Driving & Distance

Fixing Grip Lock

Stop releasing late and pulling shots off-line.

Why it matters

Grip lock is holding the disc a fraction too long, so it leaves after the hand has already started across your body — which for a right-handed backhand sends it hard right, usually into whatever you were most trying to avoid. It feels like a grip problem and almost never is: it is a timing problem that the grip gets blamed for.

How to do it

1. Check whether you are standing up through the throw. Rising pulls the release point back and late — this is the most common cause.
2. Make sure you are rotating through rather than stopping. A body that stops makes the hand travel further across before the disc can leave.
3. Release out in front of your chest, not behind it. The disc should go when your arm is extending toward the target.
4. Ease the grip pressure slightly. Not loose — just not clenched, so the disc can rip out when it is supposed to.
5. Work at 70% until it stops. Grip lock arrives with effort, so the diagnosis is easier below the effort that triggers it.

Common mistakes

Key points

• Grip lock is usually a timing/standing-up issue, not the grip.
• Stay in the shot and release out front, not behind you.

The drill

Drill · Seventy percent — 30 throws at 70%, raising effort only once 10 in a row are clean. Throw thirty at seventy percent. Once you have ten consecutive throws with no right-side miss, go to eighty. Repeat. You are finding the effort level at which your timing holds and then raising it deliberately, rather than hoping the problem goes away at full power. It does not.

Watch: How To ELIMINATE Grip Lock | Disc Golf Tips — Tyler Tiede

Further reading

• Common Throwing Errors — Innova Discs
• Nate Sexton and Sarah Hokom Driving Clinic in Pittsburgh, PA - How to improve your form — Nate Sexton

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