This was very useful. Have had several questions in the back of my mind on how the throwing motion actually works. Most videos focus on the movements you should do, but don't really explain the reason behind them or the exact effect. Perhaps it's obvious to some people, not to me though, and the explanations in this video really resonated with me, despite not being a physicist or anything of the sort. Looking forward to the next two parts!
Totally agree, it seemed like the "why" wasn't ever really addressed but there were plenty of "how" videos. And I'm glad to hear the explanations made sense. Will be fun to get into even more detail on the next couple parts!
Finally a high-level science discussion about the backhand throwing motion. Love using trebuchet model as an example. I have hypothesized that there is potential for the standstill to generate plenty of energy into the disc. I often look at world record holders in golf (I understand they have a long driver in their hand) as they do a massive rotation prior to hitting the ball and it's all from standstill.
Totally agreed! You can store a lot of energy in your body by the "butt wipe" shift of the hips forward into the plant before initiating the rotation component. Plus, taking advantage of gravitational potential energy can add a lot like with Kyle Berkshire for example. Really fun to look at how those guys get it done. Clint and I do similar stuff on our 73+mph standstill throws.
when i first started playing, i was looking for an explanation like this. just thinking about lagging my upper body so i could focus on a clean brace unlocked a whole new world for me
So glad you made this video. Ive been able to regularly throw 72mph from a standatill but cant consistently get above 65 with an x step. Ive been focusing on pushing off the back leg in the xstep to mimic my standstill, but your video implies that im looking at the wrong spot, its likely my front leg brace that is the issue
i really like Niklas Anttila form.. seems slow and precise.. when i do my standstill i feel like i i want to throw that way but when i x step i feel more linear vs cylindrical in the nature of the throw Niklas is very cylindrical vs someone like Eagle who pulls through on a linear line if that makes any sense..
Hi Nick, Great video. Can I send you a video of my form and see what is going on with my bracez? I land with my front foot open and my hips open as well. Should I actively push off my back foot into the front foot?
I can certainly help you with some coaching, my website explains the coaching plans better than I could here (link is in this video's description) and you can also reach out to my email (listed at 13:39 into this video) 👍
Nick you're a bomber, have you found a way to mitigate finger skin pain when throwing? I magically found about 60' extra in the past week and frankly my hands just seem to not be used to it. Also any tips on keeping the ability to score on a course while dealing with fairly rapid distance increases? For perspective my personal best distance has gone from about 380-385' back in august or September of 23, to now at 516' as of today. I found no doubt about it my best scores were when a great throw was 380 and a bad one was 330, I had about a 9 month plateau at that range and I shot lower scores then. Sure I have the potential to shoot lower now, but mostly I have no idea if a standstill at 50/60% effort is going 200' or 325'. I find appraoches over 100' very tricky now cause even with a putter a standstill can casually hit 250'.
I had to adjust my power grip to distribute the inside rim pinch pressure across all 4 finger pads, but even with that, the index and middle finger will inevitably get worn out more so they just have to be respected in terms of recovery between hard throwing sessions, as well as general skin care (like putting some healing ointment on them before bed). Sometimes I put superglue over the skin damage to protect it during throwing, worst case. Collagen supplementation can also enhance collagen turnover in the skin tissue across the body, which helps a bit. That's pretty awesome how you have gained all the power. Not a bad problem to have, haha! Early on, there will be unavoidable distance spray because of how your kinetic chain and timing have changed. But, over time it should re-adjust. You can also spend some time during your field warmup and cooldown to do those intermediate distance, standstill approached shots (100ft-250ft).
Do you have a recommendation on how I can make a smooth far more powerful for distance. Is it a better timed brace or speed? How do I get more arm speed? Thanks!
It's hard to give general recommendations without seeing someone's throw, but some general rule of thumbs: 1. Stay relaxed and have good rhythm 2. Try to be balanced at all times 3. Make sure the power of your throw is coming from your hips
I have a q about the throwing Arm. What is the most effective height of the arm? Most people say chest height. I was thinking it would be above chest height(90 degrees to the torso) because that would make a longer whip. What're your thoughts?
Great question! I hate to give the "it depends" answer, but there is a lot of variation from person to person due to anatomy and specific strengths (super low like Wiggins Jr. vs. super high like McBeth). I will say though, pulling the disc through at lower-chest height and keeping the elbow slightly above the disc is a good starting point. We always want to make sure the elbow doesn't get too far below nipple height, especially close to release.
I struggle pulling through correctly with the elbow and I think it's becuase I'm so uncertain how much arm or "pulling" I should actiuvely be doing. When you say that the brace is causing that internal rotation, are the arms loose and whipping around or is it a timing of both the brace and pull that needs to be adjusted together?
You nailed it, the arms have to act in sync with the rotation of the lower and upper body. Usually, the hips start rotating and then very soon after the throwing arm starts pulling through and building tension to get the disc through the power pocket.
Great explanation! Seems like you would know this answer. Lets say someone has "Perfect Form" would body mass or length of levers be the deciding factor on throwing a 175G farther? Or is it just speed at this point?
Thank you! Adding lever length and size tends to help in general, with some caveats. There is likely an optimization point where one can become too heavy and their own body mass slows them down, but MLB pitchers are throwing a similar mass implement so if we look at height and weight of guys like Aroldis Chapman or Randy Johnson it gives a rough idea of how big we can get.
Do you see any big differences between the disc golf - backhand brace and the baseball pitching brace? As a great baseball pitcher I can't figure out the backhand brace after a year.
More similarities than differences, they redirect linear momentum onto slightly different rotation axes but use the same physics. You can think of the drift into the block as where you gain the linear bodily energy (like in x-step footwork). What makes it hard is the pelvic rotation is reversed (between right hand pitching and right hand backhand), I was a rocket arm QB growing up and struggled at first to get my hips firing in the backhand because of this.
Great question - some people can benefit from uphill and some can benefit from downhill (depending on how they naturally generate power and if they are no sticking their foot down hard enough, vs. dropping too much). I'd recommend playing around with it and see what feels best!
For sure, the arm muscles get used very heavily. Like the trunk, they operate in somewhat of a quasi-isometric fashion when throwing at pull power, where the elastic tissues control a lot of the joint articulation. There will always be some level of muscular contraction happening in the arm and on lower power throws, the muscles tend to have a bigger say in when the joints move.
Good video, but I still don't understand either your explanation or your drawing of the brace or how it induces hip rotation. The drawing doesn't make sense because the force vectors have arrow heads on both sides, how does that create a torque or moment? I don't get the verbal description either. How does the ground pushing up and back (away from target) through your leg cause the pelvis to rotate in the transverse plane? The only way it would is if your center of rotation (cg) is over by the disc when it's in the power pocket. That doesn't seem likely though (I try to keep my cg along the axis of my plant leg), so how does a single force vector from the plant foot (assume back foot is not contributing at this point) cause your pelvis to rotate clockwise when looking from above? I have tried jumping sideways into the plant without any initial rotation, and I can not generate any hip rotation to matter how hard I try to post up. Try it and please tell me what I'm missing.
I can understand the confusion, I'll try my best to clear it up here :) The body's center of mass location doesn't directly correlate to the pelvis' center of rotation because the human body isn't a perfectly rigid body (there is slop and delay in communication of inertial forces do due to skeletal structure and connective tissues). The inertial force of the pelvis and associated muscles around it causes the initial rotational moment to be induced by the plant leg's force vector projection onto the transverse plane (3d vectors can be broken down into multiple 2d vectors). Jumping sideways into the plant and purposefully stabilizing the body for pure frontal plane motion won't allow the hips to rotate, you'll need to think about snapping the hips as you land to make the whole system work in balance.
Yes I know you're supposed to drive your right hip back when you land, I'm just not seeing much rotation added if there is none to start with (from the pull through and into the pocket). I'll keep at it though and see if I can figure out how to do it. Thanks for responding.
@@SparkyColdfire 👍 you're welcome. Since everyone learns the hip action a little differently, experimenting with different sensations could help you find the one that works for you. For some people they need to feel the back leg turning in, for some, it feels like a hip snap, etc. Best of luck!
You will feel your weight shifting onto it, but you don't want to move your upper body over the front leg. I wish I could explain it better over text but I have a new video on my channel (brace part 3) that gives extra details :)
@@NickKrush.DGandFit I also want to say you are the only person I have found who can explain what is actually happening and how to get there. Others know the what but not the why and the why puts it all together to give you the how
i hit 490ft on flat ground today with only a slow xstep.. it was slowest yet best timed throw of the bunch.. seems the harder i try the less distance i get.. its a confidence yet calm thing mixed with perfect timing and balance i think!
the forearm is all better but elbow is the same im trying not to throw bcuz Dr. said i need 3 months straight no activity but after about 5 days i just have to go throw a few times.. nothing crazy but yeah elbow still all jacked up but what can i say im addicted@@NickKrush.DGandFit
Thanks for a great video. Looking forward to the follow-up episodes. I do disagree with one point, though. The storage of elastic energy in the trunk. I made a video explaining the biomechanics of the SSC: ua-cam.com/video/KzdGF3eWrSk/v-deo.htmlsi=nNqtb31goQRYBSf2
Thank you for the feedback and correction on that, Jouni :) I watched your video and it was super insightful, for some reason I had never learned that the muscles responsible for trunk rotation had connective tissues that don't store elastic energy like normal skeletal muscle tendons, so that's my mistake. I'd imagine the trunk is operating in more of a semi-eccentric, semi-isometric contraction (depending on phase of the throw) and is just following the pelvic rotation but not necessarily rebounding beyond it (rotationally) then? I am also curious to hear your thoughts on trunk movement more in the sagittal plane: Could there be some elastic energy storage in back muscles (lats or erectors although I assume the erectors don't have very elastic connective tissue) that could help to rebound the upper back/shoulder/arm as a result of back flexion as the pelvis fires forward?
This was very useful. Have had several questions in the back of my mind on how the throwing motion actually works. Most videos focus on the movements you should do, but don't really explain the reason behind them or the exact effect. Perhaps it's obvious to some people, not to me though, and the explanations in this video really resonated with me, despite not being a physicist or anything of the sort. Looking forward to the next two parts!
Totally agree, it seemed like the "why" wasn't ever really addressed but there were plenty of "how" videos.
And I'm glad to hear the explanations made sense. Will be fun to get into even more detail on the next couple parts!
Finally a high-level science discussion about the backhand throwing motion. Love using trebuchet model as an example. I have hypothesized that there is potential for the standstill to generate plenty of energy into the disc. I often look at world record holders in golf (I understand they have a long driver in their hand) as they do a massive rotation prior to hitting the ball and it's all from standstill.
Totally agreed! You can store a lot of energy in your body by the "butt wipe" shift of the hips forward into the plant before initiating the rotation component. Plus, taking advantage of gravitational potential energy can add a lot like with Kyle Berkshire for example. Really fun to look at how those guys get it done. Clint and I do similar stuff on our 73+mph standstill throws.
when i first started playing, i was looking for an explanation like this. just thinking about lagging my upper body so i could focus on a clean brace unlocked a whole new world for me
Heck yeah. Really night and day when you start using that kinetic chain to its potential 👍
This is an absolutely beautiful explanation from a scientific and biomechanics viewpoint as well as a disc golf standpoint. Well freaking done.
Thank you for the kind words!! I'm glad it turned out ok
Can't wait to try practicing to see if i can notice my brace slowing down my linear motion.
Best of luck and lmk how it goes!
This is some high quality content! Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!
You're welcome and thanks for the support!!
Subscribed at the point where you said "We are pushing the Earth that way --->".
Haha, love to hear it!
You rule. Looking forward to part 1 and 2!
So glad you made this video. Ive been able to regularly throw 72mph from a standatill but cant consistently get above 65 with an x step. Ive been focusing on pushing off the back leg in the xstep to mimic my standstill, but your video implies that im looking at the wrong spot, its likely my front leg brace that is the issue
That should work well, best of luck :)
Okay this actually makes a lot of sense
Engineer here as well, so this is the is the theory stuff I love hearing about. I think why is just as important as how.
Totally agreed! Knowing the why helps us self-organize to better execute on things
Calvin Heimburg braces the best in my eye
He’s so smooth with his downhill move into that brace. Such a natural
Super helpful!
I'm happy to hear it!
Great video Nick. Can't wait for the next two.
Thank you for the support Craig! Hoping to get the next ones to y'all within a week or two
i really like Niklas Anttila form.. seems slow and precise.. when i do my standstill i feel like i i want to throw that way but when i x step i feel more linear vs cylindrical in the nature of the throw Niklas is very cylindrical vs someone like Eagle who pulls through on a linear line if that makes any sense..
100%, it really shows how much a person’s “ideal form” changes based on their anatomy and athletic strengths
Hi Nick,
Great video. Can I send you a video of my form and see what is going on with my bracez? I land with my front foot open and my hips open as well. Should I actively push off my back foot into the front foot?
I can certainly help you with some coaching, my website explains the coaching plans better than I could here (link is in this video's description) and you can also reach out to my email (listed at 13:39 into this video) 👍
I don't have any children, but now I wish I had a daughter so she could marry this guy.
That's quite the compliment, I really appreciate it!
This was great. Nice work!
Thank you!
Great content yet again!
Thank you!
whhhhaaaaaa a tutorial.. finally! thank you kind sir!
You’re welcome brother, and thanks for the continued support!!
Nick you're a bomber, have you found a way to mitigate finger skin pain when throwing? I magically found about 60' extra in the past week and frankly my hands just seem to not be used to it. Also any tips on keeping the ability to score on a course while dealing with fairly rapid distance increases? For perspective my personal best distance has gone from about 380-385' back in august or September of 23, to now at 516' as of today. I found no doubt about it my best scores were when a great throw was 380 and a bad one was 330, I had about a 9 month plateau at that range and I shot lower scores then. Sure I have the potential to shoot lower now, but mostly I have no idea if a standstill at 50/60% effort is going 200' or 325'. I find appraoches over 100' very tricky now cause even with a putter a standstill can casually hit 250'.
I had to adjust my power grip to distribute the inside rim pinch pressure across all 4 finger pads, but even with that, the index and middle finger will inevitably get worn out more so they just have to be respected in terms of recovery between hard throwing sessions, as well as general skin care (like putting some healing ointment on them before bed). Sometimes I put superglue over the skin damage to protect it during throwing, worst case.
Collagen supplementation can also enhance collagen turnover in the skin tissue across the body, which helps a bit.
That's pretty awesome how you have gained all the power. Not a bad problem to have, haha! Early on, there will be unavoidable distance spray because of how your kinetic chain and timing have changed. But, over time it should re-adjust.
You can also spend some time during your field warmup and cooldown to do those intermediate distance, standstill approached shots (100ft-250ft).
Do you have a recommendation on how I can make a smooth far more powerful for distance. Is it a better timed brace or speed? How do I get more arm speed? Thanks!
It's hard to give general recommendations without seeing someone's throw, but some general rule of thumbs:
1. Stay relaxed and have good rhythm
2. Try to be balanced at all times
3. Make sure the power of your throw is coming from your hips
More Trebuchet than Trebuchet.
Very cool video. Very solid explanation. Thank you.
Subbed. Looking forward to more.
😂 never, you are the original with the analogy and I don’t want to take that away.
Thanks for the support!
@@NickKrush.DGandFitYea, but you actually built Trebuchets... All I did was skip band class to help my friend go launch his for physics class...
I have a q about the throwing Arm. What is the most effective height of the arm? Most people say chest height. I was thinking it would be above chest height(90 degrees to the torso) because that would make a longer whip. What're your thoughts?
Great question! I hate to give the "it depends" answer, but there is a lot of variation from person to person due to anatomy and specific strengths (super low like Wiggins Jr. vs. super high like McBeth).
I will say though, pulling the disc through at lower-chest height and keeping the elbow slightly above the disc is a good starting point. We always want to make sure the elbow doesn't get too far below nipple height, especially close to release.
I struggle pulling through correctly with the elbow and I think it's becuase I'm so uncertain how much arm or "pulling" I should actiuvely be doing. When you say that the brace is causing that internal rotation, are the arms loose and whipping around or is it a timing of both the brace and pull that needs to be adjusted together?
You nailed it, the arms have to act in sync with the rotation of the lower and upper body. Usually, the hips start rotating and then very soon after the throwing arm starts pulling through and building tension to get the disc through the power pocket.
@@NickKrush.DGandFitGotcha, Thank you so much for the response!
@@haze9491 👍 you’re welcome!
Great explanation! Seems like you would know this answer. Lets say someone has "Perfect Form" would body mass or length of levers be the deciding factor on throwing a 175G farther? Or is it just speed at this point?
Thank you!
Adding lever length and size tends to help in general, with some caveats.
There is likely an optimization point where one can become too heavy and their own body mass slows them down, but MLB pitchers are throwing a similar mass implement so if we look at height and weight of guys like Aroldis Chapman or Randy Johnson it gives a rough idea of how big we can get.
Well explained
👍 thank you
Do you see any big differences between the disc golf - backhand brace and the baseball pitching brace? As a great baseball pitcher I can't figure out the backhand brace after a year.
More similarities than differences, they redirect linear momentum onto slightly different rotation axes but use the same physics.
You can think of the drift into the block as where you gain the linear bodily energy (like in x-step footwork).
What makes it hard is the pelvic rotation is reversed (between right hand pitching and right hand backhand), I was a rocket arm QB growing up and struggled at first to get my hips firing in the backhand because of this.
Would you suggest bracing into a up slight up hill or mound or something get a more intense brace?
Great question - some people can benefit from uphill and some can benefit from downhill (depending on how they naturally generate power and if they are no sticking their foot down hard enough, vs. dropping too much). I'd recommend playing around with it and see what feels best!
@@NickKrush.DGandFit Awesome I’ll mess around with uphill down hill. Thank you!
@@BenNarNar44 you're welcome!
How long until parts 2 and 3 are released?
TBD but hopefully within the next couple of weeks!
Great content
I appreciate it!
Do you ever use arm muscle in the throw (pulling)? Or just brace rotate hips and let the arm sling?
For sure, the arm muscles get used very heavily. Like the trunk, they operate in somewhat of a quasi-isometric fashion when throwing at pull power, where the elastic tissues control a lot of the joint articulation.
There will always be some level of muscular contraction happening in the arm and on lower power throws, the muscles tend to have a bigger say in when the joints move.
Good video, but I still don't understand either your explanation or your drawing of the brace or how it induces hip rotation. The drawing doesn't make sense because the force vectors have arrow heads on both sides, how does that create a torque or moment? I don't get the verbal description either. How does the ground pushing up and back (away from target) through your leg cause the pelvis to rotate in the transverse plane? The only way it would is if your center of rotation (cg) is over by the disc when it's in the power pocket. That doesn't seem likely though (I try to keep my cg along the axis of my plant leg), so how does a single force vector from the plant foot (assume back foot is not contributing at this point) cause your pelvis to rotate clockwise when looking from above? I have tried jumping sideways into the plant without any initial rotation, and I can not generate any hip rotation to matter how hard I try to post up. Try it and please tell me what I'm missing.
I can understand the confusion, I'll try my best to clear it up here :)
The body's center of mass location doesn't directly correlate to the pelvis' center of rotation because the human body isn't a perfectly rigid body (there is slop and delay in communication of inertial forces do due to skeletal structure and connective tissues).
The inertial force of the pelvis and associated muscles around it causes the initial rotational moment to be induced by the plant leg's force vector projection onto the transverse plane (3d vectors can be broken down into multiple 2d vectors).
Jumping sideways into the plant and purposefully stabilizing the body for pure frontal plane motion won't allow the hips to rotate, you'll need to think about snapping the hips as you land to make the whole system work in balance.
Yes I know you're supposed to drive your right hip back when you land, I'm just not seeing much rotation added if there is none to start with (from the pull through and into the pocket). I'll keep at it though and see if I can figure out how to do it. Thanks for responding.
@@SparkyColdfire 👍 you're welcome. Since everyone learns the hip action a little differently, experimenting with different sensations could help you find the one that works for you.
For some people they need to feel the back leg turning in, for some, it feels like a hip snap, etc. Best of luck!
Thank You Thank you thank you!!! I just want to hang out with & train with you!!
That would be fun, and you’re welcome glad you liked the vid 🙂
When we plant or brace our right leg, do we want to feel the weight over this leg?
You will feel your weight shifting onto it, but you don't want to move your upper body over the front leg. I wish I could explain it better over text but I have a new video on my channel (brace part 3) that gives extra details :)
@@NickKrush.DGandFit thanks for the reply. I just watched your new video and it makes so much more sense now. I have some drills to work on 💪
@@NickKrush.DGandFit I also want to say you are the only person I have found who can explain what is actually happening and how to get there. Others know the what but not the why and the why puts it all together to give you the how
@@Izz.yG24 that's the goal :p I'm glad to hear everything made sense and you can apply it to your throws
@@NickKrush.DGandFit you saved my backhand. Thank you
i hit 490ft on flat ground today with only a slow xstep.. it was slowest yet best timed throw of the bunch.. seems the harder i try the less distance i get.. its a confidence yet calm thing mixed with perfect timing and balance i think!
That’s awesome! elbow doing better I assume?
the forearm is all better but elbow is the same im trying not to throw bcuz Dr. said i need 3 months straight no activity but after about 5 days i just have to go throw a few times.. nothing crazy but yeah elbow still all jacked up but what can i say im addicted@@NickKrush.DGandFit
yoooo
Thanks for a great video. Looking forward to the follow-up episodes. I do disagree with one point, though. The storage of elastic energy in the trunk. I made a video explaining the biomechanics of the SSC: ua-cam.com/video/KzdGF3eWrSk/v-deo.htmlsi=nNqtb31goQRYBSf2
Thank you for the feedback and correction on that, Jouni :) I watched your video and it was super insightful, for some reason I had never learned that the muscles responsible for trunk rotation had connective tissues that don't store elastic energy like normal skeletal muscle tendons, so that's my mistake.
I'd imagine the trunk is operating in more of a semi-eccentric, semi-isometric contraction (depending on phase of the throw) and is just following the pelvic rotation but not necessarily rebounding beyond it (rotationally) then?
I am also curious to hear your thoughts on trunk movement more in the sagittal plane:
Could there be some elastic energy storage in back muscles (lats or erectors although I assume the erectors don't have very elastic connective tissue) that could help to rebound the upper back/shoulder/arm as a result of back flexion as the pelvis fires forward?
Cool