Like some people I tend to read a lot on here and there is always talk about range of motion and arm speed. Over the past few months I have been working on my distance game trying to get to that 400ft range which I'm about 40 ft shy of now. Some of my changes have included increasing my reach back, more steps in my run up and increasing snap. I always read about arm speed and how important that is and I even watch some of the local pro's and can hear their arm speed. What (if any) types of things can be done to help increase one's arm speed and what affect might this have on someones game. Obviously there will be some adjustment time getting used to it but I was wondering if there was anything anyone did to help them "learn" better arm speed technique for their throws.

Thanks

From what I understand, arm speed is not really all that important when throwing for distance. Most of your power is generated from your bodies rotation - shoulders/back/hips. Also, your grip is important. I have seen people with very little arm speed get their disc out over 400'. It is more about technique than speed.

I know a guy who can throw 550ft without moving his upper arm very much at all, of course what he is doing with his forearm is another story.

I have been told I have a lot of arm speed, but I think that this is because when throwing for distance I am really using my back and shoulders to throw. My arm basically acts like a whip as I complete my rotation. When I try to throw hard for distance and actually use my arm, that is when I tend to shank it and only get about 350ft out of the drive.

I know a guy who can throw 550ft without moving his upper arm very much at all, of course what he is doing with his forearm is another story.

I have been told I have a lot of arm speed, but I think that this is because when throwing for distance I am really using my back and shoulders to throw. My arm basically acts like a whip as I complete my rotation. When I try to throw hard for distance and actually use my arm, that is when I tend to shank it and only get about 350ft out of the drive.



So maybe I just need to keep on the same path I'm on and work a bit more. I know I have not hit that wall of my ability yet or that number I can't get past I just wondered if there was something else I could be doing to help. I guess without seeing me throw you can't very well critique my ability or lack there of as the case may be :D

Try to find a local pro to play casual rounds with and have them give you tips and critique your form. I just bought a digital camera that takes video. I am going to video my throws so I can break the 500 barrier in distance comps. I still have fine tuning to do.

Your throwing 360ft according to your original post. How accurate are you at that distance? Because even on the longest hardest courses I played, the best drives were accurate 350ft shots.

I have been told I have a lot of arm speed, but I think that this is because when throwing for distance I am really using my back and shoulders to throw. My arm basically acts like a whip as I complete my rotation.




That's where the arm speed comes from. Your arm should act like a whip. You will increase arm speed by keeping your arm (and the disc) close to your body when you are throwing. The theory being that you have a set amount of overall distance to cover (from reach back to release point). By keeping you throwing arm close to your body, you make that distance a straight line as opposed to an arc.

Try to find a local pro to play casual rounds with and have them give you tips and critique your form. I just bought a digital camera that takes video. I am going to video my throws so I can break the 500 barrier in distance comps. I still have fine tuning to do.

Your throwing 360ft according to your original post. How accurate are you at that distance? Because even on the longest hardest courses I played, the best drives were accurate 350ft shots.



At a football field standing in the center of the hash marks I can throw 300ft and keep it within the hash marks. If I put my bag out I can usually get within 25ft of my bag with the occasional 10ft putt. If I tack on that extra 60 or so ft I find that I'm in the 50ft range of my bag(or giving myself a chance at long birdies, mind you I'm usually long enough just off to the right or left for a putt). Under 300ft I can usually end up with a 15ft putt on good days....course it still comes and goes as I work on the consistant part of my game. Most of the courses we have here 400ft is about the max distance of a hole, I'm sure if I ventured out of our area I would find the need for my 350ft drives to be as accurate as my under 300's.

imo, arm speed in general is over-rated as it doesn't imply any focus of power.

most players do not get a lot of snap and these players will generally peak out in the ~380' range even with tremendous armspeed. snap is the factor that really pushes people over the hump and into the 425+ realm of D. the players with tons of arm speed that also throw really far also have tremendous amounts of snap.

if you focus more on accelerating the disc into the rip rather than whipping it through the rip you are more likely to get focused power, even if starting with a slower arm at the early part of the throw.

a way i try to teach power focus is to find your approximate rip point/position and imagine someone holding a board there. if your goal was to break that board with the back of your hand you would try to explode into/through the board with maximum force vs. just swinging at the board with maximum velocity from a distance.

something i see when most players try to maximize arm speed is that their max power is generally burned up at the start of the pull-through rather than having that power into and through the rip.

hope this makes sense hehe.

Blake,

I think I am following what you are saying.

Do you mean that as you are pulling through you should really start to focus on the hit just as the disc is passing about the middle of your chest? That's really where your elbow is breaking and where almost all of your snap is coming from right?

I find that my upper arm moves relatively slowly, and arm speed actually only refers to my forearm.

I like your board breaking analogy. I had read and reread the articles on your website, but really didn't understand what was meant by applying max power at the hit until now.

--D

Do you mean that as you are pulling through you should really start to focus on the hit just as the disc is passing about the middle of your chest? That's really where your elbow is breaking and where almost all of your snap is coming from right?



Correct. It's the focused power into the hit that really takes advantage of the elbow extension and resulting tendon behavior and plyometric extension forces. Often people are way too out of control at this point...

a graphical example would be someone trying to break down a door by running at it full speed from 100' away vs. taking 4-5 explosive steps and driving into it. i suppose if you could run 50 MPH that you probably could break the door down with the first method, but it's actually more like 10 MPH and unless you have enough control to run and explode like in method 2, you'll probably have more focused power without the run.

keep in mind this is meant for people that do not yet have great snap and if you can get the same snap going full speed, the disc will go farther, but alas, most players cannot.

i'm actually looking at writing a bent elbow #3 article as i believe i had a few things a little wrong in #2 that i would like to revisit. however, this is taking a back seat to the other articles i have in the works, including the snap article that people keep bugging me about (no, it's not done yet).

am glad the board break analogy worked :)

i actually have a new drill for teaching the feeling/timing of snap (that doesn't involve a disc in the hand)... but i'd probably have to make a video of it.

Great thread !!
One thing that helped me back 6 months ago was what a local Pro told me at my Course.

He said when you are holding your Disc pretend like its a wet towell and you are going to try to "whip" your friend with it. Kind of like you would do when you were a juevenile around the neihgborhood pool in the Summer :cool:

This one image has done absolutely wonders for my distance and developing snap. Also right during your set up on the tee box remain totally totally relaxed. Almost to the point your body is limp. And then at the release "snap" the Disc like that wet towell puting a welt on your little sister :D

the snapping a towel comparison is often used, as is starting a lawn mower. i tend to shy away from both of these as i feel they take focus away from the larger muscle groups and often cause players to try to strong arm throws. while conceptually the behavior of the arm can be described in those ways, i find it to be somewhat problematic when teaching it in that way.

it does work for a good number of people to see it in those ways though.

I"ve never been able to understand the feelign of the whip/snap by using the towel analogy.. When i whip a towel it's way in front of my when i snap it and it's nothing like a discgolf throw too me at all..
THe lawnmowe i understand because you want to come straight through your body instead of around.

I never threw a frisbee until i started playing discgolf so I didn't have bad habits to get away from, but i still dont' understand how the towel thing applies. seems more like how i would throw a lid. Snap the lid late and not a lot of follow through.

-Scott Lewis

p.s. I think i throw with a bent elbow technique because i don't really have much of a pull back. my elbow is always bent to some degree until after i start pulling through.

One thing I have definitely noticed as I gain more distance is just how much snap really does affect how much distance the disc will achieve. My main stable of drivers are currently a 168 Sidewinder, a 170 Flash and a 170 Crush. One day in the field I decided to just concentrate on snapping the flash to hear that "pop" from the disc being released on my throw. When I get the proper release point(sligh hyzer) this disc will jump outta my hand and flatten up and then hyzer out to about 360ft for me. The same approach applied to the sidewinder yielded a more pronounced turnover before the disc flexed back to a hyzer but about the same distance. This crush at least for me has to be given a lot of snap and a flat to slight anhyzer release to get great distance. I usually use it for long hyzers as I have yet to really get behind it the way I think I should. I have to be careful with the sidewinder because the added snap really changes how much S curve that disc gets. The other issue I have is getting my body to drive through the throw onto my plant leg and use the power I can generate with a decent reach back and my hips to get distance. I can already tell when I get timing right and get a good rip, its just putting all the factors together at the perfect time that I'm working on now.

Great advice guys!!!

For me, the key is to forget entirely about "arm speed."

Every time I think about my arm when I drive I end up doing just that - throwing with my arm. This usually results in a rushed, unbalanced shot that turns over like mad or griplocks off into another county somewhere, because I threw my arm in a big arc or tried to throw so hard with the small muscles in my arm that I lost all feel for the release (snap/accuracy).

The only thing I focus on is the snap. Forget the idea of speed. Think about (or just "feel") being smooth, light, nimble, balanced and uncoiling your whole body into that snap. There are a lot of metaphors and mental images people like to use to help with the visualization of this. I'll throw a couple more out there.

One is the advice Mr. Miagi tells the Karate Kid: "Focus power. Focus power whole body - one inch!" This is what I mean when I talk about thinking about nothing but the snap. The mental feeling I try to have is one of all of my energy funneling smoothly through my whole driving motion, into that one point where the disc will snap from my finger.


Another way to phrase this (yay, another metaphor) is to think of your entire body as a giant jointed bullwhip. Like snapping a whip, when you get to the point in your reachback when your weight is on your back foot and you are at the instant of starting to move your weight forward, you are uncoiling your body one lever at a time, from the ball of your push-off foot through your ankle, knee, etc., all the way down to your fingers. With each new joint more muscle/tendon force is applied and the new lever multiplies the force until you have enough energy to cause an audible "pop!" when you snap the disc loose, even though no part of your body ever moved very fast at all. Like a baseball pitcher snapping off a fastball, all the fast movement is from the elbow down. And that speed is the result of a barely-controlled flinging of your body's energy out through the arm, not from power of the arm itself.

If anything, I visualize my arm being *slow*... or perhaps patient, up until the uncoiling energy hits the elbow and pops out into the snap. The arm uncoils near the end of the whole motion; it can't be in a hurry to be "fast" or you will be off balance and out of uncoiling sequence. For me, this almost always means arming the disc off to the right (RHBH).

It's all about applying those levers efficiently and in sequence, and that means balance and smoothness with increasing acceleration into the snap. The vast majority of power comes from weight shift and smoothly uncoiling the big muscles in your legs, hips, back, and shoulders - not your arm. Like driving a golf ball or hitting a baseball, you will always find that you truly crush when you are smooth and fluid and don't feel like you are swinging hard at all.

Before the throw, as I am visualizing the path I want my drive to take, I am imagining how it will feel to snap the disc off the way I want - how it will feel at that fraction of a second, how the disc will be oriented at the snap and how I will be exploding all my energy effortlessly into that inch, with my weight over my pivot foot, and how it will feel to step through smoothly and in balance into the follow-through. Then I immediately step into the run-up and "repeat" what I just did in my mind. The more you practice the easier it will be for you to visualize and "feel" any given shot before you take it.

Speaking of the follow-through, I find this is also a mental issue in generating snap/speed/power. Not only must you follow through properly, your body has to "know" going into your drive that you will follow through smoothly and not allow energy to stop abruptly in your front ankle or knee, or in your elbow/shoulder, causing pain or injury. My theory is that you will unconsciously prevent yourself from releasing fully into the snap if you are afraid of pain/injury, even if you aren't aware of it. This is why it seems important for me to visualize not only the snap but the follow through, and to be "repeating" that part mentally as well.

The technique articles on Blake's site (www.discgolfreview.com) do a great job of analyzing and explaining the biophysics of all things disc golf. And you DO have to go through the process of establishing solid form before you can effectively visualize yourself into anything. I have just been trying to communicate what really helped me (and still does) in my early improvement - getting away from thinking about "arm speed" and into being relaxed and fluid and balanced into the snap and follow-through, because this is what generates what you want from the concept of arm speed - power.

Follow people at tournaments and watch videos of the best players' drives over and over and just absorb and try to feel what they are doing with every part of their bodies. When they are in motion, immerse yourself in it virtually and imprint that motion into your brain and muscles.

It is possible to do this! When I attended the USDGC a few months after I started the game, I probably improved by ten strokes over a weekend of following the top groups and just sponging their technique into my brain, without ever touching a disc.