What are the benefits of a runup?

[zenbot]

Fitness.

 

[iacas]

Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

 

[knettles]

I feel like when I do a full run up I end up releasing late and throwing wayyyy off to the right. Something about the timing, idk. 90% of my drives are an X-step pattern of 1 slow step then a quicker X-step. During the quicker X-step I will pivot my hips away and then rip all the way around and through. But it all ends up just being 2-3 steps.

This may not be your problem, but I used do do the exact same thing. When I figured out what was going wrong, it was like Christmas morning. When I was doing a full faster runup, I was starting the pullthrough (and shoulder rotation) too soon. That shoulder rotation was translating down to my hips and legs, causing my right foot to rotate off line before it planted down. So instead of my plant foot landing in line with my target, it was landing off to the right about 10-30 degrees. Where was my disc going? You guessed it, 10-30 degrees right, exactly following the path of my plant foot (not the toes, but the whole foot itself). I made sure to not rotate so early, and pull through only once my plant foot was down. Most of my shots go generally straight now. Generally.

 

[chain_ape7]

A guy in our club has one of the biggest run-ups I've ever seen and he crushes it. I have also seen Jim Oates in the tee box. Complete opposites but the same results. Both players accelerate from slow to fast from the reach back and follow through the hit. I guess it's whatever you learned when you started playing. I asked Jim Oates how he began to drive with no run-up and he said he started playing while recovering from a soccer injury (broken foot) and he just learned to accelerate with no run-up.

I have a lot to learn.......but it sure is great to see different styles and techniques.

 

[BrotherDave]

You get a nice breeze through your chaffed thighs with a fast run-up. :\

 

[Alcuin]

The runup just sets up your body to pull through the shot. I'm very much a developing player, and have been working hard on my drives this year. As I've been improving, my form in general has become more and more compact, to the point at which I'd hardly even call what I do a "run" up and I use less than half of the teepad. This has helped me accelerate later and has led to longer, more controlled flights from my discs.

The thing is though that just like everything else, it's all unique to the individual. There's a long thrower (500+) in the area who has the biggest, most flamboyant runup I've ever seen. But he's got the timing to do it that way, and has no problem doing everything from a standstill to a big run up to a 360. I'm not naturally talented enough to do that, so less is more for me. As long as you're accelerating through the power zone and throwing from the ground up, it doesn't really matter how you put yourself into position to maximize that.