Mandeville, Louisiana – January 7, 2022
This article was written by Dr. JP Guidry, DPT, TPI. Dr. Guidry is also an LGA Member.
Improved swing speed and distance is one of the main reasons golfers come to me for in-person and online coaching. The beauty is that if you do the right things it can improved at any age and any level. Today I am going to talk about how we go about improving swing speed and distance and what you can do to improve those things for yourself
There are five (5) basics areas which you can optimize to improve swing and ball speed and therefore distance
- Equipment
- Technique/Skill
- Mobility
- Strength and Power
- Speed training
For the sake of this article, I am going to focus mostly on areas 3-5 since those are the areas of my expertise. Let’s dive in
1.Equipment – Essentially this is having the right equipment fit for you and your swing. Find a good club fitter in your area and make the investment it will be very worthwhile
2.Technique/Skill – For this we are looking at optimizing swing mechanics and efficiency, proper sequencing, ground force reactions, launch conditions, and impact conditions. While I will assess and touch on some of these with my clients, they are best addressed with a qualified teaching professional
- Mobility – Everyone knows that mobility is important to health and longevity on golf. It is also important in our ability to create speed. The bigger turn and longer hand path we can create the more ability we have to create speed.
For mobility we are looking at our ability to separate our upper and lower body, how well we rotate through our neck, shoulders, spine, and hips as well as ankle mobility which can impact how we use the ground. Mobility is best addressed everyday even if just 10-15 minutes a day.
As a thank you for reading this article I wanted to share this free 30-day mobility program I created with you. You can sign up at the link below
30 days to better Golf Mobility (guidrygolfandsport.com)
- Strength and Power – This gives us the ability to produce more force and produce it quickly which is highly important when it comes to creating speed. A regular strength and power program will also help us maintain those abilities as we age.
For strength we focus on get strong in the squat, lunge, hinge, press and pull motions, and heavy loaded core exercises. The goal here is to continuously increase the weight we are using or the reps we do with the same weight. A simple way is to start with a weight you can do for 6 reps slowly build up to 10 reps with that weight then increase and go back to 6 and start all over again.
For power, our goal is to move low to moderate weight really fast with really high intent. For these we focus on Jumps, medicine ball throws and slams, sprinting, Olympic lifts/derivatives and speed specific exercises and versions of the strength lifts. The ultimate key here is keeping the reps low 3 to 5 and each rep should be fast with maximum intent. This is not cardio
- Speed training – Here we are building the skill of speed. You can use superspeed, stack system or other systems. For these I tend to prescribe low volume and dominant side swings only since there is no evidence to support any extra benefit from doing high volume and non-dominant swings.
I am also a fan of doing consistent speed training with a club and ball since this is the environment we want to speed to carryover to. A good way to do this is anytime you are a t the range or hitting into a net, get warmed up and hit 10-20 balls with you max speed swing tracking speed with a radar and impact with powdered foot spray.
The goal is to move up the speed number while getting better at finding the center of the face. If you want the speed to transfer over to your swing, you must spend time swinging as fast as you can with both
In conclusion, if you want to maximize your ability to hit bombs, outdrive your friends, and do this well into your playing years you need to focus on all these areas. If you are interested in improving your swing speed I can help. I have helped hundreds of golfers of all levels and ages all over the world do this via my in-person and online remote based coaching. You can contact me at johnpaul@guidrypt.com and you can find out more about me at www. guidrygolfandsport.com. You can also follow me on social media at the links below
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IG Dr JP Guidry-Golf Performance (@guidrygolfandsport_performance) • Instagram photos and videos
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