Backswings: Fast Early or Fast Late?

[phillyk]

Around A2 is when pressure starts to really increase in the trail foot. Should that sort of coincide with moving arms faster? I guess I ask, would it be most efficient to have those two things happen at similar times? Let the slight extension of the trail side and pressure “fling” the arms upwards? Certainly the core is involved too. 

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, phillyk said:

Around A2 is when pressure starts to really increase in the trail foot. Should that sort of coincide with moving arms faster? I guess I ask, would it be most efficient to have those two things happen at similar times? Let the slight extension of the trail side and pressure “fling” the arms upwards? Certainly the core is involved too. 

Sounds about right, yeah.

This guy kind of "collapsed fast" toward the end of the backswing. Our process was:

• Make some swings with really straight arms (to encourage turning). Not even much hinging here.
• Fling the club back with the chest.
• Let the hands get high because you can let the shoulders lift off the ribs.
• "Catch" the clubhead or "absorb" the energy mostly with the wrists hinging (which will bend the trail elbow).

To be clear I don't want people to WHIP the club back immediately. You can start slow, but move fast around A2, then "catch" the club or slow it down. Deceleration is slightly different (maybe eccentric vs. concentric contractions differ), but it's in the same "direction" as the downswing. So in some ways, your "downswing" starts well before the club gets to the top as you're almost manually "slowing" down the rates at which you're going one direction after putting a lot of energy into it.

[chop]

To me what is meant by low and slow is the first 12 to 18 inches and the low part is for keeping your arms extended. It's not even a swing thought for me anymore. I take it back slow at the beginning to get my clubhead going back down the target line (the low part) so I can drop it down into the correct slot for me to hit it straight with a touch of draw. 

[Sonadt]

I have a drill for BS as: 

Ngô Thanh Sơn - Sonadt’s BS Speed Drill. I can not see... | By Ngô...

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324 views, 25 likes, 1 loves, 1 comments, 1 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Ngô Thanh Sơn: Sonadt’s BS Speed Drill. I can not see the drill which's designed for BS to speed up the body from...

 

 

Edited January 15, 2023 by Sonadt

[iacas]

4 hours ago, Sonadt said:

I have a drill for BS as: 

It’d be helpful if instead of just linking it you described how it relates to this topic and what it is.

Or at least just embedded a video here.

[colin007]

On 12/22/2022 at 2:00 PM, colin007 said:

What about slow and controlled all the way to the top like Matsuyama?

Any detriments to this?

[iacas]

3 hours ago, colin007 said:

Any detriments to this?

Sure. It's probably not the optimal way to swing. You're not getting as much stretch-shorten cycle, or "x-factor stretch." Those are worth something, though not a ton.

[MrLeek]

Quite a fascinating read. The last few weeks I’ve been working on having a more “deliberate” backswing - the idea being that I want to try and get the club in (what feels for me to be) a better position behind me. If the club is correctly positioned at the top of the backswing then it seems to promote a better movement of the club at the start of my downswing.
 

In drills I achieve a good position where I’m not overswinging the club. But in practice I’m still taking the club further back than I should do. Reading this has got me wondering if I’m accelerating slightly later in the backswing and losing a little bit of control, which is contributing to my issue.

[billchao]

This video popped up in my YouTube feed. Seemed relevant.

[iacas]

2 hours ago, billchao said:

Seemed relevant.

Ha ha. Yeah. It's almost exactly what I've been saying. I did like this little "hairpin turn" idea.

 

[billchao]

51 minutes ago, iacas said:

Ha ha. Yeah. It's almost exactly what I've been saying.

Yea I was going to suggest they stole it from you here 😉

[boogielicious]

10 hours ago, billchao said:

This video popped up in my YouTube feed. Seemed relevant.

I watched that as well.

[iacas]

[TN94z]

Browsing through some old posts and this was VERY interesting!  I have always felt unstable at the top. I could feel most everything they were saying but never could grasp why. I even slowed down the back swing thinking this would help me control the top more. I am going to try this. It may be a huge help with some of my problems.

[iacas]

[Ty_Webb]

Couple of things. I remember watching a video that Sasho Mackenzie did where he talked about clubhead speed and how a faster backswing can make your clubhead speed go up. Theory was that the force you have to apply to slow the club down at the top of the backswing gives you a head start on applying that force during the downswing. That does make sense to me. I think this ties more closely to the AMG video than the original post in this thread. The steeper downslope in the AMG video would tend to result in a steeper upslope once the speed starts going in the different direction post-transition.

Secondly there was some discussion a while ago about how far the clubhead travels. From some pictures in a book I have, the clubhead with driver is traveling approximately 16 feet on the backswing and 14 feet on the downswing to impact. The 75 inches that Erik came up with on page 1 for the system radius is probably not far off, but 75 inches equates to a circumference of about 39 feet all the way round the circle, not 16 feet. 75 x 2 x pi is 471. 39 feet is 468 inches. For the backswing, it's a little more than half of that, but the setting of the wrists shortens the radius quite a bit, so 16 feet feels about right (and matches my measurement). The original 18 feet in the tweet is about right, especially with a little bit longer of a swing than the sample I have.

[saevel25]

I think that is part of it. If you fling the club back at a high rate of speed, then you need a lot of reaction forces to slow it down. That gives you the primer to swing faster on the downswing. 

Anyways, like other things in the swing, this just shows you how early things happen in the swing, in this case the clubhead gets to peak speed early. If that is scale correctly, then it's about halfway in the backswing. Fling it back and apply the brakes. I think AMG did a video on hand speed in the downswing, and how it should peak before the hands reach waist height. For most amateurs, it peaks way too late. I know that TPI talks about how early a golfer applies forces with the front leg. 

If you consider the golf swing is 1 to 1.5 seconds long. The backswing taking up approximately 75% of that is the backswing. Let's say the backswing is 0.75 seconds. 

A golfer has to go from zero to 26 mph in 0.375 seconds. You are accelerating the club back at 101 f/s^2. Then you have to deaccelerate it at the same rate to get to the top of the backswing where it has a velocity of zero (switching direction). The downswing is much more acceleration. Maybe like 5 to 6x the backswing. 

 

[iacas]

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

I think this ties more closely to the AMG video than the original post in this thread.

It all ties together, as does this thread: