Hi,

razaar posted this, in the thread on pro vs amateur trajectory and it caught my interest:

“You may not be physically able to pass through the required positions. An example is poor flexibility in the shoulders (rotator cuff) where you are unable to achieve external rotation in the right shoulder joint to have the right elbow leading the right forearm late into the downswing.”

I suspect that this particular one applies to me, and I also suspect that this is one reason why I am converting to hitting, since the Hitting elbow position is easier to achieve.

However, the point of this post is to highlight the fact that if players, in general, have limitations, and if those limitations basically make certain techniques impossible, that might be a key reason why they (we) struggle with improvement.

My questions:

is there a simple list of key capabilities? (razaar’s would be one on that list)

for each of these, is there a simple way to check whether or not you have that capability?

finally, if you don’t have one or more, is there some advice on which techniques or methods you won’t be able to manage and which ones to use instead?

In other words, a key to improvement (for ordinary amateurs) might be to diagnose physical limitations and then have a roadmap to a golf swing that you are going to be capable of, rather than struggling to learn something that you are not capable of doing.

An excellent question, Devon.

At a recent golf day, a photo of me was taken mid swing and it shows that my left elbow is sticking out a bit. Looks as though I’m heading for a chicken wing. My problem is that I have an excessively large belly, so the elbows have to bow out a bit just to get around the girth.

While the obvious answer is to lose weight and hence lose the limitation. But that can’t happen in the short term. In the interim, I need to allow for the limitation but am unsure as to what I should be striving for.

In the short term,one should concentrate on developing a real solid short game.IMO
How many times do you see oldy being very short off the tee and fairway but ,boy they make it up around the green.We are not young nor pros…....An ex touring pro told me its the area where you can get nearly as good as a pro,cos length doesnt matter

Devon
Your version of a hitting action differs to mine, which will again be different to others views on the subject. To me a hitting action has a shortened follow through regardless of the right elbow position. It would be more effective if the trail elbow led the forearm to time a late square hit. To be effective the target hand/wrist/forearm has to be in control of the forward path of the handle (club) and needs to be fully braced and resisting the more powerful trail hand/wrist/forearm which is releasing through and beyond the ball position. I am not sure how to do this if the focus is pushing or hitting with the trail hand/wrist. To my thinking it is far better to get the trail arm in a position at the top of the backswing where it will come in at the right time and in support of the target arm rather than over powering it at a crucial point in the swing. The control needs to be with the target arm because it is usually the weaker of the two. Any focus away from it could lead to its collapse at a crucial time when it needs to be rock solid.

However, the swing technique I play with has the sensation of the right hand/wrist/forearm pushing through impact, which is the forearm unwinding from its wound up position created in the backswing.

There is a recent thread here called TPI screening. Check that out for a list of 8-10 key capabilities.
There is also a YouTube vid From the TPI boys at the fitness conference that covers a lot about your question: TPI conference

Devongolfer,
In the research we have done you can have an unfit person who swings the golf club better than a fit athletic person.
How is this possible?
It boils down to coordination the unfit person may appear unfit although has the athleticism to coordinate effective rotational movement like golf. Baseball another great example. Under load or in motion they produce good range of motion etc.

If you are trying to determine physical limitations you test people under load or during the activity. The reason you do this is You need to access is there physical limitations that effecting movement during motion and specific to the activity which is the golf swing.

We have had many tour players who fail the TPI screening as an example although when you measure their golf swing they have good dynamics of movement, there is no physical limitations dynamically which were effecting their movement. Doing static exercise to screen someone isn’t specific to the activity, sure they may fail these exercise. For those exercises they have physical limitation although this doesn’t mean these physical limitations that are going to effect their rotation movement to swing a golf club.

When you do static you are not putting the muscles under load, statically they maybe limited although under load they have full elasticity.

The numerous player we tested after these static test, when swinging a golf club they have good range of motion and what is most important is they have a really good muscular load. The ability to be able to stretch and shorten muscles is the most important factor. These guys have no physical limitations dynamically under load which are effecting their ability to produce rotational movement to swing a golf club.

If you test a golfer and he has poor rate of stretch and shorten of the muscles between lower body and upper body or upper body and arms, he has a physical limitations which is going to effect his dynamic movement. This needs to be addressed.

Internal rotation of the hips again statically you can have poor range of motion which indicates physical limitations although under load during the golf swing they have beautiful range of motion. Same applies for internal and external rotation of the shoulders.

In summary accessing physical limitations need to accessed under load to see if there is physical limitations specific to the motion.

I appreciate the effort in the replies everyone, and there is a lot of good stuff there, but my question is a little different.

HK says something like: If you are flexible, Swing; if you are strong, Hit. I associate these with willowy youths for swinging and stocky guys with no necks and barrel chests for Hitting.

But I am neither: the willowy days of youth are long gone and I am not built like a front row, so HK’s advice gets me nowhere.

I have been re-building my swing over the past year with an open mind about what would be the best method, but the quote from razaar really crystalised an idea for me.

I find it next to impossible to get my right elbow into a 10-3-B Pitch position. I had been assuming that this must be due to lack of understanding or practice on my part, but razaar made me think that there might be a physical reason why I can’t do it.

Exercise plays a part, but I think we can also agree that genetics play a part as well. I do exercises based on BodyGolf which involve floor and stretch band work, and if I still find this position difficult, I suspect that I might have to work around this limitation rather than try harder to fix it.

For people who are building a swing, it now seems intuitive to me that part of the process should be to narrow down the swing action types to look at, based on some assessment of what you are physically capable of. If you can’t do this movement, then that rules out these golf technique options, that sort of thing.

I was wondering whether there were more key movements (in addition to the rotator cuff thing that razaar mentioned) and whether anyone had a model that matched recommended swing types to physical capabilities / limitations.

Something more useful than HK’s prescription, in other words.

Anyone can hit. Anyone can get much stronger and probably should for healths sake.

If you can’t do 20 or 40 push ups you could learn in 3 months.

Thanks, Dart, you have confirmed something that I have started to believe: anyone can hit.

Not everyone can Swing, IMO.

In the UK, the only teaching I have come across is Swinging. My club pro denied there was any such thing as Hitting. That is the core reason my lessons have got me nowhere, again IMO.

I am glad I am on the Hitting path, and as you say, the stronger I get, the better I will hit.

There is something else important that I would like to check with you, I’ll post it on Ask Dart.

Devon,
Every one hits even swingers have a bit of hit at the bottom. Swingers, passive right arm, the passively push their arm into impact. Hitters driver their right arm into impact.
Hens teeth between the two.

Thanks Zen,

The key thing that has tied me in knots has been trying to lag the release of the club. I could not get this move and doing it badly just made the game worse.

I have been through some of your Zenolink thread, very interesting. I think I have got something important (just for me, nothing new or earth shattering, I am sure) from it. I am about to post about this on Ask Dart.

Devongolfer,
In the research we have done you can have an unfit person who swings the golf club better than a fit athletic person.
How is this possible?
It boils down to coordination the unfit person may appear unfit although has the athleticism to coordinate effective rotational movement like golf. Baseball another great example. Under load or in motion they produce good range of motion etc.

If you are trying to determine physical limitations you test people under load or during the activity. The reason you do this is You need to access is there physical limitations that effecting movement during motion and specific to the activity which is the golf swing.

We have had many tour players who fail the TPI screening as an example although when you measure their golf swing they have good dynamics of movement, there is no physical limitations dynamically which were effecting their movement. Doing static exercise to screen someone isn’t specific to the activity, sure they may fail these exercise. For those exercises they have physical limitation although this doesn’t mean these physical limitations that are going to effect their rotation movement to swing a golf club.

When you do static you are not putting the muscles under load, statically they maybe limited although under load they have full elasticity.

The numerous player we tested after these static test, when swinging a golf club they have good range of motion and what is most important is they have a really good muscular load. The ability to be able to stretch and shorten muscles is the most important factor. These guys have no physical limitations dynamically under load which are effecting their ability to produce rotational movement to swing a golf club.

If you test a golfer and he has poor rate of stretch and shorten of the muscles between lower body and upper body or upper body and arms, he has a physical limitations which is going to effect his dynamic movement. This needs to be addressed.

Internal rotation of the hips again statically you can have poor range of motion which indicates physical limitations although under load during the golf swing they have beautiful range of motion. Same applies for internal and external rotation of the shoulders.

In summary accessing physical limitations need to accessed under load to see if there is physical limitations specific to the motion.

An official iseekgolf.com teaching panelist

scott@zenolink.com">scott@zenolink.com

http://www.facebook.com/zen…

Core Health first 3D gym in the world. 1 Golf Links Road, Frankston South

razaar,
thanks for suggesting I look at this again. You are right, on a first read, I felt Zen’s reply was a good answer about what I could do about improving body movement, rather than what I asked, which was about choosing the swing to suit what I could already do.

However, Zen has got me interested in his stuff. I think he may well be pointing me in a good direction.

Since I posted that last post, I have been reading up on Zen’s thread, and have contacted a Zenolink person in the UK. They are a long way away, but I hope to visit for a session in the Spring.

As a bonus, the guy is a TGM teacher, and has converted to Hitting himself, so I think I can get a lesson on Hitting as well.

You just never know with this stuff, you ask questions thinking you are going in one direction and then end up learning something unexpected, and go off in another direction.

Devon it is all in Abe Mitchell’s books mentioned in another thread.

Devon,
I know Alex, I trained him up in Zeno and he was introduce to TGM through the boys here.
If he is too far there is also Michael Beaumont in Hednesford who work with Alison Nicholas and many other tour players.
mbeaumont05 at me dot com
I have spent hours on end with Michael gret guy very smart coach
Richard Daly
Chartsey Surrey
richard@surreygolflesson dot com

All three guys are top coaches and very passionate about their coaching.
drop us an email scott at zenolink dot com I’ll let who ever you go to take good care of you and I can keep an eye for your data when it comes through :)

Kinetic link is in the TGM book.
Read 6-M-1, then read 2-M-4 (ground) 2-M-3, a 4 barrell swing is a 4 stage kinetic link. 3 barrell is a 3 stage kinetic link.

Zen,
thanks for the extra contact info. I think I’ll go to Alex, he sent me some really good emails and I think we will get on great. He said he worked with you. I plan to tie in a trip to him with a trip to London.

razaar,
OK, you got me as well, Essentials of Golf is on the way!

Zen,
thanks for the extra contact info. I think I’ll go to Alex, he sent me some really good emails and I think we will get on great. He said he worked with you. I plan to tie in a trip to him with a trip to London.

razaar,
OK, you got me as well, Essentials of Golf is on the way!

Fan of:
Stan Utley putting and short game
TGM hitting, as explained by Peter Croker / Paul Hart, Lynn Blake.
New ball flight rules
Zen golf
Rory McIlroy, I.K.Kim swings
Fast play, Stableford scoring, windy conditions

That’s great to hear, I’ll keep an eye out for your data :).
Alex is a good guy he should suit you down to the ground.