Dr Tyler Standifird, Professor of Biomechanics at Utah Valley University
Anna’s goals are to gain as much club speed as possible over the offseason. Having interacted with Anna before and seeing her exercise regimen and physical conditioning it at least appeared that she had the capacity to create more speed. But to truly understand if this was true and where the deficits lay, we had to complete a full assessment at the Lab at Utah Valley University. The session started speed measurements using the PRGR Launch Monitor. Her stock driver swing speeds hovered between 89 and 91 mph. This didn’t change much when she tried to swing with max speed. LPGA average is 96 mph with driver. We then took her on the course which showed that her speeds were very similar to the driving range. She was 90 +/- 1 on the holes where speed was assessed. When we didn’t see a large jump from the range to the course it showed she wasn’t able to generate any more speed when the stimulus of the course was removed.
On hole number 18 we spoke about her lack of vertical push from the lead leg and did a few golf jump drills on the tee. We then put down the PRGR and had her hit shots to see how high she could make the speed go when trying to utilize the lead leg more effectively in the downswing. We cycled through hitting a few balls and then more golf jumps focusing on the lead leg force production. Anna was then able to hit 95 and 96 mph on the PRGR on a handful of shots. Many of those balls were hit very well in terms of ball speed and direction as well. It was important to note this to Anna, so that she could understand she was still accurate when getting faster.
We then took her into the Utah Valley University Golf Biomechanics Lab for the next round of assessments. To understand Anna’s power capacity, we ran her through a TPI power screen looking at jumps and various med ball throws.
-Her vertical jump measured 202.5 inches which placed her 2 inches above the 18-inch average of LPGA players
-Her sit up and throw med ball toss measured 18.6 feet which was slightly above the LPGA average of 18 feet.
-Her seated med ball chest pass measured 13.5 feet which was below LPGA average
These tests showed us that her number one power source was her legs and she was the weakest in the upper body. Although she did have good grip strength in both hands, just over 40 kg.
Once we assessed her power capacity, we wanted to get her on the force plates to see how she was generating force in the golf swing. We started by getting her baseline speed numbers. She was the same as the previous day on the course, sitting in the 90 to 91 mph range. The Force Plates showed that she was lacking vertical force production in both magnitude and timing. She was only generating 163% of her bodyweight at her peak vertical force which included only 137% from the lead leg. The threshold we would want to see is 165% but for someone with the leg power such as Anna we want at least 185%. Her vertical force was also occurring a little late in the swing.
While there were other things in her force curves that could have been focused on, because we knew her power for vertical force production, we proceeded with some vertical force drills to try and increase the magnitude and timing. This was done with a mixture of some of our SuperSpeed drills from the ground reaction force section in the new app. We started with golf jumps, focusing on having the legs lead the arms. This was an awkward movement for Anna, but she was able to dial in the mechanics of it very well. We then performed a drill with the Force Pedal under the ball of the foot of the lead leg and focused on pushing into it early in the downswing. We next did a variation of the golf jump with an iron swing, trying to work on her early force production and even instructed her to swing while she was leaving the ground. We finished with two driver swings hitting a ball and then cycled back through all the drills. On the second cycle we re-collected her force data to see if there were any improvements in the vertical force.
You can see below the improvement in her vertical force during the downswing. She was able to get her peak total vertical force up to 211% of her BW and her lead leg to 169% which was more than her total vertical force prior to the drills. The timing still needed improvements but for a few drill progressions the improvement was great.
Once we had seen the drills improve her numbers we had her perform another cycle of them and then tried to see how high we could get the club speeds. Towards the end of this session, we were able to see her club speed peak at 97 mph with a few others just under 97. With these swings she was also able to achieve an increase of almost 10 mph in ball speed from her baseline. Her distance and yards offline didn’t suffer at all. She was able to gain almost 20 yards of carry and just over 20 yards of total when comparing the baseline drivers to the drivers hit after the ground force training protocols. This helped us to know that this was going to be an effective drill progression for Anna to use to utilize her powerful legs in the swing. Below is a table of the pre drill and post drill average numbers.
We also wanted to assess the off-season training plan for Anna. In previous years she put her speed training towards the end of a long day of physical training and golf. We worked through her plan and found times in the week where she would have the most energy to prioritize her speed work. She feels the most energized early in the morning and so we decided to front load the speed training 3x a week early in the morning. We also programmed some times for her to work on her GRF drills and hit drivers at maximum speed.
We have a good off-season plan in place. We have targeted areas where her swing is not matching her physical capacity and found drills that enhanced that ability. We also helped prioritize speed this off-season and look forward to her results.
A note from Anna
“Visiting Tyler in Utah was the best golf experience I have ever had. I wish I would have done this 10 years ago. His knowledge is mind blowing and the knowledge he has is incredible. He brings out the best in the player from an athletic standpoint. I got answers to my questions that I had regarding speed right away.
I have always hit the ball short. Even though I have been very strong from my days as an alpine skier. But I never had the opportunity to learn how to use the ground or the sequence to generate power in my swing.
He took away swing mechanics and just made me focus on Speed and ball speed= so he brought out a lot of athleticism in me. He made lots of correlations to things I am already familiar with for me to better understand what is going to happen in the swing. I can’t wait to visit him again. When I have done all the work to see my improvements!”
