Outside The Clinic - Golf Swing Back On Course

My work has given me the opportunity to combine my two passions, golf and physiotherapy. I have played since being able to walk and have been involved in golf through work for the last 10 years.I have been lucky enough to work with fantastic golfers and coaches. I got involved for selfish reasons initially, I wanted to improve, and have picked up lots of great tips and habits over the years.

I would like to start with speed. Speed is king. There is plenty of statistics out there suggesting the further you hit the ball the better your scores tend to be.

There is no doubt that speed is a fairly natural attribute (I don’t think Alvaro Quiros was ever slow) however it is absolutely trainable (changeable).

To summarise I will write out the factors I think are key to speed and will talk about them in more depth:

Neurological
Technique
Power
Strength
Flexibility

Neurological

The quickest way to improve your club-head speed is to get your body used to moving the club quicker (sounds obvious). My tip would be to hire a trackman and practise swinging as fast as you can. You will likely need to do this at least once a week for 4-6 weeks. When I was attached to the magnificent Paul Lawrie Golf Centre in Aberdeen I recruited a group of 6 mid-handicapped men middle aged men and the results were impressive (see graphic below). We also used speed sticks (super-speed) to help facilitate this. It became clear that you need an instrument to give you immediate feedback on your club-head speed. Ball speed and distance were no use (ball speed and carry distance reduce with off- centred strikes which is inevitable whilst speed training).

The goal of the session was to improve club-head speed regardless of where the ball went (distance or direction). We found max club head speeds increasing by as much as 20mph (95-115). At the end of the course the same individual was capable of swinging at 103.5mph at 90% when his previous max speed was 95mph. No one reported a loss of accuracy in competition driving from the training.

Technique

I see technique as the efficiency of your golf swing. It could also be described as the ability of your body to produce force from the ground to the club. Rob Neale the Biomechanists based in Florida explains this beautifully and I would recommend attending one of his courses as it has had a huge influence on my understanding of the swing.

Studies of elite golfers has shown a tendency of the body to build up speed from the ground upwards towards the hand. The diagrams demonstrate pelvis rotational speed peaking initially, closely forward by trunk, arm and club. Kinematic is a fancy word for movement and kinetic chain is a fancy word for how each part of the body interacts with each other. In power sports technique generally is about producing force through the ground with your legs and transferring this to wherever you need it. With finer skills such as Darts, Snooker and Putting the lower half of the body tends to stay still as less force is necessary and the joints which specialise in finer skills tend to take over.

There is equipment available to measure the speeds of these areas in your swing and give you very detailed information. An experienced PGA coach is likely to be able to spot problems with their eye so I don’t think a full assessment is always necessary. Be guided by your coach and let the coach decide if a 3D assessment would help support your plan for getting better.

Power/Strength

The two are closely linked so I have put them together. The science of power and strength and the relationship between the two is quite complex and I’m not an academic studying the area so I will try and keep it simple!

Strength is your ability to produce force. A strength program will typically consist of very heavy, slow movements such as a deadlift. Power is your ability to produce force quickly. A power program will consist of very quick movements such as jumps, throws, pushes, pulls and cleans.

You can’t have power without strength it is very dependent on having a base of strength. You can have strength with poor power. It is important you address both areas in your golf program. Footage of Rory McIlroy doing gym sessions will show you him mixing both slow/heavy to fatigue and short bursts of fast exercises. The down swing happens very quickly (less than 0.3 seconds) however skilled golfers tend to start moving their hips into the downswing before the club is finished the back swing allowing them more time to generate force. Sprinters have less than 0.2 seconds to generate power when they strike the ground so golfers do have a decent amount of time to generate force.

There has been lots of studies relating physical tests to club head speed and they have been beautifully summarised below by Alex Ehlert (can be followed on twitter). The closest predictors of club-head speed are Jump power, jump height and squat strength (a mix of strength and power!).

My initial thoughts were how can a very vertically orientated movement with no rotation such as a jump be relevant in a golf swing which involves rotating a club from one side to the other? It doesn’t seem very golf specific. Having spent some time on force plates (which measure vertical force) there is a very large and fast spike in vertical force at left arm parallel. I think this is the magic moment for producing club head speed. Dr Kwon describes how this vertical force creates rotation at the pelvis. This large vertical force passes outside of your tummy button which will cause your pelvis to rotate towards the target (the force is applied through one side only having the effect of tipping the pelvis)

Left arm parallel on the downswing is when the magic happens. See the vertical force F passes outside the left hip which will cause the pelvis to rotate towards the target (red line). This pelvis rotation can be seen in red in Figure 1 and is the start of the chain of movement that peaks at impact.

You can also see vertical movement in elite golfers by watching their belt buckles. If you watch Rory’s swing his belt buckle dips down just prior to starting his downswing, stops at left arm parallel (this is when the legs are pushing hardest to change from loading to unloading his legs) and his buckle will come up until impact.

Summary

If you want to optimise your club head speed I would be working on all of these areas. Hitting the gym 3-4 times per week working on your strength and power (see a qualified UKCSA strength coach for guidance), regular lessons to optimise the efficiency of your swing as well as regular practise building your club head speed getting feedback from trackman. It’s a lot isn’t it!

You might want to do blocks of work to concentrate on one thing at a time breaking your progress into manageable chunks. Again make sure your swing and strength coach are all well informed about who should be doing what and when.

You may also want to prioritise some areas over others. For example you may be very strong and athletic however have a poor swing or vice versa.

Here's a clip of some of the exercises I do at home...

Lindsay Smart, Senior Physiotherapist, Hampden Sports Clinic.