"Prove Me Wrong!" - Increasing Swing Speed

[Righty to Lefty]

Rather than accidentally thread jack someone else's post I will start my own threads about topics that I agree or disagree with.  The first topic is " increasing swing speed." Rather than start the post from scratch I will just copy and paste the post to hear so that the dialog can begin in the way I intended it.  I may have to reach back to some of my professors and colleagues have PHD's in the study of athletic performance to interject or I will write to them, and with their permission, post them in the thread. So here goes.

Prove me wrong: 

Hypothesis: Swing speed can only increase up to an given individuals physical peak at which point it will begin to incrementally decline. Any perceived gains in swing speed are the athlete shallowing the performance decline curve but the maximum speed that an athlete could have swung the club would be at their physical peak.  As the athlete gains experience in the game and improves their conditioning and technique an increase in performance can be experienced, but will never exceed what it would have produced at their physical peak because to improve at the game requires time...which also means that an athlete is moving away from their physical prime.  

"No one who has played the game for any length of time past their physical peak will say that they swung it faster the older they got. If you took up the game after your physical peak and saw a gain in swing speed it is because you have conditioned yourself to play golf and your are recovering lost performance but it will never exceed your speed that could have been produced at your physical peak.  

I have an idea....measure your swing speed...then take 3 months off.  I guarantee you that you will not swing it as fast in the spring as you did before the golf season ended.  But after you have played a few rounds in the spring and got some range time in your body will acclimate to golf again and you will regain much of the speed that you lost from your period of not playing...but only to a point...and even though you don't realize it you will likely lose a tick simply because you are getting older.  Now did you actually gain swing speed?  No you didn't...you regained most of what you had lost from the previous golf season. Now imagine that same trend over 2, 5, 10 years.  That same trend will equal a couple miles per hour lost over that time even though during that time your handicap will be improving and you will probably hit the ball better than you ever have as far as smash factor. The losses can be minimized by an off season fitness program or getting swings in over the winter but it is still there. This is true of all sports...unless you take performance enhancing drugs that is and that is the whole point of PED's to begin with. They help an athlete exceed their max capacity but that comes at a price to the body and isn't sustainable long term. "    

PROVE ME WRONG!!

Edited November 1, 2018 by Righty to Lefty

[klineka]

6 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

Hypothesis: Swing speed can only increase up to an given individuals physical peak at which point it will begin to incrementally decline. 

Very very very few people amateurs and pros alike actually reach their individual physical peak, and its pretty much an impossible data point to measure. How do you know what your physical peak swing speed is? 

SuperSpeed golf system has become so popular over the last few years because it trains people of all ages and skill levels to swing faster even as they get older. Even with doing something like SuperSpeed golf, many of us are far from reaching out physical peak swing speed.

6 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

but the maximum speed that an athlete could have swung the club would be at their physical peak. 

This is like me saying "the maximum speed that a car can go is the car's top speed." Most swings/cars never come close to reaching their physical peak, but that doesnt mean they automatically decrease in speed just because they aren't reaching their peak. You can still increase your swing speed as you get older and never reach your physical peak.

[Righty to Lefty]

21 minutes ago, klineka said:

Very very very few people amateurs and pros alike actually reach their individual physical peak, and its pretty much an impossible data point to measure. How do you know what your physical peak swing speed is? 

SuperSpeed golf system has become so popular over the last few years because it trains people of all ages and skill levels to swing faster even as they get older. Even with doing something like SuperSpeed golf, many of us are far from reaching out physical peak swing speed.

This is like me saying "the maximum speed that a car can go is the car's top speed." Most swings/cars never come close to reaching their physical peak, but that doesnt mean they automatically decrease in speed just because they aren't reaching their peak. You can still increase your swing speed as you get older and never reach your physical peak.

It is possible to measure and it is done all the time.  If you are measuring someone's performance as a teenager over a sustained period of time into adulthood there will be a bell curve to their performance where it hits and apex and then begins to declines.  An easy one is an Olympic weightlifter or a sprinter whose max performance has been monitored and tracked over a sustained period of time.  As one moves away from your physical peak we all lose performance as this is called getting older.  This decline can be slowed through fitness and lifestyle, but it is still there, and we are all subject to it unless the athlete is taking performance enhancing drugs.  

Even in your car analogy if you continually tested the cars top speed from day one it would gradually increase as the motor was being broken in and then it would reach it's peak and then as the components begin to age the cars top speed would suffer. This decline can be slowed through regular maintenance but unless you are extremely diligent with maintenance and replacing parts the car's performance will likely never run at it's peak performance once it was achieved.  

An increase in speed after your physical peak is not actually and increase in performance...it is recovering lost performance just like when I stated that if you don't play golf for a few months performance will suffer until the body is once again conditioned to play golf.  All you did is recover most of your lost performance for "neglecting your maintenance schedule." Other parts on the "car" are still aging and thus total performance is still declining even if it is not easily noticeable as time passes because getting older does not improve ones performance after one's physical peak has been met. 

Edited November 1, 2018 by Righty to Lefty

[Foot Wedge]

I guess what you're saying is:

Player A swings 110 because they are new to the game but are in their physical prime

Player B swings 110 because they are older and have been playing/training for better performance for several years

Player C swings 120 because they are in their physical prime and have been playing/training for better performance for several years.

To summarize: Getting older sucks.  Can't disagree there...

[Casualgolfer]

I believe you are right about ones physical peak but it has to be in direct relation to your golf game. I am 29 now but when I just got out of college baseball I was probably at my physical peak as I hadn't worked out since really. On my first fitting I was able to generate 125 mph club head speed but now I can generate almost 10 mph more but I am not in better physical condition but my golf swing has improved since then. If you take golf out of the equation then you are right. Once we peak we will be on the decline. Golf wise however the peak of your scoring game could come much later after your physical peak. 

[Righty to Lefty]

3 minutes ago, Foot Wedge said:

I guess what you're saying is:

Player A swings 110 because they are new to the game but are in their physical prime

Player B swings 110 because they are older and have been playing/training for better performance for several years

Player C swings 120 because they are in their physical prime and have been playing/training for better performance for several years.

To summarize: Getting older sucks.  Can't disagree there...

Absolutely....the evolution of the athlete and this is true in all sports.  That is why so important that prodigies focus on the game from an early age so that playing, training, and knowledge mate up with their physical prime. Player A is maxed out, Player B's performance is declining if he/she is past their physical peak but their max speed would have been higher than 110 mph "back in their day!" while Player C is at max performance so the goal is to minimize their decline in performance and sustain dominance as long as possible. 

 

[klineka]

3 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

An increase in speed after your physical peak is not actually and increase in performance...it is recovering lost performance

There are two different "peaks" here. There is your bodies physical peak, and the theoretical maximum clubhead speed that your body is capable of producing. My point was very few people ever reach the theoretical maximum clubhead speed that their body is capable of producing, so almost everyone has room to swing faster, which is an increase in performance.

If you increase your clubhead speed after your bodies physical peak, that is still an increase in performance. The theoretical maximum clubhead speed your body is capable of producing will decrease as you get older, but since so few people are actually reaching that theoretical maximum to begin with, for golf it doesnt really matter when your body reaches its' physical peak. This is why people that are past their bodies physical peak that are on the PGA tour are still capable of increasing their average clubhead speed YoY without PEDs. Rory's average clubhead speed has increased each year from 2016-2018 even though he is past his bodies physical peak.

Let's say for example purposes my bodies physical peak was at age 21 and the fastest I swung at that age was 95mph even though my theoretical maximum swing speed was 120. I am now 26 and can swing 100mph and my theoretical maximum swing speed might have decreased to 118 (like I said, have no way to measure the theoretical maximum swing speed for each person) My performance has increased. That is a fact. I am swinging it faster now than I was at 21. Even though my theoretical maximum swing speed might have decreased, my swing speed (performance) has increased, and I am performing at a higher level at 26 than I did at 21 because my current swing speed is closer to my theoretical max now than it was when my body was at my physical peak. (At 21 I would have been swinging at 79% of my theoretical max, where at 26 I would be swinging at 85% of my theoretical max.)

[Righty to Lefty]

2 minutes ago, Casualgolfer said:

I believe you are right about ones physical peak but it has to be in direct relation to your golf game. I am 29 now but when I just got out of college baseball I was probably at my physical peak as I hadn't worked out since really. On my first fitting I was able to generate 125 mph club head speed but now I can generate almost 10 mph more but I am not in better physical condition but my golf swing has improved since then. If you take golf out of the equation then you are right. Once we peak we will be on the decline. Golf wise however the peak of your scoring game could come much later after your physical peak. 

I am talking in regards to swing speed and not scoring. Your muscles specifically used to generate speed for golf have become better conditioned and coordinated and that is why you saw a performance gain. There was an argument made in a different thread that speed and lower handicaps where synonymous and they are not.  Some golfers are faster than others but this does not mean you will be good at golf. 

I played golf both right and left handed and swing at 105 mph righty and 129 mph at my peak lefty.  I played to a 5.5 handicap righty, and play to a 5.2 lefty.  My knowledge of the game has improved and hit it "better" than ever have in relation to efficiency but my swing speed is now 120 mph. I missed maximizing my performance physically but I can continue to find improvement in relation to handicap because even though my speed is decreasing I still have plenty to work with. Now right handed I swing about at 98 mph now and that makes the game pretty tough from the tips on a lot of courses!!

[iacas]

What a stupid topic, all based on your gross misunderstanding of what I and others posted in the original discussion.

7 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

 "No one who has played the game for any length of time past their physical peak will say that they swung it faster the older they got."

Complete bullshit. Improvement in technique can result in an improvement (increase) in clubhead speed, even if a golfer is in worse physical shape/condition.

There, you've been proven wrong.

Beyond that, you're asking people to argue against a tautology. You're basically saying "hypothetically, if a golfer could be given his best potential form at the stage at which he reaches his peak physical performance, he'll swing slower at any other point in time." No shit. But the fact remains that golfers don't all reach their peak "technique" in golf at the same time as their peak physical form.

I know 50-year-olds who swing faster now than they did when they were 25.

[Lihu]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

Complete bullshit. Improvement in technique can result in an improvement (increase) in clubhead speed, even if a golfer is in worse physical shape/condition.

There, you've been proven wrong.

I’d go farther in this assertion and say “will”.

[iacas]

26 minutes ago, Lihu said:

I’d go farther in this assertion and say “will”.

It doesn't always. If someone swings like a crazy person with a John Daly like backswing, they might register a higher clubhead speed than when they swing in more control, but the latter is perhaps a better "technique."

[boogielicious]

35 minutes ago, iacas said:

I know 50-year-olds who swing faster now than they did when they were 25.

I'm actually 58 now. 

Good technique can vastly improve swing speed. My "peak" physical state was perhaps when I was racing in my 30s. But my swing didn't get to it's potential until the last couple of years.

[DaveP043]

47 minutes ago, Righty to Lefty said:

I am talking in regards to swing speed and not scoring. Your muscles specifically used to generate speed for golf have become better conditioned and coordinated and that is why you saw a performance gain. There was an argument made in a different thread that speed and lower handicaps where synonymous and they are not.  Some golfers are faster than others but this does not mean you will be good at golf. 

It is impossible to differentiate between pure physical ability versus skill and mechanics when discussing swing speed.  Both are important.  Take a novice at his absolute physical peak, and he'll never actually achieve his potential maximum swing speed, he won't have the skill to do that.  Muscles don't become coordinated, the brain becomes more skilled at sending the right impulses at the right time.  Coordination isn't muscular, its neural.

And nobody has ever said that speed is synonymous with lower handicaps.  Never.  There is a strong statistical correlation between the two, yes, but there are outliers, scatter in the data.  Even for an individual player, most who improve in scoring are also improving in speed.  Better mechanics means more speed AND more control and consistency.  Again, there are outliers, those who increase work to speed and lose accuracy, but those are exceptions, not the rule.   Speed (distance) is an important tool, but its only one of the tools necessary to score well.

[Lihu]

13 minutes ago, iacas said:

It doesn't always. If someone swings like a crazy person with a John Daly like backswing, they might register a higher clubhead speed than when they swing in more control, but the latter is perhaps a better "technique."

True, some spastic swings are pretty fast 😂

[TN94z]

So what is the average age range of one's physical peak? I ask because I am 40 and know my physical peak was some time ago and I now swing the club faster than I did previously. During my physical peak, I got fitted and my swing speed was in the range to warrant regular shafts and I was playing to a 2.8 and played pretty much 6 rounds per week. I recently got fitted and now my swing speed is a good bit higher and I had to dump the regular shafts for stiff shafts. I now play to about a 12 because I only get to play about once or twice a month. So I would like to assume that I am past my physical peak, have slowed WAY down on the number of rounds that I play, take no performance enhancing drugs, and my swing speed is much faster. And I also fully expect my swing to even speed up a little more once I get a few swing flaws figured out (same swing flaws I had when I was at my physical peak and playing to a 2.8).

In my thinking, very, VERY few people EVER reach their true physical peak or maximum swing speed so they have a great chance at increasing their swing speed in their later years. There is obviously a certain point where one's body will start to breakdown and maybe have joint issues and mobility issues that will hurt the ability to swing fast and I don't think anyone is arguing that. But to hands down say that you can't increase swing speed once you are past your physical peak, just isn't accurate from my experience. And it just seems too easy to say "well if you are swinging faster now than you did when you were at your physical peak, it just because you had more swing speed/golf potential when you were at your physical peak, you just didn't reach it at that time." I think that is a complete no brainer. If everyone could reach their potential in golf at the exact same time they reached their peak physical condition, then we would have a lot more elite level players running around.  And that is for all sports as well. I feel like you are arguing a completely different topic than everyone else here....

Edited November 1, 2018 by TN94z

[ChetlovesMer]

I truly fail to understand what the point of this discussion is. And it has gone on forever, invading one thread and now with a life of it's own. 

If you are trying to say getting older sucks, then okay, you're right, but so what? I have to clip my nose-hair now more than I did 30 years ago too. I still expect that next year I will card my first round under par. 

If you are saying we can't get better at golf as we get older, to that I say I feel very sorry for you for believing that. I'm almost 50 and my handicap as I type this is literally the lowest it has ever been in my life. Like I said, I plan to card my first round under par next year. 

If you are saying after somebody reaches their peak they start to decline. No F-ing $hit, that's the definition of "PEAK"! 

I've been playing golf since the early 90's and my game has "peaked" many times. Lebron James has been in the NBA for 15 years, he's "peaked" several times as well. You only recognize it as a peak when you look in the rearview mirror. 

To agree or disagree, prove you wrong, prove you right.... who f-ing cares. What's your flipping point? 

Iacas, if you have to delete my post I understand. I'm annoyed with this conversation, yet I can't help myself but to click on it. … Is this the definition of being trolled?

[iacas]

12 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

Iacas, if you have to delete my post I understand. I'm annoyed with this conversation, yet I can't help myself but to click on it. … Is this the definition of being trolled?

No need. Hell, I called it a "stupid topic" and said he's trying to prove a tautology or something. So… yeah.

[Foot Wedge]

3 hours ago, Righty to Lefty said:

Absolutely....the evolution of the athlete and this is true in all sports.  That is why so important that prodigies focus on the game from an early age so that playing, training, and knowledge mate up with their physical prime.

My post was a bit tongue in cheek, obviously being in your physical prime gives you an advantage, who could argue that?  It's like saying "water is wet, prove me wrong."  But golf is so technique driven that it doesn't quite matter.  You can gain speed at any point with better technique and it's the reason that a 120 pound lady or a 60 year old can crank a drive quite a bit farther than the 28 year old who incorrectly assumes he should be teeing off from the tips.  Even winners on tour could be considered "not peak" either due to age or not being in the best shape, hell even both!  They're not genetically engineered superhumans, they're pro golfers.