Thursday, November 20, 2014

Right Pec and Some Grip Answers


Video time! Direct link for the mobile users: youtube.com/watch?v=fEo754f7aKg

Some very interesting field work sessions (in between sub-arctic temps). Below are 3 very blurry screen caps from some video review.


What's been nagging at me to various levels of insanity, is why I can hold the disc later easier with the wide rail (More on the wide rail here). I do believe it is somewhat related to hand speed, but I think also there is something more under the covers.

The 3 screen caps:
Wide Average just trying to throw a regular wide rail shot. It just ends up holding to 4:00 nearly every time. Wasn't squeezing at all hard, just typical feeling grip.
Straight Bad was just a very normal shot, squeezing hard from start to finish and lose it right at 3:00.
Straight Better was a intended to be the same as the previous shot but  I would keep my grip loose until I started extending the disc forward and straightening the wrist, where I'd squeeze hard.

On the good news front, I have been able to stop the problem of slipping early with a straight pull. How I fixed it was by altering my grip pressure and timing, which was because of a great email from Joshua:
"Your grip strength is determined mainly by your forearm muscles. Your wrist extension and flexion is also determined by these muscles. If your wrist is flexed, your forearms are utilizing a portion of its strength, taking away from your grip strength."
So I grabbed a GripMaster hand strengthening thingy, and gave it a go. Squeeze with wrist straight - no problem. Bend your wrist like you're flexing your bicep, and there goes about 50-60% of your strength. Now extend your wrist open and squeeze, definitely losing some degree opening as well, but substantially less than when the wrist is closed.

Light bulb flickering for sure!

I would set my grip pressure during the back-swing. Then the wrist would bend at the right pec, and I would lose my grip strength.

Re-squeezing at that point was out of the question, I'd already set my squeezing limit and the gig was up because the pressure I had on the rim was too low to hold during the redirection of the disc.

But by focusing on squeezing after the wrist un-loads, all the sudden I was back to holding to 3-4:00 with the straight pull. The later squeeze seems to happens naturally during the wide-rail because of the redirection. You don't even try to squeeze hard because of the direction change.

I do believe that a straight pull backhand is a very useful shot, as is the wide rail - but as I am learning the wide-rail, it's nice to have know that I can be a little bit more accurate throwing on a line. I won't ever stop throwing a straight back-swing, as it seems to do certain things easier - and I'm just really happy that I've worked out why I was slipping off the rim!

2 comments:

  1. I love your blogs. I notice my driving distance has really improved quite bit lately esp after reading the wide rail article and the grip thing in this article. Been playing disc golf for past 6 years. I had one to one sessions with Blake T, Dan Beto, Andrew Gregos, Zachery Jansen and Daniel Sweet in the past but still struggle with 300 feet plateau. But lately I start to hit over 320-330 feet more and sometimes hit 340-360 on great throws. Did hit over 400 feet with MVP Interia today but it was very very slight downhill so actual distance may be around 370 which is still very good for me. Notice if I throw very well, I tend to throw more to right so I need to adjust my aiming point via footwork. Cannot wait to see improved progress esp work on delaying/late shoulder turn and avoid spinal tipping. Focus on gripping tighter do helps me. Have you seen Ken and Marc Jarvis's video "Slaves to the Ryhthm" http://youtu.be/ncFsq7vqE3w Ken's BH looked so smooth as whole body is rotating along Y axis nicely. Man, that guy Ken threw DX Teebird over 800 feet :)

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    1. Thanks, I am stoked for you that you're making some break throughs with the distance! I love that Jarvis video - and they are ridiculously smooth!! No clue how you jump to that kind of distance... that's mutant power!

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