Scheduled Golf Swing Speed Test

Yesterday I completed my scheduled golf swing speed test. Here is a video showing you the results…

So I’m currently averaging 117.7 mph. But if you remember, on March the 14th I completed a golf swing speed test and found that I was averaging 118 mph.

The results were pretty much the same but I did feel a bit slower yesterday than I did 10 days ago and I’m going to discuss possibly why.

To do this let’s look at what I did over the last 4 weeks.

In the first week I didn’t do any exercise at all just to give my body a rest. In the second week I did flexibility exercises 6 days a week and completed one workout doing power exercises, e.g. olympic lifts, medicine ball throws, bench press throws, jump squats etc. I also did some exercises with the Speed Chain and an overspeed device I created (more on that in a minute). I only did this once in the second week.

Then in the third week I was going to continue doing flexibility exercises and two power workouts. I completed the first power workout on the 12th of March. Then before I completed the second power workout on the 14th of March I did the golf swing speed test where I found out I averaged 118 mph.

In the fourth week I planned on doing my flexibility exercises and completing 3 power workouts on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Then I had the weekend off and completed the swing speed test on the 24th of March.

So up until the golf swing speed test on the 14th of March I had only completed two power workouts to average 118 mph. Then after that I completed a further 4 power workouts and I found I averaged 117.7 mph. A .3 mph decrease in swing speed. Admittedly that is virtually nothing and I’m not placing a lot of importance on that result but rather I’m going on my feelings after doing more power workouts.

When I completed that golf swing speed test on the 14th of March I felt fresher than I did on the 24th of of March.

Now there is a group of people on the net that are like me, interested in increasing club head speed and the majority of them agree that the BEST way of doing this is to…

1. Swing something like a golf club.
2. Swing something lighter than a golf club

The theory behind this is to train yourself to swing fast. They say that if you want to swing faster you must train faster. They also say that doing power exercises like olypmpic lifts, jump squats etc., are performed too slowly to really improve club head speed.

Now there are three main devices they recommend. The first is a speed chain…

This device is basically a golf grip with a long chain added to the golf grip which you swing as fast as possible. Here is a video showing you how golfers should use this device.

Basically you swing this Speed Chain back and forth as fast as possible about 5 times. And you do 3 -6 sets of this.

The next popular device golf swing speed enthusiasts use is the XLR8R with the power modules.

You can find out more about this by going here.

Now the theory behind this device is to swing it has fast as possible each time and then gradually increase resistance by the way of the power modules.

Finally, the third popular device used to increase golf swing speed is called an overspeed device.

What is an overspeed device?

It’s simply something that is quite a bit lighter than a regular golf club. An example, (and what I use) is a golf driver with no golf head on it. Instead you drill a hole in a golf ball and put it on the end of the shaft. Then you simply swing this device as fast as you possibly can. If you’re swinging aggressively you should be able to swing this device a lot faster than a normal golf club.

So that’s the theory. Train your brain and body to swing faster by training faster.

I have all three of these devices and I’m going to do this type of training 3 days a week, along with active flexibility exercises. But I will keep an eye on how I’m feeling. If I’m not feeling very energetic I might knock it down to 2 sessions a week. I think a big key is to train fresh. Also, I’m not going to keep doing my passive flexibility exercises for the next 4 weeks to see what happens. Passive flexibility exercises doesn’t really fit into the theory of training for speed.

So for the next four weeks I’m just going to focus on training my mind and body to swing as fast as possible. It’s going to be interesting to see if it helps me to get closer to my goal of averaging over 125 mph.

It does seem to make intellectual sense to me…if you want to swing faster then train faster. But we’ll see.

As a side note, I was watching a sports science TV program where they were studying who had the most power in a punch. And they lined up all candidates who were from all the popular forms of martial arts and they also included a boxer….and they let them give their best punch to a dummy that recorded the power of the punch. All the martial artists did these “fancy” punches but the interesting thing was that the most powerful puncher was the boxer. And he said “we’re more powerful because that’s all we do…punch”.

Does that mean all we should do to swing faster is practice swinging faster?

I’m going to give it a good shot and find out.

Tags: Golf, golf swing speed, video