The fight over your swing

Hey Gang, Dee here,

You know, ever since I started in the golf fitness industry about 11 years ago, there has always been an on-going battle with golf pro’s and especially students, and that is over “swing style” or how you swing your club.

As biomechanists, Tyler and I have studied (and have been certified) under the “smartest and wisest” in the golf industry, and one of the most impact-full lessons learned is the research done utilizing 3D technology.

What 3D has taught is, is that the body learns “how” to create and express energy or speed. In any swinging sport, the research states that an “efficient” body will provide the most consistency, power and speed…period!

So efficiency means that in order to create rotatory speed, there is a biomechanical order that must be followed. That order is pelvis first, torso (thorax) second, lead arm third and club head fourth. If this order is not utilized, you will not be consistent, fast or powerful!

Now the other interesting thing about this efficiency topic is that it doesn’t matter what your swing “looks like.” Really, think about Jim Furyk and Kenny Perry. You would agree that they have totally different swings, right? Would you also agree that Furyk’s swing is, let’s say, unique? Would you also say that his swing according the the “golf teachers” is not optimal? Sure most would say that, but teachers who understand efficiency would say that “it really doesn’t matter what it looks like.”

We agree.

It doesn’t’ matter what your swing looks like! Why do you think that everyone has a different swing? Answer- cause we are all different! I always use this analogy and I’m going to use it again… think of a snowflake, we all know that there is not one snowflake that is the same, agreed? But what happens when you have billions of individual snowflakes that make up a field of snow…don’t they sort of all look the same cause they’re all bunched together? Unfortunately both the fitness and the golf industry see their clients as part of the field of snow and not as an individual snowflake!

You see that snowflake is you and you are individually made, thus making everything you do different than the way anyone else would do it. The only way to see what your snowflake “shape” looks like is to look at it under magnification. With 3D technology, that is essentially what we can do with your swing. We can see exactly what your swing pattern is like, where it is good, where it is bad, and where your ineffeciency leaks are, and from there provide precise solutions to go about solving the issues found.

BUT! Herein lies the “fight” I started talking about. There’s too much guessing going on out there and because of that, many golfers will never achieve their potential! No matter what we do, we never guess or just “eye it” to see where you are swing wise. If you guess in our industries, you’ll almost always get it wrong, and it’s almost always to the clients’ detriment!

Tyler and I know that efficiency is king, the research proves it. TPI’s motto states that, “We do not believe there is only one way to swing a golf club, we do believe that there is an efficient way to swing the club and it’s based off what the body can do.”

That’s simply genius!!

So, in the end, it’s NOT going to be the fact that you can’t get your club in the right position and the right time, it’s ultimately going to be because you have physical issues (inflexibility, instability, pain, limited range of motion, etc.) that are the real reasons for preventing your from having a consistent swing, hitting it far, playing without pain, decreasing your handicap and achieving lower scores!

So our suggestion is the next time you need a golf pro, ask them if they believe in, or know about efficiency. Better yet, just go to http://www.mytpi.com and search for a professional in your area that is certified by TPI and then you won’t have to “shop around” looking for teachers who know the difference between a snowflake and a field of snow!