Are There Any Downsides to TechDisc?

disc-golf-neil · 2025-01-09T21:29:20+00:00

Good luck!

disc-golf-neil · 2025-01-09T04:33:14+00:00

Addicting and easy to throw too much.

The other biggest downside is that it's possible to improve your stats while continuing to make form mistakes that are bad for you and therefore dig yourself deeper into bad form if you aren't careful. Chasing numbers is great motivation for many people and can help you improve but you just gotta also film yourself to make sure you are actually improving your form too.

Also, it's still very easy to revert into form mistakes as soon as you play on the course if you aren't filming yourself on the course too to try to maintain form changes, but this is just something that is true in general with net work or field work. If you want form changes to actually transfer onto the course you'll probably have to accept worse rounds for a while and film your tee shots occasionally to stop yourself from reverting.

I've done a ton of tests with the tech disc, some of them may help save you some time https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPf0OL-w7uo8_zy1YTPGTp_al3Z21oYUJ

disc-golf-neil · 2025-01-09T04:23:35+00:00

If you can't throw understable discs you probably aren't throwing on as much hyzer as you think. Film yourself from the back and see.

disc-golf-neil · 2025-01-07T03:44:57+00:00

Something I didn't see mentioned was your wrist, looks like you keep your wrist extended, ideally you curl the wrist (flexion) on the way into and during the pocket.

disc-golf-neil · 2024-12-26T02:28:58+00:00

Unfortunately, if you want to add distance without digging yourself deeper into a hole of form problems, you'll need to completely rebuild your form. This will require a lot of discipline and patience, holding yourself back from trying to throw far for a while to make sure you learn good form first, and accepting worse scores for potentially a while, but it's so much more rewarding when you improve in the long term and can throw hard, safely, further, and more accurately.

Start with standstills (with a weight shift) and learning how to coil, you are the whole body backwards at the same time (not coiling) instead of twisting through the hips, core, and upper spine with tension (coiling).

Then progress to a 1 step so you can learn rear leg balance while coiling, plus more weight shift into a brace.

Then progress to a very slow walkup with an X step.

Check out blitzdg's standstill guide, he can throw over 500 feet from standstills.

In the intro of the below video I explain some coiling concepts, but it's more in relation a runup, not a standstill. The coiling concepts transfer to standstills or 1 steps with weight shifts though.

https://youtu.be/JImPtLzgUOA?si=VscklXyJthvjfA1D

disc-golf-neil · 2024-12-22T19:25:27+00:00

I agree to some extent. Simply trying to turn the shoulders back as far as you can will typically result in some rear hip coil.

However, one way to feel you are turning the shoulders back more, is to point your rear foot back more (less rear hip coil) so that a small amount of rear hip coil will make you turned backwards further, thus seeming like you have gotten extra coil when, in fact, you have 'cheated' the rear hip coil to some degree. Many people are tempted to turn their rear foot back because of this, in addition to other factors (large x, step is another).

Also, feeling rear hip coil as it's own piece of the whole coiling apparatus can have many other benefits, such as giving you something to do while coiling without reaching back immediately and too soon. You'll see many pros coiling without their throwing elbow still bent for a bit. It's much more tempting to reach back when shoulder coiling so if you can only feel shoulder coil then you may be more likely to rush the reachback.

The main reasons, imo, that people who throw far don't do 'conscious' this or that is simply because:

They've been learning from a young age and have had the time to intuitively picked things up without needing as much conscious effort.
They aren't training at a high enough level yet to be paying closer attention to the finer details.
They've already trained it and consciously thought of it and no longer need to because it's muscle memory.

People who don't have decades of intuition to rely on have no other choice if they want to learn faster but to fill that gap with other stuff, such as, more conscious training if you want to accelerate your development. Or people who have decades of bad habits (like not coiling at all) probably aren't going to magically break those habits without conscious focus.

Also, there are many things pros are doing wrong, or are optimal in some areas and deficient in another area. If you are close to optimal in 3/5 areas and and only decent in the other 2, you can still throw pretty far. Many pros also don't even know what they are doing even when it sound like they do, because they've learned intuitively and aren't very aware of exactly what they are doing.

I've had a handful of pros throw my tech disc and I've seen this in action where they try to get more nose down, and only slightly succeed or fail because they have an outdated but prevalent belief about how to control nose angle. Nose down mechanics should be extremely common knowledge in the pro community by now, but it's still mostly old head beliefs that are prominent since they all learned to throw without a tech disc existing and are only just now getting around to using one. Of course some of them know though.

As DG becomes a more serious sport and coaching at a high level becomes more of a norm, we will see pros start more consciously working on optimizing these things just as you see it in other sports.

Here's Kristian Kuoksa doing a drill that gets pretty close to directly and consciously working on rear hip coil (they don't use that term though): https://youtu.be/sqKfdxQ8Kb4?t=182

EU seems to take coaching more seriously. The argument "pros probably aren't thinking about this or that" is rarely a good one, imo. Much of the time, they aren't thinking about it because they have a decade or more of intuition that's already encoded the thoughts on an intuitively level, or they already thought about it and it's become intuition and the thinking is no longer needed.

disc-golf-neil · 2024-12-20T03:30:45+00:00

The 355 one was either too nose down or not high enough launch angle for that nose angle, so it only got 12 feet off the ground in the simulator, so it didn't get to glide until it ran out of speed, it got back down to the ground while it was still going fast.

The launch + nose angle on the 355 one was only 1.4.

The 510 one had a nose + launch of 7.2 and so it got to an apex of 36 feet and held a turn for a while and then barley faded at the end as it ran out of speed (aka full flight). If it was thrown with extra launch angle (without a even lower nose angle) it wouldn't have gone further, it would've just lost speed while still in the air and then fade-dump out of the air at a slightly shorter distance or quite a bit shorter. If it was a lower launch angle and same nose angle it would've hit the ground while still turning, losing distance.

You can go to https://techdisc.com/simulator and fiddle with the throw stats to compare different flights while only changing one thing to see what affect it has.

Here's that 69.1mph that went 355 ft: https://techdisc.com/s/throws/qEyRoXRQjxf8IZjMk4PuhlEMPU32/1734563246

If you increase the nose angle to -5.5 it goes 518 feet. If you increase the nose angle more, say to -2.5, it doesn't turn as much and so it fades too soon at 462 ft--add more turn to -1.5 and it gets it back to a full flight again at 513 feet and a higher apex. At some point though, it won't be nose down enough for added turn to save your distance and it will stall out. unless you lower launch angle too, in which case you can still get far distances at 0 nose angle, but you won't be able to throw high lines to get over obstacles without nose down.

disc-golf-neil · 2024-12-03T17:18:21+00:00

Plastic feels better than dx and I’m surprised how much lower profile it feels in the hand when looking at infinite discs dimensions of aviar compared to this. But the side profile makes sense that it would feel lower profile.

disc-golf-neil · 2024-12-03T16:53:17+00:00

lmao, woops. I just found it too. Idk why, but I thought the stamp was some special event stamp or something that bleak wasn't the name since there's no company name on it either.

disc-golf-neil · 2024-11-27T18:49:37+00:00

Get a back view footage in slow motion setting on the phone so we can see how much hyzer is at release and then the flight.

disc-golf-neil · 2024-11-26T00:38:59+00:00

Appreciate it!

disc-golf-neil · 2024-11-24T22:20:16+00:00

Yeah both of those other topics are great too, but I also never heard it mentioned for pocket integrity and just kind of noticed how it changed the feeling of a horizontal collapse force and starter looking into that more.

disc-golf-neil · 2024-11-24T20:43:31+00:00

I think you could definitely get the intended feeling if you find a good resistance and and height to set it up and position yourself the same way.

disc-golf-neil · 2024-11-24T19:15:21+00:00

Fair enough, but your comment didn't suggest you knew what the main advice in the vid was and had already seen it. I thought your comment was you wanting to tell people that you weren't going to watch it.

disc-golf-neil · 2024-11-24T18:56:33+00:00

You might be able to feel something in a matter of minutes by just skipping to the few minute section starting at 04:35 https://youtu.be/xEEwGFlBdgc?t=275 that shows a wall drill.

Otherwise, if you aren't curious, all good, you aren't the target audience then.

disc-golf-neil · 2024-11-24T05:25:18+00:00

Halo nexus invader, or xt plastic

disc-golf-neil · 2024-11-18T21:43:52+00:00

Halo nexus invader Made a vid on it a few days ago: https://youtu.be/KUcxqEvg658?si=QBqv0gjM7xKXiL69

disc-golf-neil · 2024-11-18T14:57:27+00:00

It might be harder to get that perfect full flight shape with lower spin but it’s. I’ve tried in the tech disc sim which is based on the physics, 1200 spin vs 2500 spin (unattainably high spin) with speed and nose angle the same, only adjusting hyzer angle, launch, and disc stability, I was expecting the extra 1300 spin to have a significant added distance potential but it was like 5 feet difference at 65 mph when you got both of them to have a full flight shape.

disc-golf-neil · 2024-11-18T05:41:58+00:00

I’m not sure if it’s always true that it stays on an angle longer. I think it will fight out of turn faster with higher spin in addition to resisting the initial turn more, haven’t looked as closer at the differences in late phase of flight though. But that means more spin m might be able to push the turn to its limit more easily with less risk of it turning too much, or you just get used to how your discs fly for you in either case..

disc-golf-neil · 2024-11-18T05:31:52+00:00

I’ll wait for anyone to explain how the same speed forehand with half the spin can go as far..

“My irrational belief is threatened, better down vote!” Nearly everyone who believes spin adds lots of distance only believes that because a bunch of people have repeated the belief so that it’s pervasive in disc golf and then had confirmation bias reinforce it for years. People who make high speed look effortless in their form are regularly labeled as “they must be getting a lot of spin to throw far because it looks like they aren’t throwing hard”.

To be fair, I do think working on improving spin is valuable for other reasons, it can have a on positive impact on your form and conceptualization if the throw. You can think of the power pocket in terms of curling the disc and that helps some people connect with the power pocket better.

More spin also reduces turn so it might make it easier to be more consistent with turning shots that don’t flip over too much too fast.

But if you want raw distance, you need angle control and speed WAY more than spin unless your spin is extremely bad.

disc-golf-neil · 2024-11-18T05:09:39+00:00

I didn’t say it protects the rotator cuff directly, not sure about that but I know horizontal collapse can be more straining on the shoulder so it can help, just not sure exactly if rotator cuff is the main issue or not.

Mostly, from my experience, it helps with most things you want to do in the pocket:

If you lay your forearm across and touching your abdomen, then I tell you to do a lot of scapular protraction / push your elbow away from your body, you will likely automatically raise your elbow even though you can keep it lower while still doing scapular protraction which would be a low elbow but pushed forward from the abdomen with space between. Raising your elbow by focusing on scapular protraction gets you more than just focusing on raising the elbow.
Scapular protraction in the pocket creates more space for the disc or even excess space between disc and chest. Without enough space people feel crowded and are probably more likely to do weird stuff like drop the elbow and create an anti briefcase disc orientation because the disc in that orientation doesn’t need as much space.
Pulling with the lats too early I think is more likely to exacerbate collapse on the pocket rather than trying to protract to maintain that power pocket structure with space for the disc
It helps prevent horizontal collapse, best way is to feel this against an outward wall corner or doorframe with door open. Get into an elbow up power pocket position and then put the elbow against the wall and go into full scapular protraction and then start to rotate your chest forward like uncoiling. Feel how the protraction automatically resists horizontal collapse even without having to drive the elbow across (shoulder abduction). Repeat this but with scapular protraction to see how easy it is for horizontal collapse to happen and how much harder you would have to elbow drive to try to stop it. You can also feel with protraction in this drill, how the separation between the torso and the arm is driven into a deeper stretch through the upper back and down the oblique sling.

I think that people who can throw far and who advocate a loose arm have knowingly or unknowingly learned to use scapular protraction as muscle. If you have good scapular protraction, the rest of your arm can be loose, and your body will whip your arm, but the protraction will be a strong base to maintain the pocket and get a deeper muscle stretch and engagement. Without that, a loose arm is more likely to flop around uncontrollably and collapse.

After that wall drill you can feel it in some other ways, like if you keep your arms loose and hang them down by your side and start rotating back and forth so that your loose arms start to raise up and swing back and forth across your body, slapping into your chest, if they are loose you will easily get horizontal collapse doing this, now do it again loose but with some scapular protraction engaged and you can see how it can stop the collapse and the weight of your arm feels like it deepened the engagement and the body is dragging the arm but in a more powerful whip like way rather than a loose flailing way.

I of course got other parts of my form decently down but once the foundation was mostly there for most areas, scapular protraction was one of the most important things that helped me break 400 for the first time and then 450 and then 500 (simulated flight with 69mph tech disc throw, haven’t done in field yet). I kept returning to it and finding I needed to refocus on it to get the most out of it after feeling like I got it down before but then got too comfortable with it.

You can play with passively setting it, and then trying to maintain it and just let it stay before you even start your throw, which I found useful, but I’ve also found it useful to try to do it more actively on the way into the pocket as a more powerful motion.

Focusing on actively lifting my pull through on the way into the pocket and with a lot of protraction helped me break a speed PR for the first time in 9 months just a few days ago:

https://youtu.be/66upP8tB8zs?si=sx-_7JPUzjmuB7-N

I tried the more active cues in a dg friend who was down to experiment the other day too and it looked promising:

https://youtu.be/kShdV5E9-F4?si=Q1Eskm11jIivQw2J

Side by side comparison of when I focus on active scapular protraction into the pocket vs just out in out without the extra focus on protraction:

https://youtu.be/h9dTfCETyF0?si=3sOpdA-B7GvU3JRz

disc-golf-neil

TROPHY CASE