My Swing (FireDragon76)

[FireDragon76]

I have some more recent swing videos I have not uploaded yet and I hope to take more soon.

Yesterday me and my dad went to the driving range and hit a bucket of balls.    He didn't do so well with my clubs, I was swinging a lot more consistently.  A few weeks ago it was completely reversed.

He wanted to experiment with my chipping wedge, and he used a really odd technique, lots of wrist action, but it worked . I just prefer to swing it with a long putting stroke with very little wrist action.  My chipping was not so great either but that's probably due to being worn out from hitting 40 balls and it being unusually hot out.

The new swing (vertical swing- it turns out Dave Seeman is doing the same swing style as Don Trahan) seems to produce less body strain, but that is just my impression so far.  I can get some wild hooks with it, but mostly I get straight shots or slight draws.   The distance seems better too.   Slightly topping the ball is still an issue with about a quarter of my swings, and I whiffed twice yesterday (which I think is due to losing depth perception and moving my head).   I'm going to work on more drills to keep my head steady.   I'd also like to continue to improve my tempo and the best way to do that would be to watch more video of myself.

I watched a youtube video of Moe Norman giving a demo in 2001 where he talks about discovering something new... he does a few swings with a narrower stance and a more arm driven swing.  But with his woods, he's still standing farther away from the ball.  He talks about his accuracy being the same but his distance improving.   From reading a biography about Moe, it seems he was experimenting with the swing his entire life.

[FireDragon76]

I looked over the swing videos and they aren't worth posting.  The posture is closer to the ball and the arms lower, but my left elbow keeps folding and the club goes too far over my head and not far away enough from my body on the backswing.   I didn't record yesterday's driving range session.

My doctor looked at my shoulder and back today and he thinks physical therapy is a good idea, so he wrote a prescription and gave me a list of physical therapists.

[newtogolf]

I looked over the swing videos and they aren't worth posting.  The posture is closer to the ball and the arms lower, but my left elbow keeps folding and the club goes too far over my head and not far away enough from my body on the backswing.   I didn't record yesterday's driving range session.

My doctor looked at my shoulder and back today and he thinks physical therapy is a good idea, so he wrote a prescription and gave me a list of physical therapists.

Sometimes the range isn't the best place to work out certain parts of your swing because you don't correctly feel what your body is doing.

I had problems with an unsteady head and folding right arm (I'm lefty) and I spent a lot of time in front of a full length mirror to get the right 'feel".    I cut down a $10 demo club I bought at Golfsmith to make it shorter so it was easier to swing indoors and see club face positions.   I would make 100 slow motion practice backswing swings focusing on steady head and keeping my right arm straight every day.

When I went to the range, I tended to focus too much on hitting the ball and not on improving my mechanics.  The time in the mirror allowed me to focus strictly on form and it's helped a lot.  I hope this helps

[Lihu]

[QUOTE name="FireDragon76" url="/t/77970/my-swing-firedragon76/60_30#post_1078693"]       I looked over the swing videos and they aren't worth posting.  The posture is closer to the ball and the arms lower, but my left elbow keeps folding and the club goes too far over my head and not far away enough from my body on the backswing.   I didn't record yesterday's driving range session.   My doctor looked at my shoulder and back today and he thinks physical therapy is a good idea, so he wrote a prescription and gave me a list of physical therapists. [/QUOTE] Sometimes the range isn't the best place to work out certain parts of your swing because you don't correctly feel what your body is doing. I had problems with an unsteady head and folding right arm (I'm lefty) and I spent a lot of time in front of a full length mirror to get the right 'feel".    I cut down a $10 demo club I bought at Golfsmith to make it shorter so it was easier to swing indoors and see club face positions.   I would make 100 slow motion practice backswing swings focusing on steady head and keeping my right arm straight every day. When I went to the range, I tended to focus too much on hitting the ball and not on improving my mechanics.  The time in the mirror allowed me to focus strictly on form and it's helped a lot.  I hope this helps

Good idea. I've started doing more mirror work exactly as you described. You get more from this than just hitting balls. When practicing with balls, I do a slow motion swing mimicking my mirror work and touch the ball. Then do my practice swings, go back with the slow motion touch, then swing. It really helps with the "position feel" at impact.

[FireDragon76]

Cutting down a club to practice indoors sounds like a good idea.  At the range all I really have is feel, and clearly my feel is off.

I bought a 1lb dumbbell and tried out a few shoulder exercises and my shoulder feels a lot weaker than I realized.   I think I'm going to stick to chipping and putting for a few days, at least until I can get to a physical therapist.  I may have something more serious going on in my shoulder and/or my shoulder has just weakened due to non-use.  When I was a teenager I mysteriously injured my shoulder, just woke up one morning with severe pain and I couldn't lift up my arm above my head, the doctor sent me home with just a prescription for ice and tylenol.  All I had been doing was playing guitar for a year, last time I checked that wasn't listed as a high risk activity.

Its too bad as I picked up a used strong lofted 3 wood and had wanted to try that out.  But I'm afraid to mess up my shoulder.

Another problem I am having... I'm losing weight despite eating more.  I weigh 165 now, which is a normal weight for me but it feels like all I do now is eat.  I'd like to put on some muscle mass, particularly my upper body .   Walking to the driving range and hitting balls for a few hours burns lots of calories.

[newtogolf]

Cutting down a club to practice indoors sounds like a good idea.  At the range all I really have is feel, and clearly my feel is off.

I bought a 1lb dumbbell and tried out a few shoulder exercises and my shoulder feels a lot weaker than I realized.   I think I'm going to stick to chipping and putting for a few days, at least until I can get to a physical therapist.  I may have something more serious going on in my shoulder and/or my shoulder has just weakened due to non-use.  When I was a teenager I mysteriously injured my shoulder, just woke up one morning with severe pain and I couldn't lift up my arm above my head, the doctor sent me home with just a prescription for ice and tylenol.  All I had been doing was playing guitar for a year, last time I checked that wasn't listed as a high risk activity.

Its too bad as I picked up a used strong lofted 3 wood and had wanted to try that out.  But I'm afraid to mess up my shoulder.

Another problem I am having... I'm losing weight despite eating more.  I weigh 165 now, which is a normal weight for me but it feels like all I do now is eat.  I'd like to put on some muscle mass, particularly my upper body .   Walking to the driving range and hitting balls for a few hours burns lots of calories.

You need to get the shoulder looked at, but the first step to avoiding injury before doing any physical activity is to warm up and stretch.  You shouldn't walk to the range and start swinging full swings.  There are so good golf related stretching exercises that you should discuss with your physical therapist.

As for weight, if you want to gain weight you need to eat more than you burn. I'd suggest you keep a notebook or use an app that tracks all the food you eat.  To gain a pound you would need to take in an excess 3500 calories over what your body usually burns.  I'd suggest the bulk of the additional calories comes from proteins but again given your health  issues I'd suggest you speak to a doctor first.

[Lihu]

Cutting down a club to practice indoors sounds like a good idea.  At the range all I really have is feel, and clearly my feel is off.

I bought a 1lb dumbbell and tried out a few shoulder exercises and my shoulder feels a lot weaker than I realized.   I think I'm going to stick to chipping and putting for a few days, at least until I can get to a physical therapist.  I may have something more serious going on in my shoulder and/or my shoulder has just weakened due to non-use.  When I was a teenager I mysteriously injured my shoulder, just woke up one morning with severe pain and I couldn't lift up my arm above my head, the doctor sent me home with just a prescription for ice and tylenol.  All I had been doing was playing guitar for a year, last time I checked that wasn't listed as a high risk activity.

Its too bad as I picked up a used strong lofted 3 wood and had wanted to try that out.  But I'm afraid to mess up my shoulder.

Another problem I am having... I'm losing weight despite eating more.  I weigh 165 now, which is a normal weight for me but it feels like all I do now is eat.  I'd like to put on some muscle mass, particularly my upper body .   Walking to the driving range and hitting balls for a few hours burns lots of calories.

Honestly, I don't see this as a bad thing.

Unless you are 6'4", 165 is a pretty respectable weight. Maybe you can do some pullups and pushups to build up upper body strength? This is pretty much what I am starting to do.

[newtogolf]

Honestly, I don't see this as a bad thing.

Unless you are 6'4", 165 is a pretty respectable weight. Maybe you can do some pullups and pushups to build up upper body strength? This is pretty much what I am starting to do.

I'd expect someone less than 5' 10 to weight 165.  I'm not sure how you determine what is a respectable weight unless you know the persons height and build.

[Lihu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lihu

Honestly, I don't see this as a bad thing.

Unless you are 6'4", 165 is a pretty respectable weight. Maybe you can do some pullups and pushups to build up upper body strength? This is pretty much what I am starting to do.

I'd expect someone less than 5' 10 to weight 165.  I'm not sure how you determine what is a respectable weight unless you know the persons height and build.

165 is a pretty normal weight, and he does not look like a medium or heavy frame in the videos. I'm 5'10.5" (medium frame) and should be only 165, but at my age 175-185 might be a more realistic goal.

[No Mulligans]

165 is a pretty normal weight, and he does not look like a medium or heavy frame in the videos. I'm 5'10.5" (medium frame) and should be only 165, but at my age 175-185 might be a more realistic goal.

The one the medical community uses is BMI (below).  These charts don't work so well for those that have a lot of muscle mass (like weight lifters, body builders etc.).

As we get older we tend to lose muscle mass steadily over time.  Consequently, for most of us our weight should go down as we age in order to maintain the same body fat %.  For most that is the opposite of what happens.  (By most, I'm excluding those that maintain or actually gain muscle mass as they get older, that's rare I would think).

[newtogolf]

165 is a pretty normal weight, and he does not look like a medium or heavy frame in the videos. I'm 5'10.5" (medium frame) and should be only 165, but at my age 175-185 might be a more realistic goal.

A small frame would be like a marathon runner, so I'd say he's medium but hard to tell from videos.

As for the chart, those numbers are typically used by insurance companies to determine premiums and are skewed to allow insurance companies to charge you higher rates.

[Golfingdad]

As for the chart, those numbers are typically used by insurance companies to determine premiums and are skewed to allow insurance companies to charge you higher rates.

Seriously.  I'd like to meet this mythical "large framed" 6'-3" man who weighs 176 pounds.  (Pretty sure I'll find a sasquatch before I meet one of those)

[Lihu]

[QUOTE name="Lihu" url="/t/77970/my-swing-firedragon76/60_30#post_1079027"]   165 is a pretty normal weight, and he does not look like a medium or heavy frame in the videos. I'm 5'10.5" (medium frame) and should be only 165, but at my age 175-185 might be a more realistic goal. [URL=http://thesandtrap.com/content/type/61/id/109633/] [/URL] [/QUOTE] A small frame would be like a marathon runner, so I'd say he's medium but hard to tell from videos. As for the chart, those numbers are typically used by insurance companies to determine premiums and are skewed to allow insurance companies to charge you higher rates.

I don't want to sound insulting, so sorry Firedragon. His calves are very slim and for a person weighing 165 he has a pretty large pear shaped abdomen. This is the "unhealthy weight" because it usually causes high blood pressure. My guess is that the golf activity is helping him get in shape, and trim unwanted mass from his body. Although, he should consult a doctor/therapist/nutritionist regarding this, and his shoulder injury. [quote name="Golfingdad" url="/t/77970/my-swing-firedragon76/72#post_1079049"][QUOTE name="newtogolf" url="/t/77970/my-swing-firedragon76/60_30#post_1079045"]   As for the chart, those numbers are typically used by insurance companies to determine premiums and are skewed to allow insurance companies to charge you higher rates. [/QUOTE] Seriously.  I'd like to meet this mythical "large framed" 6'-3" man who weighs 176 pounds.  (Pretty sure I'll find a sasquatch before I meet one of those):-P [/quote] Pretty sure you're right. Where do they find all these thin people for their tests? :-P

[newtogolf]

I don't want to sound insulting, so sorry Firedragon. His calves are very slim and for a person weighing 165 he has a pretty large pear shaped abdomen. This is the "unhealthy weight" because it usually causes high blood pressure.

We're getting off topic but you don't base frame size on calves I've seen wrist and elbow used for measurements but you can visually tell from looking at shoulders and chest as well.

[iacas]

We're getting off topic

Agreed.

[Lihu]

[QUOTE name="Lihu" url="/t/77970/my-swing-firedragon76/60_30#post_1079053"] I don't want to sound insulting, so sorry Firedragon. His calves are very slim and for a person weighing 165 he has a pretty large pear shaped abdomen. This is the "unhealthy weight" because it usually causes high blood pressure.[/QUOTE] We're getting off topic but you don't base frame size on calves, usually shoulders and chest along with hips for women.

As long as his BMI is above 18-19 he should be fine.

[FireDragon76]

I'd like to gain muscle mass, not necessarily gain weight in general- my weight is already respectable as is.  I'm 5'8 and usually wear medium shirts, BTW.  At one time I weighed 200 lbs, but that was many years ago.   I wasn't a fat kid- I was not a traditional athlete but I was very physically active (karate, riding bikes, in my teenage years I walked everywhere as I lived in Europe), I just got fat in my early 20's due to medical problems.  I've been less than 185 for the past ten years.  My blood pressure and cholesterol are normal.

In the past year and a half I've had periods where I was basically on a very restrictive diet.  Only eating corn grits, crean of rice, bananas, and coconut oil, because that's all my stomach could tolerate.  And when I could eat meat, I ate very small amounts.  I had gastritis and food intolerances.  Now the gastritis has gone away and I can eat normal amounts of food, but maybe that weird diet took its toll on my body.  The food intolerances have not gone away, so I have to be picky in what I eat.

I got an appointment with a physical therapist for tomorrow afternoon.  I expect they'll do some range of motion tests.  I've gone through this about 6 months ago with a therapist working on my lower body and core, but since I didn't complain about upper body issues they were never checked out.

[FireDragon76]

The physical therapist said I have some problems with range of motion in my shoulder and I probably have tendonitis too.  I got some exercises to do and will meet with them twice a week for a while.

My wrist and elbow measurements are "medium" frame but my legs are shorter so that's always going to make me seem to be heavier for my height.