“Slow down” means something specific.

August 9, 2022 by Steve Andrews in Instruction, Opinion with comments

One of the most common recommendations for throwing better shots is “slow down.” The hard thing is that slowing down isn’t easy, and it doesn’t always work. Slowing down every part of your swing feels like abandoning distance and, worse, that loss of distance often comes with no gains in accuracy. Sometimes, you feel like you’ve lost your natural rhythm with no upside.

It’s probably true that most amateur players need to slow down their x-step, but the goal is not to slow down for its own sake, but to find a speed that works best for you. It’s not just about going slow but being able to get your mechanics to hold up when you go faster. The real goal is to find your perfect speed, a tempo that works with your timing and generates your best combination of power and accuracy.

How Tempo Affects Timing

When I talk about timing, I mean how the parts of your body work together to generate force and then move that force into your throw. As you move into the shot and wind up your body, you are producing potential energy. Then, as you swing forward, you try and get that energy into your disc. All your joints and levers move that energy through the system, and when it is done efficiently, you get a high percentage of that potential energy into the shot.

The potential energy available is partly determined by your body shape and fitness – How long are your levers? How good is your flexibility and strength? – and some is set by technique. This is where good positions and mechanics come into play. If you have an efficient swing and don’t round, spin out, or reroute the disc, you can preserve a lot of that energy and get a powerful throw. The best players often have gifts in both departments – long levers, good flexibility and strength, clean technique. They can generate a lot of energy and then get it efficiently into the disc. For players who don’t have the benefit of generating a lot of potential power, for example, those of us who aren’t gifted with a wide wingspan and great flexibility, preserving the power we can create is essential.

Think of Paige Pierce. She is smaller than nearly every adult male player in the country, but she is strong and fast, and her beautiful form makes sure that she gets almost all the power she generates into the disc.

Unlike for Pierce, the problem for most…