Jon Manack – Pitching practice demo

Pitching practice demo

Jon Manack – Pitching practice demo – Down the line

Pitching practice demo

The Golf Swing is Counter Intuitive

There are very good reasons why most golfers continue to struggle to improve their golf swing. The golf swing is complex, involving a sequenced chain reaction of timed movements requiring an accurate strike of a club head, on a small object, swinging at a high rate of speed, all while maintaining balance and posture. The physical movements in a good golf swing are difficult enough to time – so if you have inefficient movement, with excessive effort that results in more physical manipulations and compensations, it requires even more timing.

The golf swing is also counter intuitive. For right handed golfers, your instinct tells you to use and at times overuse your dominant, or right side and hand to add power and control, because that’s what your brain has been programmed to do in other activities. However, in golf this can cause a host of issues that reduce power and consistency. Your “intention” to hit “at” or “up” on the ball to lift it in the air is the opposite of what your intention should be, which is to hit “down (to a certain degree) and through” the ball. Once you realize that some “feels” and the execution of certain key movements in the golf swing are at times opposite of what you perceive, you will then have the ability to shorten the learning curve and more quickly change the inefficient motion.

To learn to move efficiently in a golf swing golfers basically have to trust that moving opposite of their instinct in most cases will actually produce more power. This is a hard concept to grasp and some may actually feel weaker at first when attempting to apply the correct or more efficient movement vs. what feels more powerful. In some sports thrusting or lunging the body in a direction adds power and speed… However, in golf, those radical movements tend to wreck the golfer’s ability to keep the arms and club on proper path and plane as well as make it next to impossible to maintain consistent posture and overall balance.

Learning how to use proper technique while incorporating a more tension free swinging motion will create more club head speed than trying to muscle the ball with the body. What golfers need to learn in order to create more power and consistency is to swing faster with balance not harder. When a swing feels easier it doesn’t necessarily mean that there is less power – it just means that there is less effort being applied. Keep in mind, it’s tough to time a “lunge!”

Consider the following examples of what golfers instinctually want to do vs. what they should do in an efficient golf swing:

To elevate the golf ball:
Golfers want to hit “up” on the ball when they actually need to hit down on it to make it go up. (Especially with irons)

To add power:
On the down swing, golfers want to lunge the body forward and/or down, jerk the upper body backwards, as well as, aggressively rotate and extend the lower body towards the target to create power (as done in other sports) when they need to do the opposite. Resist the urge to lunge or jerk the upper body and resist the early and excessively twist or spin open and stand up with the lower half prior to impact. To be clear… Yes the golf swing requires some lateral moving towards the target and opening of the legs, hips, core and shoulders in order to get maximum power. However, just not all at once prior to impact as if a bomb just went off!

Hitting for power vs. swinging for speed:
Golfers want to “hit at” the ball by throwing the hands and club head out and downward, releasing the club head immediately from the top of the swing in order to get down to the ball, creating a hammer and nail effect. When instead, golfers need to resist releasing the club head as if it were never going to hit the ball creating leverage, lag and speed through impact giving the appearance of an uninterrupted swinging motion.

In conclusion, lose the excessive effort… Take the gorilla suit off and get the hammer out of your hands while attempting to move a golf ball forward with power and accuracy. First make the intention to learn how to accomplish a reasonably tension free, rhythmic, overall balanced golf swing. Your handicap and your body will thank you! Distance will come…

Jon Manack visiting Mayacama Golf Club – Santa Rosa, CA

Jon Manack
Director of Instruction
LEAP Golf
http://www.jonmanack.com
info@jonmanack.com

Jon Manack Golf Instruction available at the following:

Shadow Hills Golf Club
Indio, CA

SilverRock Resort
La Quinta, CA

LEAP Sports Rehab
St. John’s, IN

Jon Manack visiting Mayacama Golf Club – Santa Rosa, CA

5 Wood – Down the line view

Jon Manack Golf Instruction available at the following:

Shadow Hills Golf Club
Indio, CA

SilverRock Resort
La Quinta, CA

LEAP Sports Rehab
St. John’s, IN

Loose is Fast, Tight is Slow

In any sport, athletes derive power and speed through tension free motion.  Just look at sprinters or swimmers shaking and loosening their body right before the start of competition.   The same holds true in golf.  Tight muscles are slow muscles whereas loose muscles can react quicker and move faster.  Power in golf comes from fast arm speed which creates fast club head speed and ball compression.   When we intuitively use effort to add power to a golf shot we tend to tighten, or contract, our muscles.  Unfortunately, golf is counter intuitive to other sports and the amount of effort we add to a shot isn’t directly proportional to the club head speed and initial ball velocity created.  Proper technique using tension free motion will always deliver more efficient power than a lot of effort combined with poor technique.  This is how good players achieve the feeling of effortless power vs. the feeling of powerless effort that most amateurs have.

During practice sessions on the range, try this drill to help you become aware of how much tension you have during your swing.  At address- prior to initiating your backswing- take a deep breath. As you exhale, relax and drop your shoulders.  A large percentage of golfers hold too much tension in their arms and shoulders. Next, make a backswing to waist height and hold your club there.  Take a breath, and while exhaling, drop your shoulders again and lose the tension in the arms.  Repeat this same inhale, exhale, and relaxing of the shoulders and arms at the top of your swing, half way down, at impact and at waist high post impact.  This should give you the feeling of softness in your arms, shoulders, back, and chest that you should strive for during the normal golf swinging motion. 

Tension free motion, especially of your arms and shoulders, has several benefits to your overall swing.  First, being tension free helps you attain a greater range of motion throughout your swing.  Second, because tension free arms and shoulders move faster, you will use less body effort in the down swing to feel powerful.  When you use less body effort it is easier to maintain proper body angles and posture throughout the swing which helps you to stay down through the shot in order to compress the ball with maximum efficiency.  And finally, tension free shoulders and arms allow you to create the speed necessary to increase your distance. Remember this phrase to keep you aware… Loose is fast, tight is slow.

 

Jon Manack is the Director of Instruction for Leap Golf at SilverRock Resort in La Quinta and Shadow Hills Golf Club in Indio, CA. This article contains excerpts from Jon’s forthcoming book The Anatomy of an Efficient Golf Swing.  For more information please visit www.jonmanack.com.

Be Aware! The wrong advice can compound the potential for injury- hurting your swing and your body

Bad golf swings have been blamed on everything from lack of talent to lack of flexibility.   A bad golf swing can do more than just frustrate you, it can create cumulative physical trauma that can lead to injury. Ironically, the myriad of readily available swing and fitness information may be a major contributing factor causing bad golf swings and injuries.

It’s not that all of the information being espoused is bad; the problem is the information isn’t always applicable to most struggling golfers. As a result the golfers we see tend to be confused and frustrated with their golf swings.  Many are also experiencing physical stiffness, aches and pains. 

The potential for injury increases when golf instruction is doled out without an understanding of the potential physical consequences of position and movement.  An example of advice that has the potential for negative physical consequences is “Snapping your left knee straight” on the downswing to create faster hip rotation for more power.  Not only does this create a chain reaction of movement that can lead to knee, hip and back injury, it is simply not applicable to the majority of amateur golfers who have trouble maintaining proper dynamic posture on the downswing.  Body rotation is not the issue – the real issue is their inability to swing their arms fast.  Trying to create more speed with their body is the wrong antidote for what ails them and just makes it more difficult to swing the arms properly by creating tension filled manipulation that feels like powerless effort instead of effortless power.

Like any great athlete who appears to perform effortlessly, great golf swings use less motion and effort to create speed.  Snapping the knee straight encourages the body to rotate faster necessitating physical manipulations that create inefficient movement and force the body into compromising anatomical positions.  By learning to move efficiently, golfers can avoid unnecessary physical stress that can lead to cumulative trauma and injury.

In future articles we will focus on applying only relevant information to your golf swing and identify more examples of widely communicated and accepted advice that is potentially damaging to your golf swing and your physical well being.  

Jon Manack is the Director of Instruction for Leap Golf at SilverRock Resort in La Quinta and Shadow Hills Golf Club in Indio, CA. This article contains excerpts from Jon’s forthcoming book The Anatomy of an Efficient Golf Swing.  For more information please visit www.jonmanack.com.

Stop putting the brakes on your swing speed

One of the reasons hybrid clubs have become so popular is because the average golfer doesn’t generate enough club head speed to compress the ball with their 3 or 4 iron. Lack of strength and flexibility is usually suspected as the culprit, so off to the gym you go to strengthen your core, lift weights and stretch to increase your athleticism. However, the most common reason golfers can’t hit a golf ball as far as they should is because they simply grab the club through impact, slowing it down. Ironically, when a golfer adds muscular effort to control the club face hoping to add power and accuracy, they create tension and the exact opposite happens. Too much tension in the hands and the arms is a form of manipulation and not only slams the brakes on your swing speed – it makes it difficult to achieve a repetitive golf swing.

If you’re not hitting it as far as you know you can, you are probably losing speed where it counts the most, through impact. If you are losing speed, you can bet that you have tension in the hands, arms and shoulders on the down swing, as you approach the ball, and through impact. This tension typically originates for two reasons. One being “hit anxiety”, which is more psychological and deals with anticipating the strike. The other is tension, which can be caused by the arm and hand manipulation necessary to compensate for bad technique. When you are out of position early in the swing sequence you can intuitively sense that you are in a less powerful position, which subsequently forces you to add muscular effort for power and control.

Because most golfers have never actually felt the proper technique to generate greater swing speed, they instinctively substitute muscular effort, which creates muscular tension. Although the arms feel like they are moving fast, club head lag is lost early which slows club head speed through impact. Many of my students initially say that the changes we have made don’t feel as powerful even though they have picked up distance. I explain that they have always equated power with effort and we have now taken the effort out of the swing. What they are now feeling is the speed that results from tension free movement vs. the tension that muscular effort creates.

Remember, regardless of how much strength you possess, when effort is added in the absence of proper technique, you are interrupting the arms’ natural ability to swing, rotate and extend, which creates maximum speed through impact. Instead of adding muscular effort, release the tension in your hands, arms, chest and shoulders and resist grabbing and controlling the club through and past impact and you will see that distance comes from speed and not effort.

Jon Manack is the Director of Instruction for Leap Golf at SilverRock Resort in La Quinta and Shadow Hills Golf Club in Indio, CA. This article contains excerpts from Jon’s forthcoming book The Anatomy of an Efficient Golf Swing. For more information please visit www.jonmanack.com.