How the Force Board Pro Helped a Beginner Golfer

How the Force Board Pro Helped a Beginner Golfer

Dr Tyler Standifird

I recently took a brand new female golfer who had only swung a few times on the course and at top golf through some of the new Force Board Pro protocols and measured changes in their ground reaction forces. This golfer had no real concept of ground reaction forces and how they are utilized in the swing but had previously weight trained including some explosive activities so she did have a capacity to generate force with the legs. 

The Assessment Process

To start, I took her through a dynamic warm up followed by a few air swings on the force plates using the lightest SuperSpeed club. Then she was taken through a force board protocol working simultaneously on the timing and magnitude of the vertical force production and the point of application of the forces. 

After the protocol I placed her back on the force plates to take the same air swings with the lightest SuperSpeed club and the force plate data was compared pre and post. 

Pre Data Findings

On the pre data collection the golfer had decent timing of both the rotational torque and the vertical force, just a bit small in terms of numbers, especially for the rotational torque. That value peaked at 64 Nm/kg while the peak vertical force peaked at 188 with 102% of bodyweight coming from the lead side. 

Drills

Based on her Force Plate data, I wanted to put an emphasis on improving where she was pushing with the feet as well as better timing and a more vigorous shift forward. To accomplish this we used the new Force Board Pro with gray ovals under the board down the middle, the red tri- circles on the top of the board and under the ball of the lead foot and the green rounds on the top of the board underneath the middle inside of the trail foot. 

I then had her perform  the Level 1 Force Board Pro Ground Force Timing Protocol for 2 cycles. This took about 10 minutes in total and consisted of the following drills. 

-5 trail foot slide backs
-5 shift and swings
-6 half swing shift back and go
-6 full swing shift back and go 

See the full breakdown of each of these drills here.

Then the player got back on the force plates. 

Post Data

The post analysis showed an increase in the rotational torque going from 64 Nm/kg to 89, and an increase in the total vertical force from 188 %BW to 246, with the lead side going from 102 %BW to 179. 

Through this quick drill sequence, she showed that an inexperienced player could benefit from training with the force board pro to quickly make improvements to Ground Reaction Forces during a golf swing.

Pre Data Collections

Post Data Collections