After really serious mod 1, 2 and 3 drilling with some exercises thrown in like the jump barbell squats I mentioned in another thread, it got warm enough to have a practice session. My goal this year is to get much tighter at the top and through the strike. I caught this one on the toe, and need to make myself stand a bit closer to the ball to deal with that, but I think this swing shows improvement from last year…and I really like the more level rotation and the lower exit.
Sorry for the delay in responding…but I have been in ABS since 2012. As far as time away from golf, sure…I work a lot as a lawyer…and don’t get to play much…but I think about golf…a lot Beating balls is important, but drilling without a ball is perhaps more important. Worst thing you can do is perfect your imperfections by hitting endless golf balls.
Over the years (before ABS) I have suffered from tendinitis from time to time, sometimes in the right wrist and sometimes in the back of the left hand. Since ABS I have had no right wrist tendinitis, but I had a bad case of back of left hand tendinitis last year. I took some time off this winter and the tendinitis is better, but not completely gone. I suppose the impact bag is a contributor, but I am 53 and there is some wear on the tires!
That’s true, I’ve learned drilling without a golf ball is very important. Once we put a golf ball in front of us, our “hit” impulse takes over and we revert to our previous programming if we have not drilled a new move enough.
Grady, I’ve been drilling a lot because of ABS and I too developed tendonitis. I caught it early and did a bunch of stretches and it cleared up in 2 weeks with constant stretching and massaging. Here i used this site.
I got out to the range today and took some video. If you notice I’ve really been focusing on my ground pressures. My right leg is like a post now. In the video, because of the angle it looks like I’m playing the ball in the middle of my stance but really it’s off my left heel. As a result of my increased leg work, my low point is much farther down the line. Weird, it feels like i turn through the entire shot, but looking at the stills, my hips and legs don’t change from p3 to p4
Yeah, the face on angle doesn’t look right. It looks like you are really leaning on your left side. The notion that your right leg will stay put is right to an extent, I think. We use the legs to provide resistance to rotate our torso’s against. Accordingly, we don’t want the right knee moving forward quickly in the DS. You will see some separation in the knees of good players. But we do need to thrust off the right side as we get to impact. Keep up the good work.
Let me drop a few words here about impact bags, and although not an ABS participant, I have in my youth laid waste to much heavier old tractor tires and the detail between the two is identical in various ways.
From time to time there have been former students of ABS leaving the program either under their own direction, or maybe directed by other professionals who drop by from time to time, claiming the ‘bag’ caused severe injury and they should leave. Hogwash!
The bag is not the problem. The resistance the bag provides is not the problem. The problem is the execution. If one goes up there willy-nilly slappy wrist and power drives into any formidable resistance the weakest link will be exposed to some extent. The body is what should be absorbing the majority of ‘the blow’….just like Ben said straight up the shaft and into the body.
What is good about the ‘exposed to some extent’ portion of the parade mentioned above is the resistance will show hand-wrist conditions immediately and if they are out of whack, then yes further traffic in that regard will be an issue perhaps, but that is more a conceptual attack issue while leaving body cohesiveness behind. Old TGMers would know what I am talking about here. Lag may have even smacked a few milk crates in his time checking alignments.
Just like a toe strike sends the heel, improper wrist-hand conditions will also show up on resistance’s doorstep as an out-of-whack face condition.
Lag and Two know this well I am certain, and their guidance and proper execution should make this a non-issue as it’s been around the game for eons.
What if the ball, although staying the same size, suddenly weighed 100 pounds, or over 60 times heavier than it is. Are you going to send only wrists-hand-and some arm alone at it trying to move it. Only chance in hell is everything hits……………right…………………………………………………………NOW!
I think I’ve developed left forearm tendinitis. I’ll give the stretching and strengthening drills a shot. Thanks golfingplease! Nice looking swing by the way. It looks very ABS to my newbie eyes.
I feel like if people could learn to stretch and massage regularly, and slow down when they FIRST start feeling a bit injured, they won’t run into too much trouble injury wise. It’s like taking care of cars, a little regular maintenance goes a long way.
From viewing the Mod 1 videos, there was caution expressed against hitting the bag with too much forward shaft lean because it is not proper technique. Not only that, such a bag/club impact position looks like wrist/hand/forearm trouble. I played around with doing that to make sure that I don’t do it. It is an uncomfortable impact position and feels like I would tweak something if I did that repetitively.
I’ve developed golfer’s elbow (inflammation of the tendons that attach to the inner or medial part of the elbow) a couple of months ago, but that was before I met Lag and his bag. Actually, the stretching video that comes with Mod 1 has provided some short-term help. I remain mindful of it and will lay off if I have to.
During my Mod 1 drills I developed some tendinitis in my right wrist. What this told me was 1) take it easy on the right arm drills, and 2) find the proper position for my wrist at the different points in the drill. I ended up changing my right grip a little to change the way my wrist was moving and that seemed to have solved the issue for me.
golfingplease, I second the observation about the club face. It looks too closed at the top and at P3. My swing looked the same way prior to ABS. I actually was working on this prior to ABS by introducing a cup in the left wrist at the top of the back swing. John talks about the club face being so open at P3 that you could fry an egg on the face. To achieve this club face position, the left wrist needs to be cupped to the extreme so much that the right wrist is flat.
If you have seen any of Martin Ayers’ videos he discusses this same concept, but in context of what he calls the “twirl”. The nice thing about this flat right wrist position is that from here as you bring the club into the hitting area, you can’t help but want to fire the hands (not the arms!) hard into the ball. Then, like magic, you end up with a flat left wrist a la Hogan 5 Lessons.
When doing the Mod 1 drill, we want the clubhead accelerating quickly, but not at high velocity. People hurt themselves when they don’t follow protocol, and start taking full swings into the bag. We never want the hands visually to move outside the right thigh. Basically little or no arm travel. Then of course there is a difference between a workout “burn” and shooting pain. It’s a very disciplined and powerful drill that more often than not, needs guidance to master the form properly.
Beating balls is important, but drilling without a ball is perhaps more important. Worst thing you can do is perfect your imperfections by hitting endless golf balls.