Ben Jackson's
FASTFIRSTTM Golf
Training on the EDGE
FASTFIRSTTM Golf
Training on the EDGE
"Let's Get Good!"
FASTFIRST
Training Technique Timing
TRAINING
The principle has been around since the inception of sport - the fastest guy wins the prize.
We all went flat-out fast in learning neuromuscular skills as kids. The first step you took was as fast as you could move. The first toy you threw from the crib was a 97 mph fastball, relatively speaking. You first trip running down the hall was your first Olympic sprint - as fast as you can run.
As kids we all wanted to be the fastest runner, jump the highest, throw the farthest, kick it higher, win the game, beat someone, anyone, everyone at whatever skill we were doing. We weren't born slow. We learned it.
Personally, I had a brother two years older to keep up with, and his friends, not to mention my friends.
Forget sport for a moment, even in the classroom we had time limits on taking tests, writing reports, typing papers, and reading books. Maybe the best course I ever took was speed-reading. No one, male or female, was going to type words per minute faster than I, either.
FASTFIRST isn't new, except perhaps in golf. Can you imagine telling a track athlete to slow down for fear of running out of his or her lane? What good is "form" in getting over the hurdles without the speed necessary to compete in the race? Golf demands the longest ball flight of any sport, yet players are told to "swing easy".
Whatever the sport-specific skill, elite athletes are that because they create greater force in less time than others.
I think of that force-to-time relationship as athleticism, the key to performance in the sport of golf. Improving athleticism is our goal.
We are great adapters to training. The cycle is train-adapt-train-adapt, and train-adapt. We are so good at adapting that we are exactly where we are today athletically due to our training, or lack thereof. One can never outperform his level of training - we simply can't carry something faster than we can run.
First we have to know what it is we're looking for in training for golf improvement...and it's not what most players think it is.
It's not strength - your driver weighs less than 11 ounces. It's not flexibility either - you're flexible enough to go through the range of motion of an efficient golf swing. It's not aerobic endurance, since golf takes very little of that.
What we need is the capacity to apply the strength we have faster. We need to improve the reaction phase of the phenomenon known as the stretch-shorten cycle of muscles.
Training for athleticism allows you create more force in less time than previously done. That ability is what make elite athletes elite - they generate greater force in shorter time than others performing the same skill.
Tiger is Tiger for a reason. Federer is Federer for a reason. Phelps is Phelps for that same reason - the capacity to deliver greater force in less time performing skills.
Technique is important, but the greatest technique isn't worth much in lowering scores without the ability to create effective force while applying that technique. Technique doesn't move a golf ball. Applying technique efficiently creates the force that moves the ball efficiently.
That takes speed. The end result is clubhead speed compressing the ball and sustaining that compression until the ball separates from the clubface.
FASTFIRST training includes anerobic, explosive, fast-twitch muscle recruitment drills and exercises...simple ones, both general and golf-swing specific. Workouts are done at home, are short in duration, with emphasis on intensity.
The player is constantly striving for improvement - reaching just beyond his her current capabilities. That's what we call TRAINING ON THE EDGE.
TECHNIQUE: THERE IS A BEST WAY TO SWING A GOLF CLUB
A circle is the most powerful, most accurate way to propel an object.
A STABLE-CENTERED SWING IS THE MOST POWERFUL, MOST ACCURATE WAY TO PROPEL A GOLF BALL.
In the early trials leading up to Tour Tempo, I began to notice that as swing efficiency (creating greater force in less time) improved in my players, that each individual's swing techniques improved in direct proportion.
For instance, a player improving from 85 mph in 1 second to 100 mph in .85 seconds developed better swing technique in the process.
The results not only changed for the better, so did the motions that produced those results. That's not all either. The improvements in technique from player to player had common threads. I was observing swing evolution without trying to create it! Well known "swing errors" began to fix themselves!
Coincidence? As I began to gather data I realized that the commonalities were the framework of something much greater - The Stable-Centered Swing.
Players were getting vastly better results without consciously trying to fix things. The conventional so-called swing errors are rooted in poor timing!
Eureka! I was fixing swings in the best possible way - getting results without harping on existing errors and beyond the conscious awareness of the players.
Inappropriate swing errors weren't being broken into and fixed (which is virtually impossible), they were being replaced with new, effective, patterns.
The Stable-Centered Swing emerged as the most powerful, most accurate way to propel a golf ball.
TIMING
In our work leading up to what became Tour Tempo, the groundbreaking book by my colleague, John Novosel, we made sense of the puzzling task of applying force at the most appropriate instant - timing. Timing has two aspects - tempo and rhythm. Tempo is elapsed time from takeaway to impact.
The term "great tempo" doesn't mean slow. Great tempo is well-timed speed!
Rhythm is the balance or ratio of how that elapsed time is utilized - backswing compared to forward swing. Historically, elite players have swung in a ratio of 3 to 1 (trending today to 2.5 to 1) with 3 parts backswing to 1 part forward swing.
The one thing universally told and retold to golfers is "slow down". Effective timing of golf skills has nothing to do with slowing down.
In a sport in which milliseconds matter, timing is vital. The result of effective timing is acceleration of the clubhead through the impact interval, compressing and programming the ball with power and accuracy.
Swing efficiency can be measured and improvement verified. My Efficiency Factor (EF) is a very accurate predictor of scoring range.
The principle has been around since the inception of sport - the fastest guy wins the prize.
We all went flat-out fast in learning neuromuscular skills as kids. The first step you took was as fast as you could move. The first toy you threw from the crib was a 97 mph fastball, relatively speaking. You first trip running down the hall was your first Olympic sprint - as fast as you can run.
As kids we all wanted to be the fastest runner, jump the highest, throw the farthest, kick it higher, win the game, beat someone, anyone, everyone at whatever skill we were doing. We weren't born slow. We learned it.
Personally, I had a brother two years older to keep up with, and his friends, not to mention my friends.
Forget sport for a moment, even in the classroom we had time limits on taking tests, writing reports, typing papers, and reading books. Maybe the best course I ever took was speed-reading. No one, male or female, was going to type words per minute faster than I, either.
FASTFIRST isn't new, except perhaps in golf. Can you imagine telling a track athlete to slow down for fear of running out of his or her lane? What good is "form" in getting over the hurdles without the speed necessary to compete in the race? Golf demands the longest ball flight of any sport, yet players are told to "swing easy".
Whatever the sport-specific skill, elite athletes are that because they create greater force in less time than others.I think of that force-to-time relationship as athleticism, the key to performance in the sport of golf. Improving athleticism is our goal.
We are great adapters to training. The cycle is train-adapt-train-adapt, and train-adapt. We are so good at adapting that we are exactly where we are today athletically due to our training, or lack thereof. One can never outperform his level of training - we simply can't carry something faster than we can run.
First we have to know what it is we're looking for in training for golf improvement...and it's not what most players think it is.
It's not strength - your driver weighs less than 11 ounces. It's not flexibility either - you're flexible enough to go through the range of motion of an efficient golf swing. It's not aerobic endurance, since golf takes very little of that.
What we need is the capacity to apply the strength we have faster. We need to improve the reaction phase of the phenomenon known as the stretch-shorten cycle of muscles.
Training for athleticism allows you create more force in less time than previously done. That ability is what make elite athletes elite - they generate greater force in shorter time than others performing the same skill.
Tiger is Tiger for a reason. Federer is Federer for a reason. Phelps is Phelps for that same reason - the capacity to deliver greater force in less time performing skills.
Technique is important, but the greatest technique isn't worth much in lowering scores without the ability to create effective force while applying that technique. Technique doesn't move a golf ball. Applying technique efficiently creates the force that moves the ball efficiently.
That takes speed. The end result is clubhead speed compressing the ball and sustaining that compression until the ball separates from the clubface.
FASTFIRST training includes anerobic, explosive, fast-twitch muscle recruitment drills and exercises...simple ones, both general and golf-swing specific. Workouts are done at home, are short in duration, with emphasis on intensity.
The player is constantly striving for improvement - reaching just beyond his her current capabilities. That's what we call TRAINING ON THE EDGE.
TECHNIQUE: THERE IS A BEST WAY TO SWING A GOLF CLUB
A circle is the most powerful, most accurate way to propel an object.
A STABLE-CENTERED SWING IS THE MOST POWERFUL, MOST ACCURATE WAY TO PROPEL A GOLF BALL.
In the early trials leading up to Tour Tempo, I began to notice that as swing efficiency (creating greater force in less time) improved in my players, that each individual's swing techniques improved in direct proportion.
For instance, a player improving from 85 mph in 1 second to 100 mph in .85 seconds developed better swing technique in the process.
The results not only changed for the better, so did the motions that produced those results. That's not all either. The improvements in technique from player to player had common threads. I was observing swing evolution without trying to create it! Well known "swing errors" began to fix themselves!
Coincidence? As I began to gather data I realized that the commonalities were the framework of something much greater - The Stable-Centered Swing.
Players were getting vastly better results without consciously trying to fix things. The conventional so-called swing errors are rooted in poor timing!
Eureka! I was fixing swings in the best possible way - getting results without harping on existing errors and beyond the conscious awareness of the players.
Inappropriate swing errors weren't being broken into and fixed (which is virtually impossible), they were being replaced with new, effective, patterns.
The Stable-Centered Swing emerged as the most powerful, most accurate way to propel a golf ball.
TIMING
In our work leading up to what became Tour Tempo, the groundbreaking book by my colleague, John Novosel, we made sense of the puzzling task of applying force at the most appropriate instant - timing. Timing has two aspects - tempo and rhythm. Tempo is elapsed time from takeaway to impact.
The term "great tempo" doesn't mean slow. Great tempo is well-timed speed!
Rhythm is the balance or ratio of how that elapsed time is utilized - backswing compared to forward swing. Historically, elite players have swung in a ratio of 3 to 1 (trending today to 2.5 to 1) with 3 parts backswing to 1 part forward swing.
The one thing universally told and retold to golfers is "slow down". Effective timing of golf skills has nothing to do with slowing down.
In a sport in which milliseconds matter, timing is vital. The result of effective timing is acceleration of the clubhead through the impact interval, compressing and programming the ball with power and accuracy.
Swing efficiency can be measured and improvement verified. My Efficiency Factor (EF) is a very accurate predictor of scoring range.