Golfing misconception regarding power

if that was so aft then why not just swing with right hand on club only. think it's like a car gearbox, all gears have to work together to make the power at the back wheels. bit like jocky said all parts have to work together.
bill

misconception number 2 Power is stored at the base of the coil, the legs.

The legs are used to support the swing and nothing more.
It is generally accepted that there are two basic types of muscle fibers. Slow twitch (Type I) muscle and fast twitch (Type II) muscle fiber.The two fiber types generally produce the same amount of force per contraction, but fast twitch fibers produce that force at a higher rate (they fire more rapidly).
Any tightness felt in the upper legs is due soley to the way our body is positioned when we swing a golf club with the correct set up.These muscles are of the slow twitch type and therefore in the time it takes to deliver a comlplete a golf swing , the muscles of the upper legs would play little part in generating power.

aft

__________________
the dog wags the tail....the tail dosn't wag the dog

i agree the the backswing is only there to get us into the right position to start our down swing but its the big wheels of the legs and hips that start it off, followed but the smaller wheels of the shoulders and then multiplied by the small wheels on the wrists and hands.
bill

Hi Bill
The down swing is initiated with a GENTLE movement of the left knee and hip, again this is purely for a positional purpose and can therefore play little part in generating or releasing power.

aft

Hi aft, I have joined this thread late, but without reading all replies, here is my humble opinion on where the power comes from:

From set up, we must assume a proper grip. without this we will not be in a position to get the wrists to work properly, i.e. bring hands before club head and then roll over. With this position taken, we must then be sure that the weight is transferred from left to right side. This should be at its maximum with the club paralell and facing the target. It is from this position that we unwind the coil, with the wrists and forearms striking through the ball. This is the moment where all the coiled power should transfer to the golf ball and produce a solid strike

__________________
"Play to your ability, not your expectation"

Hi Folks.

We have to be careful not to confuse motion with power.

With our modern understanding of anatomy it is impossible still carry the archaic notion that we coil like a spring.

The only true power in the golf swing is stored in the wrist hinge and any other movement of the body is purely positional.

aft

I completely agree with robert. i thing the backswong is for position to get your 45 x factor (x factor being the angle of difference between your hips and shoulders) and the first part of your downswing is where all you power comes from and your x factor should be at least 45 if not higher when the butt of the club is facing the target and the club is parellel to the ground, THEN you release the club and generate all your club head speed.

so i think that the first part of the downswing is for generating power but the second part is for generating club head speed and using all that power you generated. most amateurs unwind from the top and really dont generate any power, they are just releasing form the top.

an anology would be shooting a bow and arrow..... an amatuer pulls back the string (backswing) and releases (downswing) where as a pro pulls back the string (backswing) and moves the body forceing the bow about a foot foward (first part of downsing) then releases the string (second part of downswing) even though you only moved your body with what seems verry little force, it adds that much more force to the arrow. the pros arrow will go alot further if timed corretly (that is were tempo comes into play)

So i do agree with some of you that say power comes from the big muscles that move the little muscles

but that website started2k3 posted is completly different, that guy has a crazy looking golf swing and generates power by creating a hinge at the elbow and using a tricep to get power.

Hi skywalker
Try making a golfswing without a wrist hinge and you will get a general idea of where your power is stored( or not, in this case ).
As i said earlier , we must not confuse motion with power.

aft

This is a very interesting thread!

I feel that you can’t say it’s in one particular point of the swing. The paper that atford posted states that “The main source of power delivered to the golfclub originated from the passive joint forces created at the wrist joint during the swing”. This means that the power is generated in the other areas (shoulders and torso) but that the power is delivered from the wrists. This seems reasonable for anyone who has tried to hit a ball using just the wrists (arms straight down and unmoving) versus hitting a ball with just the arms (shoulder rotation with no wrist break).

This might also explain the bit at the bottom in the scigolf link that Started2k3 posted. The author (Jack Kuykendall) appears to have got confused between the generation of power versus the delivery of power let alone the appalling comment on the mass of a golfer having no effect. He completely ignores the fact that a heavy person normally has more powerful muscles and so can more the club head faster and instead treats a person as if they were an un-muscled skeleton. He means that from a physics point of view it doesn’t matter, but rather misses the real world point. The worst mistake is this sentence “How fast does each body part move and what is its contribution to club head speed?” He treats the cumulative effects of the swing as if they were separate! Of course the hands are moving fastest in his analysis of a swing; they are at the end of a long chain of movement.

I think that the total power and speed of a throw (if we can consider a golf swing to be throwing the club at the ball) comes from the ground up. What I mean is that a powerful and efficient throw starts with the knees driving upwards and towards the target line followed by a shift and drive of the hips towards the target, a rotation of the shoulders, movement of the arms and a snap of the wrist. Thankfully, we learned to do this sort of thing from childhood and do it automatically now with no need to conscious co-ordination. With this co-ordination you get a “whip-crack” effect. Your knees move your hips at about 1 metre per second (mps), your hips then add another 4 mps so that you torso is already travelling at 5 mps before they are even involved and so on to the hands releasing at up to 40+ mps (100mph) in professional sportsmen.

If you want to see what it’s like without co-ordination, try throwing with your weaker hand! Makes you look like you’re trying to throw a handbag doesn’t it!

If you want a definite answer to where the power comes from, I would say that the shoulders generate the most power. If you want to know where the power is delivered from - then it’s the wrists/hands. And the link between them is lag.

For what it’s worth, I was a nationally ranked discus thrower as a teenager and spent more than 7 years at University studying Physiology in various guises (although not much biomechanics admittedly).

__________________
Cleveland Launcher 460 - Aldila NV 65 x-stiff
Callaway Big Bertha 3W - Aldila NV 75 x-stiff
TaylorMade Rescue Dual TP (16°, 19°) stiff
Mizuno MP-32 2-PW Rifle Flighted 6.0
Titleist Vokey Wedges 52°, 56°, 60°
Scotty Cameron Circa 62 #3 35/330

hi aft
you say hips are only for position but same could be said for the grip, the grip only there to hold onto the club but a wrong grip affects the wrist hinge just as the lateral sway affects the swing plane and the weight shift and both affect the overall result to such an extent. no hip sway and no weigh shift makes your club head follow a sharp ark and only an inch square to the ball at most, with hip slid and weight shift you have 2/3 inches of square face. also if on a slippy surface you cant genarate the same power as in a firm surface. like in sand, it all starts at the feet.
remember garry player back in the 70s swung in a barrel once, no leg movement or hip sway, he still hit ball well but lost some power and shape to his shot, he also hit shots sitting down too. i will give it a shot of trying to not move hips and keep weight 50/50 to see what happens, i lot of the power is down to the lenth of the shaft and and the leaverage you prouduce, shorter shaft less power, even at same swing speed.

bill

power sources, as learned from tgm
1. is speed of rotation of upper body, pulling front arm with it,
2. is front forearm rotation,
3. club head lag being released/uncocking of front wrist
4. rear arm extension
5. How solid you are at impact
some players use a combination while others may use all

hi neil
nearly all pros dont get right hand extension till after the ball is hit and most both hands dont extend fully till past there left foot and up to there left knee where the left elbow starts to fold into the body, thats why club lags till just before ball and the shaft flex hits in so shaft bows forward.
bill

yes, but i am refering to potenial energy and kinetic energy and the first part of the downswing you are storing up power and the second part you are expending all that power through the wrist as you say. i agree that all your power is expended by the wrist in the second part of the downswing, but all you power is stored/generated in the first part of your downswing. the body being the engine creating power, and the wrist being the transmition sending the power to the club.

howdy bill, what you are saying is right, I agree. Very few pros have a straight rear elbow at impact. The right arm adds power because it is extending through the ball and full extension is reached after impact. If the right arm was fully extended at impact then you would slow down through impact. since the right arm is extending/pushing, it adds power/speed/solidness to the swing, that is why hogan said he wished he had three right hands. left hand is control hand and right hand is speed hand.
neil

hi neil
yes i agree but is it the kinetic energy that has been genarated in the club head that pulls the right arm throught to extension or is it the right hand thats still pushing or a bit of both.
bill