Power Sources in Golf

[Lime Shark]

"To quote the term "seeing is believing." This is a great video showing just how influential the arms are in the golf swing. "

A movement taken out of context doesn't tell you anything about the movement in context.

My Dad one had a small aluminum fishing boat with a small outboard engine, which had a top speed of about 15 mph. 

He also had a set of paddles. Paddling we could travel at 5 mph--1/3 the max speed of the engine.

Does that mean we could use the paddles to add to the speed of the engine and achieve a top speed of 20 mph?  Hardly.

Once the engine speed exceeds the paddle speed, using the paddles would slow the boat. If the engine speed is 10 mph, paddling would interfere with the engine (by creating drag) and actually slow down the boat.

Rotating the trunk produces a lot of arm speed. MORE speed than the arms could produce by themselves. 

Trying to use your arms to speed up a full swing is like trying to use a paddle to make a speeding boat go faster.

 

[iacas]

58 minutes ago, Lime Shark said:

A movement taken out of context doesn't tell you anything about the movement in context.

I disagree that it doesn't tell you anything about the movement. It doesn't tell you everything, but it tells you something, for sure.

58 minutes ago, Lime Shark said:

My Dad one had a small aluminum fishing boat with a small outboard engine, which had a top speed of about 15 mph. 

He also had a set of paddles. Paddling we could travel at 5 mph--1/3 the max speed of the engine.

Does that mean we could use the paddles to add to the speed of the engine and achieve a top speed of 20 mph? Hardly.

It doesn't mean you'd achieve 20 MPH, but it does mean (assuming you could paddle faster than 15 MPH so you're not adding drag) that you could increase the top speed.

And that's not the same thing at all as those two power sources are completely separate: in the golf swing, they're "stacked" on top of one another. The arms still swing, but they're supported/added to by the torso's rotation. They're not completely separated like paddles and a propeller would be.

58 minutes ago, Lime Shark said:

Once the engine speed exceeds the paddle speed, using the paddles would slow the boat.

That's not how physics works. Just because you can only paddle the entire boat at 5 MPH doesn't mean you can only move the paddle at 5 MPH. In truth you can move the paddle much faster than even 20 MPH. The limiting factor is not how fast you can move the paddle.

That example is poor enough that I'm done talking about it. You know it's dumb because you're almost equating adding arms to the rotation of the body as SLOWING down the swing (that's what you believe the paddles would do).

58 minutes ago, Lime Shark said:

Rotating the trunk produces a lot of arm speed. MORE speed than the arms could produce by themselves.

It does not.

Again, would you rather be slapped by someone who holds their arm out straight in front of you and only rotates their torso (heck, I'll even let them rotate their hips) or someone who can move their arm and wrist (shoulder down) in any way they see fit?

If you enjoy being slapped, I guess you'd choose the second. If you don't, you'd choose the first.

It's not even really that close. The arms contribute a bunch more speed than the rotation alone.

58 minutes ago, Lime Shark said:

Trying to use your arms to speed up a full swing is like trying to use a paddle to make a speeding boat go faster.

Sorry, but you're coming at this with a poor analogy, while I'm coming at it from having studied this for quite awhile.

The arms contribute more to the clubhead speed than the rotation of the body. It's not that close.

[Buckeyebowman]

It's obvious that the lower body and torso "contribute" some power to the golf swing. Maybe it would be better to say that they "facilitate" the turning of the shoulders and the swinging of the arms.

Think about it. We've all known "upper body swingers". I used to golf with a friend who was all arms. He was a big guy, 6'3", 220, who could hit a 3 wood 280! He couldn't hit a Driver to save his life, but he didn't need to.

And how do you explain the guy who can swing from his knees and hit it 250? I know a guy who can do this! How much lower body action could he have?

[natureboy]

49 minutes ago, Buckeyebowman said:

It's obvious that the lower body and torso "contribute" some power to the golf swing. Maybe it would be better to say that they "facilitate" the turning of the shoulders and the swinging of the arms.

That's a good clarification of terms. Good leg movement probably contributes to good sequencing and positioning to use generated arm speed and preserved wrist angles most optimally.

Also the legs are essential to providing the stable framework against which the upper torso muscles work to generate force. For someone swinging from their knees or a seated position, they are still connecting their lower torso to the ground in some way. The funny video of the golfers swinging on the frozen pond shows how much every golfer needs that equal and opposite reaction to remain in balance and actually deliver the club to the ball. While those forces are available to anyone who's standing upright, it's possible that if you don't have good leg muscles it may limit how hard you can turn against them with enough stability to deliver an accurate strike on the ball.

I personally think that the vertical ground reaction forces are probably less about base/raw clubhead speed than helping squeeze some extra percentages out of the basic swing or possibly helping to help time the release at a point when the clubhead is moving relatively fast with a lot of momentum and big muscle in the glutes / legs (vs what's available from the shoulders down) are required to give it any extra oomph even if it's a relatively small share compared to what's been generated earlier.

Edited February 4, 2017 by natureboy

[Buckeyebowman]

That's kind of what I was thinking, natureboy. If the hips and legs don't move at all in the backswing, they restrict the shoulder and arm turn. If they don't "get out of the way" in the downswing, they won't allow the shoulders, arms, hands, and club to whip through the impact zone as fast as possible.

They might only contribute 25% to clubhead speed, but that 25% is pretty important! Of course, you can run into problems if the lower body gets out of hand, but from my experience that doesn't seem to be most golfer's problem.

[iacas]

1 minute ago, Buckeyebowman said:

They might only contribute 25% to clubhead speed, but that 25% is pretty important! Of course, you can run into problems if the lower body gets out of hand, but from my experience that doesn't seem to be most golfer's problem.

Nobody's saying otherwise.

[Buckeyebowman]

On 2/3/2017 at 11:13 PM, iacas said:

Nobody's saying otherwise.

Nor was I!