For the strongest disc golf throws, it's all in the thumbs | Hacker News Reader

For the strongest disc golf throws, it's all in the thumbs

arstechnica.com

109 pointsTomte25 comments

I've been obsessed with disc golf form for the last 10 years or so. It's really cool to see a more scientific approach being slowly applied to form study, and also hilarious to see this on hackernews (my two worlds never seem to mix). My critical reaction to this piece is that it does not seem to mention how the positions affect nose angle, which is critical to getting discs to fly correctly; professionals are able to manipulate these angles to have their shots behave differently depending on the circumstances (e.g. land flat and soft, stall out, or turn and dive). The best courses have trees mixed in such a way that you need to manipulate the drive to e.g. turn right at 280ft, turn left at 330ft, etc. But more pointedly a disc thrown nose up, despite having a high velocity, will not fly as far as one with a neutral or (slightly) nose down angle.[1]

Some other related context: A good amateur will throw the disc around 300-350ft. Good pros these days are able to break 600ft, despite many of them not appearing athletic or strong. This has led to a natural obsession with "form"

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HQt_kIk3-U [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr3DjX3HbNM

> A good amateur will throw the disc around 300-350ft

Cries at his 200ft max throw

Sucking at something is the first step at being kinda good at something.

You're way out throwing my three year old, about as good as my max throw, and behind a number of my friends. I still show up at the course when my friends go and have a good time. It goes a little farther every time I go.

This article is kind of hilariously like almost every conversation you have at the disc golf course, but it’s always something different. The reach back position, the power pocket, the elbow angle, the follow through, pouring the coffee, turning the key, etc etc etc.

If _only_ it were as simple as one thing. But the truth is that distance can be achieved through a multitude of athletic motions which vary drastically player to player.

Interestingly, when throwing objects (especially discs), the ideal angle to maximize distance might not be 45 degrees for two reasons: the object might fly better at specific angles and different human muscles come into play at different angles. The optimal angle might therefore vary by athlete.

For ballistic objects (so objects where air just acts as drag), the optimal launch angle is less than 45 degrees due to air resistance.

For aerodynamic objects like a disc, the optimal launch angle will be complicated because a disc's flight path is far more influenced by "secondary" (such as angle of attack and spin) compared to say a baseball, or even golf.

An "optimal" description of disc release angle that a player would likely be interested in (I say this as an ultimate player) would be given in terms of release angle, angle of attack (ie: how nose up), spin, and forward velocity.

And then once converted into human terms for all but the most elite athletes, release angle will probably instead be simplified down to windup position and release position/height.

Right. Even something that seems simple (such as a golf ball) is not trivial to model: the rough surface and spin end up creating lift -- the ball is essentially flying.

But each of those things will affect your throw. As will thumb placement.

I've seen the olympic women disc throwing event and it was quite astonishing that they had so many different body types (tall athletic gym type, "fat" strong, rather gymnasty etc.). And of course their results were all within a range of each other. Although disc golf is not quite the same, I think it is similar in that there's probably not (yet) a solved technique that's better than every other :)

If a lifetime of ball golf has taught me anything, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to athletic movements such as this. Even if there was, it would take one many years to find it articulated in a way that made sense to them. I've had certain "breakthroughs" and have been able to look back at professional lessons and see where they may have been trying to get that breakthrough advice across, and it just didn't make sense to me at the time, and thought "why didn't they just explain it like 'this'...?"