Instruction
Increase distance with anti-rotation exercises
Golf is a rotational sport. This means that for us to make an efficient golf swing, our bodies need to rotate. By rotating our body in our golf swing, we are able to utilize our body’s energy so that we can generate more club head speed that will translate to increased distance.
Even though it is our arms that are swinging our golf club, it is in fact our body’s rotation that is generating the power and the speed to swing our arms and the club. So I suppose it would be somewhat logical to think that if we just turned our bodies faster, then we would be able to generate more speed and hit the ball further, right? Well, even though that presumption is not entirely inaccurate, it is unfortunately not entirely that simple either.
For you to understand what I mean, I need to go into more depth and give you some basic understandings of how the human body moves biomechanically in the golf swing, so bear with me.
In an efficient golf swing, our body doesn’t make just one movement turning back and through, but rather it is divided up into different segments that turn at separate moments in the swing. When done efficiently, our body will work in a pattern where one segment of our body reaches peak speed then slows down abruptly so that it can transfer energy to the next segment of the body, and as that part reaches peak speed then it too has to slow down abruptly so that it too can transfer its energy on to the next segment — and so on and so on. When firing correctly, this amazing ability to leap frog energy from one segment to the next is what’s called the kinematic sequence in the sports science world.
Now in order for us to turn these segments faster, they must have the ability to slow down faster. One of the major reasons that we aren’t able to just rotate faster naturally in our swings is because we don’t have the ability to create the segmental stabilization needed so that we can slow down faster. And when we don’t have efficient stopping power, then we lose control of our speed — and that can lead to serious injury. So in order for us to prevent injuries, our brain simply puts in a breaking system that prevents us from moving fast enough to cause any damage.
My good friend, mentor and colleague Jason Glass from the Tour Performance Lab in Vancouver uses this great analogy of a putting a race car engine in a Honda Civic. The Civic’s chassis simply won’t be able to handle the torque and the loads from the power of the race car engine, so it will explode under the stress’s of explosive acceleration and abrupt cornering. The same would happen if our body had all this speed, but not the strength and stability to support it in our golf swing.
In order for our brains to release the safety brakes — so that we can make a faster golf swing — we have to convince it that we have sufficient stopping power so that we won’t self-destruct. How? We simply have to build a chasis strong enough to control our horsepower, and one of the most efficient ways to do that is by strengthening our body to resist rotation first. This is where anti-rotation exercises are an excellent way to strengthen the appropriate muscles that are used to stabilize your body in your golf swing.
Take, for instance, a traditional core strengthening exercise such as the plank, which involves holding ourself in the top of a push-up. Now, if we remove one of our arms from the hold, we will become less stable and our body will want to fall over in the direction of the arm we’ve lifted. So to prevent our body from falling over, we will need to activate and recruit the necessary muscles to help stabilize our body. By training these muscles in different variations, we are building our body’s breaking system up so that we will have the ability to improve our segmental stabilization in our golf swing for us to transfer energy more efficiently from one segment to the next. This allows us to move faster and create more clubhead speed.
The video above gives you a few variations of how you can train anti-rotation so that you can increase distance in your golf game. Enjoy.
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Instruction
Clement: Laid-off or perfect fade? Across-the-line or perfect draw?
Some call the image on the left laid off, but if you are hitting a fade, this could be a perfect backswing for it! Same for across the line for a draw! Stop racking your brain with perceived mistakes and simply match backswing to shot shape!
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Instruction
The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic
My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.
As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.
The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.
Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:
Mis-aligned hands
By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.
The position of the grip in the upper/left hand
I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.
To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.
Too much lower (right) hand on the club
It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.
Gripping too tightly
Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.
So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.
More from the Wedge Guy
- The Wedge Guy: Golf mastery begins with your wedge game
- The Wedge Guy: Why golf is 20 times harder than brain surgery
- The Wedge Guy: Musings on the golf ball rollback
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Instruction
Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!
Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?
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Mbwa Kali Sana
Dec 27, 2017 at 8:14 am
Adam,You are right with the kinematic sequence :too many golf instructors teach you “positions “and not how to move in the proper sequence .Great SAM SNEAD siab that a long time ago :he was a self taught golfer who found out by himself in hitting stones with a stick .Now who can teach you the right kinematic sequence .The only one who does that teaching today is PAUL WILSON with his IGNITION GOLF site .
Aaron Merritt
Sep 3, 2016 at 5:32 pm
Great article but bad Honda Civic analogy. There have literally been thousands of Civics with race car engines installed that have not “blown up”.
BSGolf
Sep 2, 2016 at 3:08 pm
I wouldn’t trust any “golf professional” that has their clubs in their bag backwards…
Double Mocha Man
Sep 2, 2016 at 3:54 pm
I wouldn’t trust a “golf professional” with a huge stereo speaker like that. It looks like a trash bin.
Tim J
Sep 2, 2016 at 1:54 pm
This article started so strongly and finished so flat. You are right on about the kinematic sequence but a little strengthening will do little for your swing. How about you offer people a way to actually FEEL which muscles should be working and in what order. Then they can do what you are speaking of. Telling people in any field to get stronger or more stable won’t help them learn a complex skill and golf is definitely a complex skill.
Steve S
Sep 7, 2016 at 5:49 pm
Not sure I agree. Golf is a complex skill played at a pro level. But if you want to play to a 10 handicap, not so much. Golf instruction has mystified and complicated the swing so much that it seems complex. There are a few out there that have a simple approach that is also repeatable. Ron Sisson, Tom Pezzuti, the Graves Bros. to name a few…. Getting fit does help, but for me flexibility is more important than gaining strength. I’ve gained swing speed by getting more flexible, not stronger….
Jordan
Sep 2, 2016 at 1:19 pm
Adam, great article. What is the subject of the new book due out this year referred to in your bio?
Adam Stevenson
Sep 3, 2016 at 12:34 pm
Jordan, thank you for your interest. If your interested in following the progress with my new book, then please follow it on facebook under the title/name: My Mind Body Golf.