Tips for increasing your swing speed
- Tuesday, 30 September 2008
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Jaacob Bowden - increase your swing speed
Increase your swing speed
Many of today's golfers are so fascinated with hitting the ball farther that they are willing to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on both golf lessons and also on the latest drivers that manufacturers assure their buyers are their longest yet. However, what many people overlook is that in less than a month they could easily add 30-40 yards to their drives with only a little basic swing speed training. Let's face it, swing speed matters when it comes to distance. When you consider that every day golfers swing 70-95 mph, Tour pros swing 105-130 mph, and the professional long distance drivers swing 135 mph to upwards of 150 mph, it's easy to see why people hit the ball different distances.
If you want to increase your swing speed, here are three things to keep in mind:
1) To Get Fast, You Need to Train Fast
Increasing your swing speed is similar to training your body to do other things like running faster, jumping higher, and getting stronger. Quite simply, you will not likely get much faster unless you spend a little time practicing swinging faster. Sean Fister, 3-time RE/MAX World Long Drive Champion said:
"I practice hitting drivers 300 days a year. Most every morning I'm on the ninth tee at Chenal, hitting drivers from 7 to 9:15, when the first group comes through. I then go straight to the range and hit for another hour or two, then take a break. I then hit all afternoon. Nothing but drivers; as many as 1,000 balls a day. It's my job, man, and I work at it. On my days off I'm at the gym. Very rarely do I have a day where I don't beat balls. The purpose of hitting that many drivers is to reach what I call "hitting shape." It's a razor-edge level of physical conditioning that's unique to my sport. It's a combination of flexibility, strength, speed and stamina that can be obtained only through hitting many, many balls. No regimen at the gym can replace it."
Most people don't have the time or motivation to hit that many balls, but the good news is that you don't have to train as much as Sean Fister does to add speed to your swing. You can still get great results simply making as little as 30 or so speed swings twice per week.
2) Cross Training Your Swing
From The Speed Stick, to The Swing Fan, to the Momentus Swing Trainer, etc, there are a number of training aids out on the market that promise to increase your swing speed. While any of these individual devices can indeed help you make speed increases, you don't necessarily need to spend the money on any of them to make progress. There are cheap and even free alternatives available to you - like making swings with a towel wrapped around the club head, or swinging with your driver head cover still on the driver.
Regardless of what you use in your training, I find that you'll get the best results if you do a variety of things to cross-train your swing for speed. For example, you'll experience bigger gains faster by synergistically combining things like weight resistance, wind resistance, band isometric exercises, etc.
3) Focus on Fundamentals
As I mentioned above, one of the things you need to do to get faster is simply practice swinging faster. However, it does not do any good to teach your body to swing at higher speeds if you ingrain sloppy habits and start hitting the ball all over the course. It is extremely critical that when you are doing swing speed training that you focus on your swing fundamentals. Push yourself to swing faster, but only go as fast as you can still stay in balance and make a solid swing.
Also, be careful of confusing swinging hard with swinging fast. Swinging hard will introduce tension in to your body and golf swing. A tense muscle is a slow muscle and the rigidity will also make it difficult to stay in balance - which can lead to a compromise in your ball-striking consistency. It's okay to swing fast, just don't swing hard.
Jaacob Bowden is one of the world's foremost experts on increasing golf swing speed. His Swing Man Golf web site was built around both the knowledge he used to increase his own swing speed by 26 mph in 37 days while training for the RE/MAX World Long Drive Championships, and also what he has learned about golf that took him from average length hitting 14-handicapper to Professional Golfer and Long Drive Champion.
To learn more information about what Jaacob can do for you and your game, visit http://www.swingmangolf.com
