How I Got SNAP Like Drew Gibson [Advanced Disc Golf Form Tips]

in disc golf when someone really connects with a drive you might hear people talk about how that had a lot of snap you especially hear this when you have a power player someone who throws in my estimation over 550 ft regularly and a lot of times this is accompanied by an audible snapping sound now when I hear this talked about there's really two players that come to mind one is Aaron gosage and two is Drew Gibson and before we get into how Drew Gibson specifically gets this Snapper at least what I think he does to do it coming from someone who's worked with him training for a week and so he's directly giving me pointers on how to throw as well as someone who just observes his form as I'm trying to model what mine might look like after his now importantly we have to first talk about what snap actually is and why people want it because in one very true sense snap is just the noise that is made when you throw a disc out of your hands and for Aaron gosage the reason that I think he gets talked about in the snap conversation is not only because he throws super hard and powerfully also because he throws with a two- finger grip and if you just try right now to snap off of four fingers versus two fingers it's going to be louder when you do it off of two ultimately the disc ripping out of your hands and obviously I'm doing this slower than if it was to be whipping out of my hands it's going to make an audible sound and I've even noticed that as you'll see here in the way that I've been changing these three form cues that we're going to talk about where my throw used to sound like this and now it sounds like this but the reason that I think people want snap really is what it actually gives your throw which is more speed and more spin well that's not even quite true because snap is more of a symptom of something that you're doing rather than the actual thing that is doing it so let's head to an icy field to talk about three things that I've been implementing in my form that I have seen real progress with also talk about the next steps that I need to do with each of these in order to throw even farther and more consistently then I have a couple warnings or things that you should know about actually trying these before we finish up with the tech dis to see if statistically this is actually improving my form and speed and spin and no angle but first we need to talk about why you've been seeing significantly less form videos here and it comes down to two pretty simple reasons the first reason really comes down to simply not putting in the work and if I'm not doing something I'm not going to BS you that I am and talk about it and in the same way there have been a lot of videos that I posted in the past and that I also see on YouTube in general of people kind of postulating about their form and trying to figure things out I absolutely think that there's a place for that but I don't want that to be here on this channel I have another Channel called banana fro which is just for fun random videos and I more want this channel to have my concrete ideas of things that I've tested no work at least for me I can still be wrong about it as anybody can be wrong about anything but it's more so like solid information that I think is worth it to put out there rather than just guessing even though that has its place and that might be part of future videos as I figure things out Colorado is so weird 1 minute it's 20° and right now I think it's still sub 40 no 44° but it's like shorts weather almost cuz of how sunny it is now quick disclaimer on all this I did actually reach out to Drew since he is a friend of mine and I just let him know that I'd be making this video he said everything was cool he might roast me in the comments for some of the things that I say I didn't ask to get his opinion on the things that I was going to be talking about cuz I feel pretty confident in them and seen kind of the results in my own own throw now when I'm talking about snap here we're not just talking about the sound it's really about the speed and the spin that these players are able to impart on the disc which in part is because of how compact their form gets and they have a really pronounced hit point what I want to share today is kind of like a three-step process that I've improved getting and really accentuating that hit point for myself this all started because about a month ago I was noticing that my hand was very open in the disc the whole entire time so it started here I would get a little wide as I reached back and then the disc almost looked like it was like extending past my hand and then I pull through and that means that if my hand is already in this position the only place that it can go for my wrist to help impart a little more spin is Way open and you don't that's not a very consistent movement using your wrist tensing it up instead of letting it just kind of whip itself naturally one of the things that I noticed that Drew was doing in his form as he was kind of walking up the tead sometimes not all the time but sometimes he would actually roll the disc up and that does two things for me one I noticed that it got my shoulder higher which I wanted because if my shoulder is way down here then if you're pulling through you're going to have an impinged elbow which could hurt your elbow a little bit but more than that like this is going to cause you to do some weird swoopy thing if you do want to get into this power pocket position and your elbow starts here and so rolling the disc up not only did that but it also got my hand behind the disc instead of the disc being here now if I roll it the disc is here I'm not saying that this is good and there are some warnings I'll have about it at the end these are just things that have worked for me as I'm sharing my journey I guess what I mean is I'm not saying this is right but what I've noticed is as I roll the disc up I get to this position and then I'm able to reach back a little bit better I still have some problems here as we'll get to the next steps then everything kind of it feels a little more compact instead of starting here what I used to do was I started here reached out wide and then my elbow and shoulder just are not in as good of a position as if I was to roll the disc up and get into the same position here this is a much more kind of like coiled springy ready to unload position and I'll show you quick throw by what I mean which is why I kind of we on this and I brought really bright color disc but I used to kind of hold the disc like this and like I kind of had to fling it at the end there and like flow my wrist a little bit here's a pink cohort a Putter and now as I roll it up I think what it comes down to which I'm not realizing is the disc feels like it's leading the throw instead of you are leading the throw and the disc is behind it because ultimately you want to build up tension tension lag lag lag and then let the disc fling out from your hand you don't want to like forcefully your wrist and hold it tight you more so want to get it into this position and have it be loose so that your hand can kind of act like the tip of the whip not like actively flinging open the wrist which is what I had to do when I was here in order to get that spin because what are you going to do from this position the only way you can go is open and that is in active movement versus if I curl up the disc here and this is all kind of loose and Limp it's all like kind of ready to go and then I throw through then I'm able to it like Just Hits out it's also in my head more consistent because instead of going from here to some random degree of flexion openness here I'm now going from this position to flat basically backhanding smacking with my backhand something that's straight in front of me as I throw out the disc something else that this really helped with which I didn't anticipate is my brace I kind of fell over my brace more because again the disc is kind of leading the throw the disc is out ahead and so in order to impart movement onto the disc I have to kind of Go With It Forward whereas now if the disc is kind of behind the movement slow everything down so that this can whip out and smack it and then like my brace got better because of curling this up and part that's all so because it keeps me a little bit stacked over my back leg longer until I transfer that weight to my front leg and I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on this as I continue to figure it out but the second thing that comes with this is actually how you reach back which is why this is actually sequential these are three things in a row and I almost forgot on my notes there is actually something that is a next step in this which for me is to do this later in the runup in order to get a little bit better timing I've definitely noticed that I start it kind of here as I go in the step before my AEP and so I'm already a little bit early reached back it's better than it was before when I would just kind of go out and around so like you can even see here like I'm already fully out here and I haven't even started to transfer my weight whereas now it's a little bit better but I think still I could really focus on rolling the disc back here and just getting a little bit less time at Peak reach back so I can be a little bit more springy with it now the second part of this is not in your runup it's actually the reach back which for me because I keep the disc closer to my chest I've noticed that sometimes I can get to a position where I have to round a little bit in order to throw out the disc we're not going to get into my thoughts on rounding here we might get to that at a later date but because I get to a position where I'll show you in line with the camera I'm here and then I'm a little bit behind myself I don't have like this space like it's kind of there a little bit where yes this is a straight line that I can travel through but I've also noticed which we'll get to in the next steps for this that sometimes I still get into a bad extension position which I think I understand the fix for that'll be a video probably in a month after I actually figure it out what I realized that I needed to do in order to really get consistent spin consistent power and very accurate throws is instead of getting to this back position position where there is probably a little bit of rounding that's involved and then the aiming becomes a little tougher what I need to do is reach back out and down cuz if I stay high with my reach back which sometimes I am just because of my forearm but if I'm high with it then I have to swoop down and then back up and sometimes I can create a nose up throw if I am behind my body here then I might have to round a little bit and so all that can be fixed if I think about curling the disc in and then reaching out and back and down that that puts me into a really coiled position here over my back leg and then I can transfer all that weight very efficiently so here very quickly this is what it looks like just coiling not really thinking about the reach back it's fine it is what it is I do notice that it becomes much worse for highers because when I'm walking up my typical run up and then I come here and then I need to throw the disc on Hiser this way it's just not nearly as efficient as if I am actually reaching out and it causes me to swoop a lot of deep hisers instead of of throwing really penetrating lines which especially is what the third step of this is going to get into but here is what it looks like when we throw out more out and down it just feels like you're using a much better part of your body I'll show you from behind as well we have a slight headwind here a couple Emperor first way where I'm not really thinking about it and I'm just letting it kind of just get behind my body a little too much it's fine it's out there it's a rip but getting into a coiled better position allows for a much better weight transfer I have found again these things will take time even as you increase your form it doesn't always mean that you're going to add distance and so for me the next step with that actually has to do with my wrist which I'm sure if you go back and look at that form as I've been talking about it I've been getting into this position and I'm guessing if you look at it the disc is actually kind of here which I think comes down to my forearm and my wrist I need to actively pronate it actually as I get down here think about pronating it not popping it turning the wrist even if I do do everything else right it's there still is a time that my elbow has to get from this position to this position and that creates if you watch the disc here a little swoop whereas if I'm able to get this into a basically an anheiser reach back then the elbow's already in a primed position to just move straight straight have a little bit less of a power loss and so I really think that what that comes out to for me is thinking about pronating into that position part of that is staying reached out which is something I see a lot in Jacob Curtis who one of the farthest throwers ever especially as a smaller guy you can really watch him accentuate his reach out his elbows leading the out and then the disc follows and then and then he throws it keep my shoulder out and I need to pronate and keep the elbow out and that should help my throws be a little more consistent and probably more powerful because I can't imagine that this little swoop isn't leaking power compared to pulling it in a straight line now this third thing that we're going to talk about is the least thought out so far cuz honestly this is something that I really was thinking about over the last week or so but I wanted to put it in here because I think it kind of ties it all together you go from curling the disc even just I mean if you can start the disc here for me it's a little uncomfortable probably have some issues with shoulder internal rotation that I need to continue to work on but I kind of curl the disc up here keep my back hand down reach out back and down and then the last part is something that I've really struggled with for a while and it causes me to swoop some hisers lose a lot of power but it's lifting out of the shot a little bit early and instead of really staying over it I go into kind of thoracic extension with my upper back kind of going from here to up that is a way to lead the throw but it leads the throw poorly and it gets you to this position faster but you leak a lot of power in doing so and so what I found is that I need to keep my chest over the throw during the weeklong training that I was with through in Arizona one of the things that he said was that you throw with the chest and this wasn't something that I really understood super well I understood that it meant that when I rotate I want my chest to be forward and honestly a part of that creates that thoracic extension for me to try to get to that position instead of when you watch him throw you see him get on his leg and then everything is over and the chest is forward but it's forward and down because that means that the elbow can lead up and out because if your shoulder comes up the elbow comes up but it's not really the elbow moving up in order to eject the disc it's more so the shoulder losing some power in order to get it into that position it's cheating into that position instead of keeping the chest down and then throwing out I honestly don't know if what I'm going to say here is exactly what Drew was meaning when he said that you throw it the chest maybe he can let us know in the comments this helps me to not swoop my hisers or my an heisers stop throwing as nose up throw much more driven penetrating shots even on like a deep Hiser cuz for me I have to throw a spike Hiser or a deep Hiser like high in order to get the stall instead of being able to throw a deep Hiser straight which is what you need for those long woodsy heer flip shots and this is what I found to really help me with that really what it has come down to is from the reach back position what I can tend to do is really come up like this and this is if you watch my upper back it's really what is doing the pulling instead of rotating through my pelvis like right here rotating through it so this hip the front hip you tries to replace it with the back hip what that does is this hip moves back this hip moves forward and it creates rotating around the pelvis in a direct line through the spine instead of extending which puts your spine here and then torqus it instead of actually rotating around it which is significantly more efficient the way that I found to be helpful to do this is just thinking about keeping my chest down and that in turn keeps this shoulder down so I'll show you a throw here and then one from the back view that smoked it's very subtle I just posted a banana fro video this morning actually I believe where I used this footage as well and one shot was with a 10-speed and Avenger SS on the left side where I was throwing a very similar level of Hiser to the disc on the right which was a logic or a link the dis Mania beaded putter it's very subtle but you can see on the left my shoulder comes up out of it and it's higher in relation to the back of my hat compared to on the right side where my shoulder stays down and the disc on the right you can watch in the slow-mo it comes out a little bit faster for sure so real quick I'll do my best to show you kind of how I have been throwing honestly an easier way to throw it's much more comfortable to go from this uncomfortable coiled position where your body just doesn't want to be here anymore and then you just kind of open up and you feel it kind of moving from this hip clearing instead of the front hip clearing which is what you really want you want this hip to move backwards this hip moving forwards is not really what we're looking for because that extends upper back in my opinion this is again all my opinion I'm not a coach I'm just a guy trying to throw as far as he can and that extension leads to honestly the shoulder leading the elbow where we really want the elbow to lead the shoulder so this lady moves we'll throw this but while we're waiting what I really think my next step is here is honestly figuring out if this does work 100% of the time and then just drilling it I if you watch my form maybe probably for the past year I'm always coming out of it I'm just coming out of it because it's more comfortable than staying over it and throwing really Compact and efficient but then when you watch like a guy like J Gibson can throw he's replacing his hips he's keeping everything down and over and the disc comes out and then he comes up after rather than coming up as the disc comes out if that makes any sense but I think those are really the three steps coiling the disc down and back this is not a comfortable coil position because your body is in tension and wants to release and then you stay over it here you keep this shoulder down and I think the other part for me is actually this back shoulder tends to come up as well keeping this down and anchored as this comes up then you see guys like Isaac Rob James Proctor another guy who throws really far but you see they're kind of anchored back here Eagle everybody they throw out and you can see their chest does this as they're throwing a deep Heiser or they're throwing an anheiser one of these and that's because this back half is anchored this shoulder is down instead of up these shoulders are trying to be as far away from each other as they can be while staying pinned down here I'll show you this Pharaoh cuz it's a flippy guy I'm kind of what my throw used to look like oh no it'sit the fence it's a fence thank goodness I don't really know if I came out of that but now I'm really going to focus on staying down so snap really isn't just about the sound that it makes coming out of your hand that is cool but what I care about more is speed and spin a couple quick disclaimers and then we'll take out the tech disc to see if this actually is improving anything and frankly it doesn't have to be for it to be working all right three quick things one is absolutely not like a comprehensive guide for getting sna for throwing farther these are just a couple of last things that I built upon everything that we talked about in the past on this channel we didn't even talk anything about lower body today really and that is arguably more important than upper body so take this for what it's worth one dude's opinion on the internet and you're able to watch these videos for free so maybe it's worth that much second thing is when I first started to do this kind of curling technique I noticed a little bit of soreness in my bicep especially kind of the lower part here this is for a couple reasons one you're using new musculature and you're using your body in a new way so it's going to be sore it didn't get hurt and don't ever work through pain if something is starting to hurt something is starting to feel weird we haven't felt it before rest try again later maybe if the pain or the weird weirdness persists stop it this SC is not worth messing up your health and there are ways to become trained enough to implement these moves the second part of that is that tendons take longer to acclimate to both build size as well as to kind of adapt than your muscles do so especially having this beat towards my elbow joint not like in the belly of the muscle it's likely that something to do with his bicep tendon was what was being not necessarily irritated just sore because it was used in a new way so especially when you're having soreness around joints rather than just in the belly of the muscle be a little bit more careful your tendons do take longer rest longer drink lots of fluid see a physical therapist I'm definitely not one another part of kind of the tendon to muscle thing is the reason why I said that even if this doesn't translate to more speed more spin right now on Tech dis that's okay because your body does take time to adapt I was with Drew 3 months ago now and I'm just now seeing a lot of kind of the gains from this form as my body is able to adapt as I'm throwing more and more being more consistent with it and similar to the tendon thing like it's going to take time for these things to really become second nature and be able to be used used fully by your body cuz your body doesn't want to hurt itself it's not going to do something potentially dangerous or use all of your explosive power that you have in a New Movement pattern you it has to get used to it finally I don't really know how this is going to translate to touch shots I know that Drew is very good at touch shots and he has a semi- different form than kind of his main form when he does that I'm just going to let that happen naturally for now as I continue working on this I think reaching out will actually be more helpful for touch shots because I've noticed it's kind of this out and out pattern is really helpful in just kind of putting the disc on the line that you want instead of almost rounding for touch doots which is way more consistent all that being said let's go home whip out the tech dis and see if we're throwing any faster than kind of 64 65 mph consistently in 12 to 1300 RPM and very positive nose angle 3 to 5 those numbers are better because of this I'm stoked if they're not it's okay it'll take time if you guys don't know what tech disc is first Where Have You Been apparently everybody's been using it it is kind of a training aid tool that uses technology to measure parts of your throw big shout out to them you guys might have noticed I used to have a blue one now I have a pink one cuz I had bit of a problem with the first one they made it right immediately so so I have an affiliate link for one down in the description if you do want to snag one they're a little bit expensive not going to try to sell you on it but if you want one and you want to support me go ahead and use that link time to see if we a certified bom so we're going to start actually ripping here soon first two warm up throws I thought it was a fluke honestly you guys know I've had such a massive problem throwing nose up that I was consistently in a 3 to 5 nose up range now warm- up throw thinking about these cues mostly the curling that's the main one I'm thinking of right now 61.4 mph warm up throw 1,400 RPM that's higher than normal negative 1.2 nose angle I literally couldn't throw a nose down to save my life but I think because I'm here and now we're rotating correctly jeez that is crazy we'll try to throw some harder ones but so far I mean just to get the nose angle right that's worth it for me because nose up is so inconsistent neutral nose angle to slightly nose down is so consistent so that alone has been worth it and we haven't even really ripped one yet I'm hoping we can hit 67 I don't think we're hitting 70 today but hopefully soon soon cuz 70 is 500 500 wow it really just is so far not really the speed huh that's so interesting I'm 661 a little nose up wow that's good speed though 66 1470 wow my spin is crazy right now huh and's M 151 spin let's go so to be completely honest I did not fully expect what we found in today's video I definitely thought I was throwing harder which I am throwing probably marginally harder much more consistently 65 66 almost cracked the 67 and I thought that because of the increased upper body mechanics but I think what I really learned is that the upper body facilitates the power that the lower body can generate it also might refine it a little bit like helping it to be thrown a little more nose down a little more spin a lot of that probably does come from the upper body but at least it seems to me that the power is from the lower body the facilitation of that and the hip point and the actual throw is from the upper body so they both have to really work in tandem which is where you get timing but to increase that speed it's going to take a little bit more work in the gym for me form will help but at the end of the day you need to increase your overall power output all videos about that as I actually refine that probably in a month too I have training cycles that I've created that I'm working through and I think form will help to increase a little bit more power but I think it works in Tandem and this is really interesting cool to see that I'm throwing 14,500 RPMs which is nuts nose angle got a lot better I was feeling like that was the case wasn't 100% sure but this is my kind of three-step process on how to get snap like Dre Gibson which I think is very apt it's not power like Dre Gibson because he's got a lot of lower body power that he's able to rip through and facilitate through that snap but this is how you get that snap if you like this video feel free to drop it a like subscribe if you want I'd love to hit 100K by the end of the year massive shout out to Drew for training me for being a friend uh hope he doesn't roast this too hard in the comments I'm sure he will have something to say about this final shot see you guys soon peace being a YouTuber is so weird I love it thank you for my job