I played ultimate frisbee in college. Four years at Oregon State, starting handler by junior year, before I blew out my shoulder and had to quit. So when I picked up disc golf during physical therapy, I figured the throwing part would transfer over. Same basic motion, right? Just smaller discs at metal baskets instead of to people.
I was wrong about almost everything.
Ultimate throws and disc golf throws look similar but they’re mechanically different in ways that took me probably two years to fully understand. The grip is different. The release is different. The power source is completely different. I spent my first year of disc golf throwing like an ultimate player and wondering why I couldn’t get distance, and then another year unlearning all of that and rebuilding from scratch.
So here’s what I wish someone had told me when I started. Not the ultimate-to-disc-golf translation \u2014 the actual fundamentals of how a backhand throw works when you do it right.
The “Reach Back” Is a Lie
Everyone tells beginners to reach back. Extend your arm behind you, get the disc as far back as possible, then pull through. More reach back equals more power. Makes intuitive sense.
It’s wrong though. Or at least, it’s the wrong way to think about what’s actually happening.
Watch slow-motion video of pros throwing. Their arm isn’t really reaching back independently \u2014 their whole upper body is rotating. The disc gets behind them because their shoulders turn away from the target, not because they’re reaching their arm back like they’re trying to grab something off a high shelf.
When you think “reach back,” your arm extends and separates from your body. This creates all sorts of problems \u2014 you start the pull from too far away, you can’t generate speed through the hit, your arm takes a curved path instead of a straight one. It feels powerful but it’s actually leaking power everywhere.
When you think “rotate,” your arm stays connected to your body and the disc gets behind you because your chest is pointing away from the target. The “reach” is a consequence of the rotation, not a separate action.
This was the single biggest thing I had to relearn. I kept reaching back with my arm and wondering why my drives topped out at 280 feet. The day I figured out the rotation thing \u2014 really felt it, not just understood it intellectually \u2014 I added probably 40 feet immediately.
Where the Power Actually Comes From
This is gonna sound weird but: the throw doesn’t come from your arm. The arm is basically a whip that’s attached to your body. Your body does the work.
The sequence goes something like: legs push into the ground, hips rotate toward the target, shoulders follow the hips, arm gets pulled through by the rotating body, disc releases off the fingers. Each segment accelerates the next one, like cracking a whip. By the time energy reaches your hand, it’s moving way faster than your arm could move on its own.
If you try to throw with your arm \u2014 like muscling it, forcing power \u2014 you max out pretty quick. Human arms aren’t that strong in isolation. But if you let your body rotate and your arm follow, the disc comes off your hand much faster with less effort.
This is why out-of-shape people can throw far while gym bros sometimes struggle. It’s not about arm strength. It’s about timing and sequence. The skinny guy who’s figured out the kinetic chain beats the jacked guy who’s muscling it every time.
I was the jacked guy for a while. Well, not jacked, but I was definitely trying to muscle throws. Coming from ultimate where arm speed mattered more. Had to completely rewire my brain to stop trying so hard with my arm and let my body do the work.
The Grip
There are different grips and people have opinions. I’ll give you the basics.
Power grip: four fingers curled under the rim, thumb on top. This is what most people use for drives. All four fingers pressing into the rim gives you maximum grip at release, which means maximum spin, which means stability in flight.
Fan grip: fingers spread out under the flight plate instead of curled into the rim. Less grippy, more control. Good for approaches and touch shots where you don’t need maximum distance.
Start with power grip for drives. The disc should feel secure \u2014 not death grip tight, but secure. When you release, the disc should spin off your fingers with a clean snap. If it’s wobbling or coming out weird, your grip might be too loose or your fingers might be in the wrong position.
I use a modified power grip where my index finger is slightly extended along the rim. Some people call this a stacked grip. It just feels right for me. You’ll eventually figure out what feels right for you.
The Thing Nobody Explains About the Pull
Okay so you’ve rotated away from the target, the disc is behind you, now you pull through. How does the pull actually work?
The image that helped me most: imagine you’re trying to elbow someone standing behind you. Your elbow leads the throw. The disc trails behind, tucked close to your chest, until your elbow gets past your body. Then \u2014 and only then \u2014 your forearm extends and the disc whips out.
If your arm is straight during the pull, you’re doing it wrong. The arm stays bent, elbow leading, until the very end. This keeps the disc close to your center of mass, which means it travels faster when it finally releases. Physics stuff \u2014 shorter radius equals faster rotation.
I see beginners all the time with their arm fully extended behind them, pulling through in a big sweeping arc. That arc is killing their distance. Straight line from the disc to the target, elbow leading, compact through the hit. That’s what works.
The Drill That Fixed My Form
This is a drill I stole from \u2014 honestly I don’t remember who, some YouTube video years ago \u2014 but it worked better than anything else I tried.
Stand with your feet planted, facing perpendicular to your target. No run-up, no x-step, just standing still. Hold a disc in your throwing hand.
Now rotate your shoulders away from the target so your chest faces backward. Don’t reach back \u2014 just turn your upper body. The disc should end up behind you because you turned, not because you extended your arm.
From there, rotate your hips toward the target. Let your shoulders follow the hips. Let your arm follow the shoulders. Try to generate power purely from the rotation, not from pulling with your arm.
Do this at like 50% power. Don’t try to crush it. Just feel the sequence. Hips, shoulders, arm, release. The disc should come out clean and spin hard even though you’re not really trying.
I did this for probably two weeks, just standstill throws into a field, before I started adding any footwork back. It was humbling because my initial standstill distance sucked \u2014 like 200 feet \u2014 but by the end of those two weeks I was hitting 280 from a standstill, which was farther than my old run-up throws. The technique was doing the work.
When to Add Footwork
Don’t add an x-step or run-up until your standstill throw is solid. I know it’s tempting. A run-up feels more athletic, more powerful. But if your body mechanics are wrong, the run-up just adds momentum to bad form. You get faster bad throws instead of good throws.
Solid standstill means: consistent release point, good spin on the disc, distance around 250+ for a midrange. When you can do that without thinking about it, then you can start adding one step, then two, then the full x-step.
I tried to do everything at once when I started. Full run-up from day one. It made my form worse because I couldn’t isolate what was going wrong. Breaking it down to standstill-only for a while was annoying but it worked way better.
Anyway
The backhand is complicated. There’s more to it than I’ve covered here \u2014 timing, the brace, off-arm positioning, a bunch of stuff. But the core things are: rotate don’t reach, power comes from your body, elbow leads the pull. If you get those right, the rest can be figured out incrementally.
Film yourself. Seriously. I resisted this for way too long because I didn’t want to see myself throwing badly. But you can’t fix what you can’t see. Set up your phone, throw ten shots, watch them back in slow motion. You’ll immediately notice things you didn’t feel while throwing.
It took me two years to build a decent backhand, having come in with bad habits from ultimate. Hopefully this saves you some of that time. Or you’ll ignore it like I ignored everyone’s advice and figure it out the hard way. Both paths work eventually.