Add Yards to Your Golf Swing

I’ve never met a golfer who wants to hit the ball shorter! Every golfer wants more distance — and the secret isn’t buying a new driver, it’s improving your body’s ability to move, generate power, and control your swing.

Whether it’s the off-season or you’re in the middle of your golf year, now is the perfect time to work on your mobility, strength, and power. Without addressing these physical components, you’re leaving yards behind on every swing.

At Empower U PT & Performance in Rehoboth Beach, DE, and Ocean Pines, MD, we specialize in helping golfers improve their performance, longevity, and confidence on the course.

🎯 Golf Fitness Goals: Add Years and Yards to Your Game

A proper golf performance program helps you:

• Generate greater clubhead and ball speed

• Build power and strength through your core and lower body

• Reduce your risk for injury and stay on the course longer

• Improve your mobility and stability in key areas for an efficient, powerful swing

Your body adapts to the loads placed upon it. If you train your body to move efficiently and powerfully, you’ll gain both distance and durability.

Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) has found the areas that are necessary to be mobile and necessary to be stable throughout the golf swing. We have alternating segments of stable then mobile joints throughout our body which is key for proper force and power transmission from the ground up all the way to the club and to the golf ball. If there is a break in this alternating chain, that is when compensations occur.

1. Mobility requirements
   1. Neck – rotates side to side during every swing, if limits causes head to lift off ball or limits width of swing
   2. Shoulder – overhead, cross body, and external rotation mobility
   3. Thoracic spine or Trunk – debatably most important component of shoulder turn
   4. Hips – allows true rotational force generation from the lower body towards the target without compensations
   5. Ankles – lack of mobility often causes compensations in golf posture and squat mechanics
2. Stability requirements
   1. Grip & forearm strength
   2. Shoulder blade
   3. Low back and Abdominals/core
   4. Gluteal muscles
3. Optimize sequencing of the downswing
   1. Kinematic Sequence
      • Every golfer that has a high swing speed and driving distance has been found to have the same order of acceleration of their body’s segments through the swing, this order is called the Kinematic Sequence. From the top of the backswing your body follows the following order of acceleration:
        • Pelvis & Hips -> Trunk/Thoracic spine ->  Arms -> Club
      • However, in nearly all inefficient ball strikers the opposite sequence is often found: club, arms, trunk/thoracic spine, then pelvis and hips which limits your distance and club head speed.

4. Improve Distance by improving Clubhead and Ball speed
   1. The more speed you can generate from the club to the ball = greater distance. “Speed training” should begin once adequate mobility and strength have been established. Speed training is placed in quotes because often as mobility and strength improve, so does clubhead speed. Below is a graphic that gives age specific percentiles based on 600 amateur golfers studied by Par 4 Success.

Physical Predictors of  Golf Performance

The Golf Swing is an extremely quick movement and the ability to produce power is a requirement for fast club head speed. Ability to produce power has been linked in a near 1 to 1 ratio to club head speed of the golf swing with the below test. The below data and graphics are from TPI’s newsletter and from Par 4 Success’  research of their golfers.

Vertical Jump Test

Seated Medicine Ball Chest Pass

Medicine Ball Shotput

How Powerful are you compared to Golfers your age??

The below charts use data from Par 4 Success to place you in 25^th, 50^th, 75th, 90^th or 99^th percentile for your gender specific age range!

How do I know what my body and my swing need?

In order to individualize all the information above, having a Titleist Performance Institute 16 point Fitness Assessment is necessary. This assessment generates a Fitness Handicap on data collected from 1000’s of amateurs and tour players and how the body relates to the golf swing. Then the above power tests and clubhead speed baseline measures will be taken to assess where you need improvement.

From the results of your TPI Assessment, Clubhead Speed, Power tests, and swing analysis, a customized Titleist Performance Fitness program will be developed to help ADD YARDS to your swing.

Please Contact Us to make an appointment today to ADD YEARS & YARDS to your swing (302)-217-3212.