the work and you can get the nose down. I try and repeat my drill every couple of weeks to reevaluate my nose angle and reaffirm the progress.

 

[ihatepickles]

My drawing is actually wrong - the correct throw on the right has the disc depicted incorrectly. Instead flying like a dart (nose up, straight, nose down), it is nose down whole the time.

True but we all understood what you meant. There's not enough granularity in your MS Paint skills to depict the actual nose angle of the disc. The difference between nose up and nose down release is really only a centimeter... not easy to draw that.

 

[sidewinder22]

The drawing is accurate, nose down is relative to trajectory on the way up not necessarily the ground unless you are throwing a 5' high line drive.

Nose down is the same BH or FH.

I don't think I'd say BH is better in all aspects.

 

[Plastic Thunder]

I like the picture, there a tee-shirt in there somewhere. I think the others have covered things very well, good luck. I look forward to more drawings though.

 

[slowplastic]

As for your forehand vs. backhand question, I'd say keep doing both if that's what you're doing. Yes most pro's throw predominantly backhand, but they also have a pretty good forehand...and some can throw equally well both ways.

I have a crap forehand, but in general I would agree that initially it looks like forehand is a more powerful way to throw because of being accustomed to throwing sports like baseball or something like a tennis forehand being more comfortable than a backhand. But on a backhand you can get a bit more body into it when everything is working well.

To me the advantage of backhand is it can be easier to throw clean releases, and the spin to speed ratio of the disc is more on the stabilizing side...you can get straighter flights. Lots of forehand players need to throw more overstable discs (forehand gives more speed vs spin on the disc), so the discs you use to throw far end up having more fade at the end. A fairly skilled backhand player can throw a 350' fairway driver with minimal fade (drops before fading much), whereas a forehand shot at 350' will likely have a much more pronounce distance driver type fade to it. I'm sure some forehand players can straighten out less stable discs...but in general I think this holds true.

 

[esc1]

Hmm, I've never thrown with the nose down on purpose. Not even for field practice. Good reason it says newbie under my name.. I figured nose down would just cause the disc to crash into the ground sooner or even flip over. Always thrown flat. I will have to experiment with this for next field practice. Sounds like it might help me get past my current distance plateau..

That drawing is awesome by the way.

 

[roflsocks]

My understanding of this is as follows. It's worth noting that this isn't a shot that I throw, merely my understanding of how it is that others are able to do so. I'm sure there are some finer points that only become apparent once you're actually throwing the shot personally.

I heard once that you can throw a disc at approximately 4 degrees down, and the lift on the disc will hold it level until you run out of speed and gravity begins to win. Now that I think about it, the specific angle probably varies a bit with disc selection, with some discs providing more lift than others. But the idea still applies, there is some combination of disc downward angle and velocity which will cause the disc to travel straight, neither higher nor lower to the ground.

This means there's two basic ways to gain altitude. Throw the disc flat and downard, but with a velocity which is higher than that required to hold the disc level. You can probably fine tune this by holding it down at like 1 degree downward instead of four, to get a little extra lift without being at risk of stalling out. You'll get some height out of this, but you will never see those huge sky high distance shots with this method.

Alternatively, throw the disc with some hyzer, nose down, edge up. You'll see pros throw absolutely huge hyzer bombs that gain a ton of altitude. Their nose is still down, but the side edge being upwards lets the disc gain a lot of altitude.

If you then tweak your techhnique a bit, so instead of throwing a huge spike hyzer, you throw a big hyzer flip, you can get the disc to flip up to flat, and ride out for a ways. A couple of things to note here. You need to throw the disc on a hyzer, with enough velocity to turn it up to flat. You also need to get the side edge up, so it gains height in much the same manner as a hyzer bomb would, although not necessarily to that extreme. So the disc will rise, because you threw a hyzer upwards. The disc won't stall out, because the nose of the disc is still down, even though the side is up. And the disc will turn over to flat, and once it does so, it will more or less behave like a disc which was thrown flat to begin with, except that it'll be much much higher up.