Power Accumulation and Swing Patterns

Power Accumulation and Swing Patterns

These terms coined by Homer Kelly serve us well to explain how out of line conditions seeking a straight line can release stored energy to enable us to vary power out put, what we have to understand also is that as individuals it becomes apparent that we all swing the club differently and thus some people tap into one particular power accumulator more readily that others (finding one more natural), thus giving us different looking patterns to our golf swings.

So how does this work, well first of all there are 4 accumulators:

#1(Muscle Power) is a bending right arm, which is always striving for a straight line condition, this is controlled via the right triceps muscle always pushing away from the glenohumeral joint of the right shoulder, the left arm prevents the right arm from achieving this in the backswing, thus the right arm folds during backswing right arm external rotation and abduction (away from the midline).
#2 (Velocity power) is the cocking and unlocking of the left wrist, remember that radial and ulnar deviation is a small motion, controlled by the forearms.
#3 (Transfer Power) is the turning and rolling of the forearms, pronation and supination.
#4 (Radius Power) this is the angle of the left arm and left shoulder, at address the angle would be close to 80/90 degree angle, that angle decreasing during the backswing and vice versa on the downswing.

So a flat shaft plane in the backswing at P3 would be an over utilisation of the #3 Power Accumulator thus overriding the #2 power Accumulator which creates the up in the backswing, so simply reverse engineer this applying a anti clockwise rolling action in the backswing, this will cause the #3 accumulator to become less active thus stimulating the use of the #2 accumulator allowing a steeper more on plane backswing.

No Mind

How many of you reading this are truly present? In the moment? In the now? Having an experience and not just thinking about one. You see thoughts are like clouds that float across the blue sky they arrive and then they go again but most, see a cloud/thought and attach themselves to this idea and it is pritty save to say they are not truly present, you may have felt this in a golf lesson where for some unknown reason you feel like the coach does not really care, I have had this told to me by many pupils who come seeking my advice explaining to me that their old coach had switched off after only 5 mins into the lesson, that's because they are locked into mind, thinking about the dinner they are having that evening or relationship problems, your coach should be with you completely from start to finish, make sure they are.

So remember this you cannot cure something with the same thing that created it, you cannot cure mind with mind (psychologists take note), we have to learn to escape this illusion, we are not talking of an empty mind we are looking at it like an empty container, it is a mind that is fully present, aware and free. When was the last time you played your best golf? Did you have an experience that was like you had left your brain behind in the locker room? Free you mind, free your golf, do not get attached.

Here is a Japanese Koan for you: So you put a baby goose into a bottle and feed it, when the goose has grown to full adult size, you then want to get the goose out of the bottle without hurting the goose or breaking the bottle, how do you get it out? 

Extensor Action.

Extensor action simply means to straighten the right arm and this is done through a conscious muscular effort via the tricep muscle of the right arm.

The right arm needs a feeling of always pushing out to seek the maximum radius of ones elliptical arc, this gives substance/structure to the left arm allowing downward pressure/mass to be applied to the golf ball, think of the left arm as a cable on a suspension bridge, should the right arm always be extending the left arm will naturally be straight with a hidden stored potential energy just like that of the cable, if one was to cut this the cable would pull violently apart.

So how does one apply this within their own swing?

It's all in the right arm and concentric (shortening muscle) application of the right tricep, in ones own body it would feel as if the right tricep is always active in an isometric (static) hold but in reality in the backswing the right arm is folding and in the downswing it is straightening. The right arm is always seeking a straight condition though not succeeding until a good foot or so past impact, impact interval and separation, this area is called the followthrough whereby both arms are straight, (the only time this happens in the golf swing).

The many benefits of extensor action include:

full extension of the left arm;

full extension of the right arm at follow through (p7.5);

the correct rate of clubface closure.

Motor Patterns - Learn Through Feel.

Motor Patterns are first used as an infant, otherwise known as infant development patterns, such as rolling, sitting, crawling and eventually walking. It is pretty safe to say that infants learn to walk long before verbal communication and visual skills to mimic complex tasks. Learning to walk is learned through feel, not verbal communication or observation, (though these certainly do have there place in a coaches arsenal), but most coaching techniques used today are words and demonstration biased, body awareness is key. Having lessons? Then have the coach put you in the positions needed to improve, create feelings, go back to basics just like when you learning to walk, learn golf movement through moving.

The importance of electrical flow in the golf swing and Goat Humping Part 3.

Goat humpers, listen in, the reason for this is all connected partly to tonic muscles, goat humping is another term for early extenstion or the pelvis pushing towards the golf ball in either the backswing/downswing or both. The buzz word for correcting this is 'STRETCH THE HAMSTRINGS' and this information is partly correct, the reason for tight hamstrings can be linked to a core deficiency (this will require a whole other blog), which would need to be addressed for a long term correction with stretching. So the hamstrings are on the posterior or rear part of the leg and as any anatomy book would show, these muscle are rather large, attaching to the sitz bone which is located on the back end of the pelvis, it is easy to see that a tightness here would tip the pelvis backward (imagine the pelvis as a bowl of water and you are tipping the water out the back), this is the same move that is seen as Goat Humping in the golf swing. The brain hyper recruites the hamstrings pushing the pelvis towards the ball. So the common area of stretching is located at the hip section of the muscle, hmmmmmm.
Testing of the hamstrings should be preformed at the segmental level of the spine, how the spine moves determines the true length of the hamstrings. The biggest mistake out there is a belief that one should stretch the muscles at the hip end only, but the hamstrings are controlled on two separate nerve routes, the peronial nerve and the sciatic nerve, thus either the hip end or the knee end may be tight individually or both. Please note that the hamstring and the gastrocs/calf muscles have an intimate relationship with each other as both ligaments cross the knee joint, if the hamstrings are tight so are the gastrocs, if the gastrocs are tight so are the hamstrings, and don't forget if the gastrocs are tight they all add to the Goat Humping sydrome, any questions please email me and I will be happy to go into more detail.

Happy Golfing ;)

The importance of electrical flow in the golf swing, Part 2.

Muscles can be classified as either Tonic or Phasic, Tonic muscles become short and tight, Phasic muscles long and weak, thus creating imbalance in the structure of the body and therefore the golf swing. Now as we all know if we were to go to the gym, lift weights with the goal of strengthening a muscle, that muscle would become, bigger, shorter and tighter therefore the brain/nervous system has a greater connection to such muscles more so than those that are under used (Phasic muscles). 

So how does this effect the golf swing? You set up to hit a drive down the centre of the fairway, you have taken a practice swing and everything feels great, step over the ball and a whole new feeling takes over and you miss the fairway, why, why why? Here's the reason, the brain sends nerve impulses carrying a message to the muscles of the body for the specific movement pattern of the drive from the tee, but remember the muscles that are stronger have a greater connection to the brain therefore robbing the information from the nerves, tonic muscles have a lower resistance to this stimulus allowing them to take over the work of the Phasic muscles therefore creating a golf swing that is bias to hit the ball to the left or the right.

So unless a screening of the body is undertaken (and we are not talking about a TPI screening here, yawn), one cannot know how to distribute the brains information evenly, and remember once the golf swing is in motion the tonic muscles will always try to take control of the motion, something that is hard to control at speed and under pressure. How many people go away thinking they have to change technique, swing path, clubface alignment? the list goes on, maybe the real answer has been there all along, rebalance the bodies electrical flow, learn to control the nervous system and the game becomes easier. Stay tuned and find out how this can be achieved in Part 3.

The importance of understanding electrical flow in the golf swing, Part One.

Fustrated with golf lessons that seem to get you no where closer to your goals? keep practicing the same drill but the motor pattern you are trying to eradicate just seems too stubborn? Most golf coaches are not using an integrated, holistic approach to coaching, let alone even understanding that as a golfer we are all unique in the way our bodies move, due to the demands of the external environment placed upon us, such as various occupations and individual lifestyle factors, all developing their own bio-motor patterns within the nervous system. Ingrained motor patterns influence both posture statically and dynamically, thus affecting the way the golf club orbits within the swing, remember the golf club is an expression of what your body can and cannot do. Your movement becomes your posture and your posture becomes your structure, and ultimately your golf swing, thus an individualised approach needs to be used utilising key alignments and adaptavive methods to get the body to do what we want it to do, instead of the usual cookie cut out method that most golfers are currently experiencing in the world today such as, the latest drill and keep putting the practice in cliches, if you are as passionate about your golf as I am about my coaching then please keep tuned in to my blog.