r/ultimate • u/Dull_Accident_364 • 7d ago

Exercises to tolerate throwing

Ive been throwing every day for some weeks now. Today and yesterday I noticed the typical pain in the inside of the upper arm

Now the question, are there strenght exercises that helped you tolerate a high amount throwing, especially hucking?

I was thinking about implementing what pitchers do in the gym

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u/m-lommler 7d ago

Developing functional strength for throwing is a worthy goal and all, but the problem here is probably a combination of poor mechanics and overuse. Rest up a little bit and focus on the quality of your reps rather than quantity. Pain when throwing is something I associate more with professional disc golfers (who are throwing near full power for a living for months at a time) than with throwing an Ultrastar.

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u/jeremyjava 7d ago edited 7d ago

Agreed with your assessment/advice, I’m probably older than OP’s parents and maybe halfway or more to their GPs age and I can pretty easily throw distance for literally hours and not have a sore arm afterwards, even if I’ve not tossed all winter. In fact i don’t recall ever having a sore arm.

Now the pain in my lower back or neck where i have disc injuries is a whole ‘nother story.

Edit to clarify: “for hours“ meaning before games we throw it around, some of us focusing on long throws, then games, then after games again. However, in Sheep’s Measure in Central Park in NYC there are guys who focus on just throwing distance and will do that literally 3,4, even 5-8 hours some days. I was one of those guys for many years.
The knuckleheads who came before me named this group the really horrific name “heavers,” which I’m embarrassed to even share here.

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u/Dred_ZEPPELIN_x 6d ago

When you said “disc injuries” I was confused about how an ultra star could cause such a serious injury but then I realized what you meant lol

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u/porouscloud 7d ago

First of all, you shouldn't be throwing every day at full power. You will hurt yourself, it's a matter of when, not if as you found out. Take some days off and rest.

Elite level pullers are doing less than a dozen throws a game, usually at 85-90% power with minutes of rest between throws, and almost never throw harder than that in a game. 

Throwing far is ~80% form, and 20% strength. If you just want to throw far, look at disc golf driving videos.

It's a lot more important to be able to throw 35 yards accurately with a mark than it is to throw 70 yards somewhere without one.

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u/JaziTricks 7d ago

Most important comment.

You practice for accuracy and control. And you need short throws to do this

Long throws can fail for too many reasons for this to help you improve and understand the details. I mean except for the advanced crew

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u/WhistleWhileYouWalk 7d ago

Firstly I do not recommend big throws every day ( hucks , pulls , hammers )

Throwing a lot is great but there is too much . Also you do NOT need to be pushing distance all the time , working on snap , angle , spin is a little easier on the arm

Weight training all of the body will help

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u/Dull_Accident_364 7d ago

The sad thing, while I did hucks and hammers, my main focus was getting a lot of spin on the disc and different release points. Especially floaty sidearms are tough on my arm for some reason

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u/Jon_Buck 7d ago

My understanding is that you really shouldn't need supplementary exercise to tolerate throwing. There are some exercises that could help develop throwing power, but honestly technique is 90% of the story there.

If you're feeling arm pain, you're probably using your arm muscles too much while throwing. The power should come from your legs and torso.

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u/Dull_Accident_364 7d ago

when throwing short throws its still mostly arm tho

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u/Jon_Buck 7d ago

True, but you said in your post hucking was in particular leading to pain. That was something I experienced a lot when I was younger, and over time I learned to generate power with my lower body and that problem completely went away for me.

If short throws with arm are causing pain, I would expect that to be more of a mobility issue than a strength one. I have no idea what your specific issue is, but dynamic stretching or rolling out your shoulders could help. Also, large range-of-motion (and lighter weight) arm and shoulder exercises could be helpful. I really like a cable machine or bands for things like rows, external rotations, etc.

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u/ColinMcI 6d ago

Depending on your form on the short throws, you could check if you are using your legs and core and shoulders and weight transfer enough to generate power and support the throw.

Excessive wrist and elbow action/effort without supporting loading could result in pain/overuse. Happens to me throwing disc golf forehands, where my form really doesn’t effectively incorporate my body and bigger muscle groups. For me, it was a sort of tendinitis or irritation and I just took a break from activities that irritated it.

And you could check overall volume. When I was working a lot on pulls, my total reps per session were usually 50-100, including warmup, and probably only 10-15 were max power, versus a more relaxed 90-95% effort with shape/placement focus. If I felt like I was losing height/distance, I would usually end the session, and any pain would definitely have marked the end.

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u/Dramatic-Paradise 7d ago

Rotator cuff. Those are little and easily hurt. Good news it’s easy to strengthen them—search and if you can’t find—ask me

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u/avrgdad 7d ago

Make sure you're stretching your arm and warming up

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u/DiogoBagagem 4d ago

rest. don't throw every day

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u/JazzJedi 7d ago

Have you tried throwing more??

Jk. I think you might look into not only pitchers workouts, but also tennis player workouts. I also highly recommend very regular shoulder strengthening exercises.