Wow. The hands do “cut left”…(two days intensive swing work and I finally learned something! But I think I get it).
You yank the left hand down towards your left hip pocket while keeping left wrist cocked, and simultaneously rotating your body hard. Swoosh.
That’s how it feels to me anyway - hope I’m on the right track.
The hands never get stalled, cos they have somewhere to go (down past the left hip). Hence no flipping etc. Getting the odd push with ball back in stance.
Dangerous stuff there Beez! It’s good to have a feeling, but I would keep in mind that the hands cutting left is more of an effect of proper application of ABS training than a cause of yanking the left hand down toward the left hip pocket…
You are going into the hands motivating the body vs. the body motivating the hands stuff. The wrong mindset will block your ultimate progress and understanding of how to generate power accurately and in a reliable manner.
Maybe I should have been 'cuz my fairways are not lined with trees and traps- they are lined instead with fire breathing medival dragons and tar pits. So I can honestly say that I have never hit one into the trees but into the dragon’s mouth, yeah I’ve done that!! Place smiley face here. Oh yeah, the slow group in front of me…wild game to be had with a missle from a low-raking 3 iron. Got to go…Harry Potter is coming on.
The linked article seems to contradict not only the basic idea behind kinetic chains but also appears contrary to your approach of teaching golf.
Sometimes I wonder a bit about science as it applied to the golf swing. Just like ‘conservation of angular momentum’ is used rather lightly I wonder if perhaps the ’ kinetic chain’ concept is equally being used a bit too nonchalantly as a convenient masterkey.
I took a quick look at the article, and it seems to favor a kinetic link throughout the body… and talks a lot about ground pressures and so forth… sounds like the right way…
Mandrin,
You have to question what sort of technology they are using… Look like a cheap Polhymus system …Also that data represent a poor kinetic link… This persons data is a 7 marker…Looks like these guys have never meausred a player with a good kinetic link… One thing I will argue is the club can peak at impact …
This is what a good kinetic link should look like using a Vicon 6 dof system…and as you will see the club is peak just prior to impact… This isn’t perfect although pretty close to perfect kinetic link…This guy was a professional and could play the game…
This is the difference in measurements kinematic sequence and Kinetic Link…
But I’ve been posting some great numbers on a very good golf sim (lots of snow inhibiting golf course action) so I’m pretty pleased.
Lookit, it’s working a lot better as a thought than ‘down and out’ at the moment…it’s all left hand pull.
But maybe it’s something a little different to Lag’s stuff - a bit more like the ‘tolling the bell’ (pull down with the last three fingers of left hand) idea Nicklaus mentions in his book.
However, the path of the hands is notably different, and is in keeping with Lag’s ideas I think.
As an aside, working on the sim has been fantastic. Would really recommend it - accurate distance measurement, launch angle etc. Helps that it’s only two mins down the road compared to the half hour drive to the range
Gerry H’s ideas also continue to be a brilliant source of info.
I’ve got a date with a golf simulator in a couple of weeks and am looking forward to checking trajectory, accuracy, curvature, distance, etc. IMO the simulators now do a pretty good job…especially the longer the distance. Stuff within 60 yards or so can be erratic.
I agree, what you are doing is very sound…it’s just more swing/swit than hit. I’m happy you have some very positive things going on. There is no doubt that this forum is a breath of fresh air. However, you shouldjoin up for the first module and bring your right hand to the party as well. Along with other body parts. I think most women would agree that golf should be a lot like sex…it’s better to get the whole body involved in a meaningful way than just use one hand.
What is interesting is when you have a good kinetic link … You can use either method to play golf …hitting or swinging… either method uses the same power generation process…
We all question our mechanics and think our issues are mechanical flaws … although how can your mechanics work when the nuts and bolts which drives our mechanics… the power production process has a power leakage … wouldn’t matter what method hitting or swinging your mechanics is going to be unreliable if you have a power leakage in your power production process…
Look at it this way if the arms reach peak speed early and then the club releases naturally … the only way people can stop this is to start pulling on the handle trying to hold off the club releasing naturally… then they have to steer the club head and create a fake release… this is why we hit the ball all over the show cause they are relying on their timing for a fake release and square the face up to try to hit the ball straight…
This applies for tour players as well… it’s not the swinging action or hitting action at fault … it’s our own mechanical compensations we make for a poor power production process …
We have tons of data on tour players from over the years and there are very few players out there who are pure swingers … there are very few players on tour who are pure hitters… Most these guys are throwing in some kind of mechanical compensation of their own to band aid there power production issues…
Lag’s stuff is definitely on the radar but for now I’m keeping right hand quiet and pulling with the left. Any active right hand and I get a push fade…
Would recommend the sim it is great fun and you can do a good quantity of varied practice. Even if it just let’s you know what’s going with different drivers etc. Haven’t taken my game on course yet but I’ve hit more balls day after day than at any time in my life and my swing and striking has definitely improved.
Nothing will convince you sooner that a faster feeling driver swing, possibly one with higher clubhead mph, will actually make the ball go a shorter distance.
Interesting to watch the drives that end up being ‘sneaky long’ and where they come from too. Some shots that would look great at the range actually end up way shorter than you would expect with both irons and drivers. If you don’t have a big field for accurately measuring your distances, the sim has got to be next best thing.
It has also convinced me that it’s best to session with 60-80 yard pitches to get rhythm going before taking a full swing. And when things start getting wild, the pitches are good to go back to.
lagpressure, have another but somewhat slower look at the article.
Dr. John D’Acquisto has been working with the Peak Performance Golf Swing as a scientist in Exercise Physiology and bio-mechanics for the last couple of months. His concept of an ideal golf swing is one which adheres to the concept of kinetic chain, i.e., a sequential progression from the bottom up all clearly spelled out in the article.
He concludes that the Peak Performance Golf Swing is not perfect, yet it is the closest thing to the perfect golf swing that he has seen as a scientist and a golfer.
However the actual kinetic sequence shown of Don Trahan’s son, a pga pro, is not at all indicative of this typical ideal kinetic chain sequence. It shows rather a typical arms dominated swing, a top down sequence. This indeed fits with this particular swing as it is taught as a very short, very vertical back swing, with hands dominating the down swing, and rather limited core rotation.
Contradiction is typical in golf. I remember still vividly my very first one many many moons ago when a capture under a photo said that it showed clearly a effortless swing whereas the photo actually showed distorted facial muscles indicative of very strenuous effort.
Now for the second point. You teach more of a karate approach for the down swing aiming to produce maximum power beyond impact. However, Dr D’Acquisito sees any effort to maintain arm speed before, during and beyond impact as a significant decrease in power and club head speed.
It is here that I feel that the concept of kinetic chain is all too lightly applied. The body/arms/club form a very small primitive chain which is placarded al over the place with torque producing muscles which can rather easily thwart any inherent kinetic chain action.
Hence, in conclusion I feel the article contains a serious confusing intrinsic contradiction and moreover does not agree with your approach to the golf swing.
Btw, the PPGS (peak performance golf swing) is quite interesting as it is kind of on the other extreme of the scale. You prone a rather horizontal swing whereas Don Trahan teaches an extremely vertical swing. I experimented a bit with this swing and one can use it to convince oneself readily that bottom up or top down are not very different in producing club head speed. Moreover a very short vertical back swing can produce plenty of club head speed.
I simply don’t trust peak performance - every time I see something from them it is obvious more effort has gone into marketing than the content.
My brother bought it, returned it under the money back guarantee (and that took months and a ton of emails that weren’t answered). I saw it and couldn’t bear to watch it for more than 15 minutes. It may have merit, 15 minutes after all is not too worthy of judgment, but so may 1000’s of other programs out there and some pre-filtering must take place, even if unfair. It’s hard to find the woman of your dreams whilst you’re shacked up with one you’re not happy with, and ignoring allowed me to find something of substance, ABS.
Even this doctor you’ve mentioned above is claimed to have a fake Phd and a criminal record for fraud.
These guys are trying to flog their DVD’s…
To understand Biomechanics in golf takes years of research… What people need to be aware of is background history of so called researchers… To undertsand human motion in any sport you need three components to measure human motion… Force…Motion and Emg analysis technology… Emg allows you to understand how the muscles function in motion…
Our head Engineer in the late 1980’s started as biomedical Engineer and then did a fellowship as a biomechanist at the American Sport Medicine Institute… Researching Performance and Potential Injury during his time became golf research co-ordinator…
then went onto biomotion as director of Sports Medicine Research… Researching Performance and Potential Injury in Golf and Major league baseballers …Also he was invloved with Motion Analysis Corporation in re-designing clinical evaluation software as well as developing techniques for integrating Motion, Force and Emg data.
It’s take 20 years of research testing 10’s of 1000’s of golfers at all levels… using Force… Motion and Emg data to understand how the human body functions in a golf swing…
Knowing the buzz words of the theory of the kinetic link is onething… Understanding How does the human body create a kinetic link is another ball game…
Motion data only measure’s segment speeds… You can’t identify how the muscles function or their role in the kinetic link… To indentify this you need to use Emg data…to learn about muscular activity… Ground force etc how do you know what forces are appplied and their role with out using force data…
As I have said if researchers aren’t using Force , motion and Emg data in their research… They are practioners not researchers…
When people try to tell me they are teaching the kinetic link, ground forces or biomechanical function without using all three technologies… even worse not using any at all I know they are having a lend of themselves…
How can you say your teaching biomechanical function when your never tested and researched or tested your exercises and training… how do you know what muscles groups your training… you don’t your guessing…
If you havent’s researched and tested muscular activity to understand how the muscles function and their activity during a motion …
how can you teach someone biomechanical function… how do you know what muscle groups to train and thier role in the kinetic link or power production process…
It sux the consumers always loses out and get lead up the garden path… Sad part is guys like peak performance is polluting our field with their bullshit as well…
certainly charts, graphs, pie charts and so forth have a place in understanding things to a point… but the problem really lies with how to execute the movements of the body to get these figures everyone is so passionately seeking.
Even if you know what you are supposed to do… how do you train the body to do it?
Can we really trust ourselves to feel the right things?
Swing plane is a perfect example of a huge illusion trap for the average golfer… even pros.
If you feel you are moving the club back and forth on a straight line, and feel like you are surely on plane, I would say you are most certainly NOT on plane.
To end up with a dynamic swing plane that is actually on plane through impact, I do everything I can to feel I am NOT on plane at any point in the swing. My swing looks nicely on plane, but not because I am trying to swing on plane.
This happens because of the forces that are created by moving the club around our body very quickly. You fight it one way, here and you fight it another way there… and you have to do these things correctly or you will not find a proper golf swing.
The problem with slow motion is just that. .it’s slow motion… and we don’t swing in slow motion…
As soon as we speed up… we add the physics of rotation, and have to deal with centrifugal, and centripetal forces… and a clubhead that left unchecked is going to seek a gravitational inline relationship with the plane itself.
Swinging a golf club is not easy, especially if you think just a graph itself is going to tell you how to do what you want to see.
Bio
I am sorry to say but using the diciton “10s of 1000’s” will be plainly rejected in any scientific forum. They ask you to be very specific about the numbers of sample size, how, where and why were they selected. Was any randomization done and were the observers blinded and unbiased to the outcome. How many drop outs were there. And if improvment was a prior hypothesis, weather and how much improvemnt was documented. And has it been reassessed if that improvment was transient or sustained and for how long.
What kind of EMG was recorded. The Gold standard EMG in medicine involves inserting needles into individual muscles. I wonder why “10s of 1000’s” consented for this. And what kind of Ethics comittee/Board Ok’d that kind of research. Were the participants compensated at all?.
I know there is surface EMG but that is not as accurate, especially for the deeper core muscles we want to train like the anterior spinal muscles.
I really believe all of this science/pseudo science is another way of trying to sell people a way to better golf. Even if this science was proven beyond acadamic debate, it may still not help the golfer because all of this is observation from outside the circle. We need someone inside right at the center of the circle to tell their picture from within the circle.
Macs,
Emg data your speaking about is placed under the skin …this is only to measure an invidual muscle only and not designed to measure muscles groups… Emg placed on the surface of the skin is designed to measure muscle activity of muscle groups and to identify why types of muscular contractions are used in an activity or motion… That is a myth about accuarcy… You can even measure muscles by MRI these days… technology as advanced a long way… In golf, tennis or running you use muscles groups there in no need to measure individual muscles…
Coaches, doctors, chiro’s,physio’s, personal trainers, colleges and universities use our technology world wide… They test and upload data to us for processing…
We process the data and turn it into a 3D anatomical model and we create training programs for each athlete for them…
Yes we have tested 10’s of 1000’s of golfswings…
Leadbetter, Mike Hebron, Mike Adams from years ago get their athletes tested by us and train their kinetic links… Even Jim Mclean did until he started doing his own stuff… You’ll find alot of top 100 coaches are now using our technology and services…
Athletes Perfomance (addias) you would have heard of them …we have done tons of work researching for them…
I feel we have contributed a lot to the golf industry… we are a clinical application only… we want to remain a pure company which is designed to help coaches and athletes… we are happy to remain unknown and let the coaches keep their egos… I can say this I use to be a teaching professional
Lag,
This is why we test athletes to know what their kinetic link is and what their issues are… We test exercises so we know what the exrcises do and which body segment it will train… we have tons of exercises for each body segment …it’s all dyamic training and power explosive… we even test gym exercises as well so when athletes train in the gym they are training the right muscles groups specific for their sport …
The human body is complex and everyone reacts different to train movement patterns and this is why we need to continue to test new exercises weekly…
every athlete is unique and needs training specific to their bioemchanical function…
Training biomechanical function is different to training mechanics… they are different fields… sure they intergrade although they are two different fields which both should be respected… we train a power production process not a golfswing … that’s a coaches job
As a Dentist and Scientist there is one major problem with scientific studies and outcomes. Very few are unbiased and almost all are there to prove a drug works/theory is valid/sell DVD etc etc etc etc
Only randomised double blind trials are anywhere near useful in a scientific setting. Numbers are very dependant on interpretation…which is often biased
Which is why I put more faith is wise old dentists tales of what really works long term than what a sales rep tells me…
I was the same for swing training aids…blindly fishing for that feeling of compression…
