Biomechanics Of The Golf Swing – A Little Science Goes A Long Way
High speed video technology can record the way a golfer’s body moves in minute detail. We can study the images and learn a lot about the way it works. It may sound super high tech and scientific, but the results of biomechanical analysis can help you lower your score!
The key to the golf swing is torque. When you wind up for the backswing, you rotate and twist your body on the axis of your torso. Physically, you’re like a tightly wound spring, full of potential energy.
The downswing is the release of that energy. The potential energy becomes kinetic energy, and it’s all that stored energy and not the golf club that really smacks that ball and sends it flying.
Golf Uses The Whole Body
Nowadays, golfers realize that golf doesn’t just require your arms and shoulders. When you swing for the golf ball, you use your whole body. Biomechanics looks at the way the body works together to create that golf swing.
Through biomechanics, we’ve learned that a golfer’s whole body has to be in great shape. Recommended training exercises for golfers have gone from simple swing training to whole body fitness programs and weight training. Keeping your whole body in good shape will help improve your swing.
Let’s look at the biomechanics of golfing step-by-step.
- Address. In your address position, your muscles are fairly relaxed. What the address requires is good balance. Your training for the address should focus on this. Most of your muscles are not active, but are in a ready position.
Good balance in the address position means that your shots will be consistent.
- Backswing. Remember, this is when you’re winding up that torque, to be released in the downswing. This movement begins with the feet. As you start to wind back, your weight shifts to the back of your right foot and the front of your left foot. In other words, your back foot begins to get the weight.
Next, there is a twisting motion in your torso, shoulders and lower back. Your exercise routine should definitely work the muscles you’ll use here. It’s important for the motion to be fluid and relaxed, so your lower back muscles should be in good shape.
- Downswing. This is where that stored energy gets released. But, it happens gradually. It starts with the “transition,” where the coil reaches its upper-most point.
There is a split second where your lower body starts to release and the upper body is still stretching back in the coil. This is an important split second actually, because there is some additional elastic energy in this movement that gets released when you swing.
The downswing is the release of all that stored energy. Your lower body muscles are especially important here. The unwinding starts in the lower body and works its way up, all the way to your club as it impacts with the ball. Then, it releases all that stored energy and your ball goes flying.
Author: Mandy Fain