How to Fix the Disc Golf Forehand Chicken Wing (Elbow Escape)

Forehand is the throw people learn on their own. Plenty of players pick up a sidearm flick from ultimate or from watching friends, and the chicken wing is one of the habits that comes with it. It feels natural because it lets the arm do everything. It is also why so many forehands look fine on short shots and fall apart at full power.

Disclosure: I build Disc Golf Form Analyzer. "Chicken wing (elbow escape)" is one of the 10 forehand faults our app grades, and I will point out where it can help. The explanation and drills below are written for this guide; the coach's own cue and drill for it live in the app.

What the forehand chicken wing actually is

On a clean forehand, the elbow stays fairly close to your side as your hips start to turn. The forearm trails, the wrist stays cocked back and the disc trails the hand. Late in the throw, the forearm and wrist whip through, the forearm rotates palm down and the disc snaps out of the hand.

On a chicken wing forehand, the elbow lifts and swings out away from the torso early. Now the elbow is leading the throw on its own, with nothing behind it. The forearm can only push the disc forward from that position, so you get a throw that is all shoulder and elbow, with little snap.

Why it costs you spin and control

There is good evidence that spin matters on sidearm throws. In a study of ultimate players, skilled and unskilled sidearm throwers released the disc at nearly the same speed (21.7 vs 20.7 m/s), but the skilled group spun it faster (12.9 vs 9.4 revolutions per second) and threw it much farther (51.4 vs 29.5 m). The same study found the skilled players pronated the forearm before release while the unskilled players supinated it (Sasakawa and Sakurai 2008). A later forehand study found distance correlated with spin in both groups (Sasakawa, Umegaki and Sakurai 2018).

These were ultimate players, not disc golfers, so treat them as strong hints. The hint is clear though: a forehand that pushes the disc is unlikely to put much spin on it, and an escaping elbow is one of the most common ways to end up pushing. If you want the full picture of the push fault, it is also on our list of common disc golf form mistakes.

The symptoms you will notice

• The disc wobbles or flutters out of the hand.
• It turns over or flips unexpectedly, or you have to throw very overstable discs to keep it straight.
• Short forehands are fine; full-power forehands spray.
• It feels like your shoulder and elbow are doing the work.

These symptoms are not unique to the chicken wing. Wobble also comes from grip and wrist issues. That is why video matters: it tells you which one you have.

How to spot elbow escape on video

Pick the right angle

The elbow escapes sideways, away from your body. A side-on camera looks along that movement, so you barely see it.

• Best: directly in front of you. Set the phone well off your line of fire, at about chest height, with your whole body in frame. Use a soft disc or throw into a net.
• Also good: directly behind you, looking down the target line.
• Not useful for this fault: side-on. It is still the best angle for your load, weight transfer and sequence timing.

Our filming guide covers height, distance and slow motion settings.

Pause on these frames

1. End of the load. Where is the elbow? On a clean forehand it is close to your side, bent, with the disc back and the wrist cocked.
2. Start of the forward move. What moves first: your hips, or your elbow? If the elbow is already swinging out while your hips are still, the arm is starting the throw.
3. Halfway through the swing. Is there a gap of open air between your elbow and your ribs? A large and growing gap is the wing.
4. Just before release. Is the disc trailing your hand, or is it out in front of it? A disc in front of the hand means you are pushing.

The four usual causes

The chicken wing is usually a symptom. Fix the cause and the elbow often settles by itself.

1. The arm starts the throw

The most common cause. The hips never lead, so the only way to create speed is to swing the elbow out and fling. On video, the elbow moves before the hips in frame 2. This is closely linked to the "No lower body sequence (arm-initiated)" fault.

2. A collapsed or unstable load

If your torso slumps, your knees cave or your weight drifts during the load, there is no stable base to rotate around. The arm compensates by flaring out. On video, your body looks unsettled at the end of the load.

3. The disc starts too far from the body

Reaching the disc way out to the side in the load puts the elbow out with it. The swing then starts wide and stays wide. On video, the hand and disc are far from your hip at the end of the load. This overlaps with "Losing the compact forehand path."

4. Trying to throw harder with the shoulder

When you go for distance, it is tempting to muscle the throw. The shoulder lifts, the elbow rises with it, and the wing appears only on full-power throws. On video, your short throws look clean and your hard ones do not.

Drills matched to each cause

Do each drill at low effort first. Add pace only once the shape holds.

Cause	What video shows	Drill
Arm starts the throw	Elbow moves before hips	Hip-first forehand
Collapsed load	Unsettled body at end of load	Hold-the-load reps
Disc too far from body	Hand far from hip at load	Pocket-close forehand
Muscling with the shoulder	Wing appears only at full power	Speed ladder

Hip-first forehand

Set up in your forehand stance with the disc already back. Start the forward move only with your front foot pressure and hip turn, and keep the arm passive for a beat. Let the arm be pulled along by the body. Throw soft into a net or open field. The goal is to make a late arm feel normal.

Hold-the-load reps

Move into your load and freeze for two seconds: knees softly bent, weight set, torso tall but not stiff, elbow close to your side. If you wobble, shorten the load until you can hold it. Then throw from the hold at half effort.

Pocket-close forehand

Tuck a small towel or a glove between your upper arm and your ribs. Make slow, short forehands where the goal is to keep the towel from falling until just before release. It is a feel drill, not a throwing style, so drop the towel once the feel is there.

Speed ladder

Throw five forehands each at 50%, 70% and 85% effort, filming the set. Watch them as a batch and find the effort level where the elbow starts to escape. Do most of your reps just below that level, and nudge it up over sessions.

Use outside cues once it feels comfortable

Research on attention suggests that focusing on the effect of a movement usually helps learning more than focusing on the body part itself (Wulf 2013). So once the drill feels natural, swap "keep my elbow in" for something outside your body, like "snap the disc past my front hip" or "skip a stone low and flat."

Review in batches and check it in 3D

Do not check video after every throw. The guidance hypothesis in motor learning holds that feedback given too often can make you dependent on it (Anderson et al. 2005). Throw a set, then review the set.

When you review, 3D helps with this fault more than most. A 3D form analysis rebuilds your throw as a 3D body from an ordinary phone video, so even a side-on clip can be rotated to a front or top-down view. From above, the hand trail shows how wide your swing travels, and slowing it to 1/4 speed makes the elbow's path obvious. Our guide to reading your disc golf throw in 3D shows what to look at.

A note on elbow pain

Many players who search for chicken wing fixes do so because their elbow hurts after forehands. I cannot tell you that fixing your form will fix pain, and nothing here is medical advice. For context, a survey of 883 disc golfers found that players who threw mainly forehand were more likely to report elbow injuries than backhand throwers (Nelson et al. 2015). It was a self-selected online survey and did not test what caused the injuries. If your elbow hurts, rest it and see a qualified clinician before you drill.

Where to go next

Once the elbow stays in, the next forehand checks are usually wrist lag and weight transfer. Our disc golf forehand basics covers the full throw, the best disc golf drills list has more forehand work, and how to throw farther covers distance once the shape is clean.

Disc Golf Form Analyzer is on iPhone and Android, $39.99 a year after a 3-day free trial.