Fitness expert and personal trainer Shawn O’Neil on a basic test can tell you if your body is ready for you to increase your clubhead speed
Having watched two men’s majors and half a season of PGA Tour golf, I’ve noticed ball speeds are still creeping up at the highest level.
I’ve covered the importance of increasing the distance we hit the ball and how we can go about doing this physically in previous columns. In the general golfing population, there will be people who aren’t interested at all and people who get invested in increasing speed, but there will also be golfers in the middle who aren’t sure and wonder how much it can benefit them.
Before I continue, it’s important to point out that I’m assuming golfers in this bracket will know how fast they are right now and whether that is really fast or not. Golfers may continue to play other sports, and may have done so in the past, so there may be an athletic base there too. Taking those into account, if you’re not fast, is your swing speed low based on low physical capacity or is technique preventing your physical capacity translating to the clubhead? Some simple tests can tell us.
Before doing any exercise or testing, I must stress the importance of warming up properly – please never do this cold.
Vertical jump height is closely linked to clubhead speed and testing this is simple. Stand next to a wall and raise one arm above your head and mark where your fingers end – doing this outside with chalk works well. From the same position beside the wall, jump as high as you can and make a second mark at the top of your jump. Have a few goes, and you can even try both arms, then measure the difference between the two marks. This isn’t the most scientifically accurate way to measure this, but it’s a good starting point.
If the distance between the two marks is 20 inches or more, then your lack of clubhead speed likely lies within your technique or losing that force up the chain, which could be technical or physical. If the number is below 20 inches, you’re leaving speed on the table physically.
If you have dumbbells or access to a gym, you can now determine whether the issue is a strength problem or accessing your strength quickly. To test this, we want to know whether you can perform eight split squats per leg with 150% of your bodyweight (eg if you weigh 80kg, the test weight is 120kg therefore you need two 20kg dumbbells). Again, make sure you’re fully warmed up for this. The success of this test tells us whether your issue is strength or speed, and whether you need to improve physically to bump up your speed.
These tests are far from the full picture, and as ever the best way to start your golf fitness journey is with a full TPI assessment, but they are good indicators which are free to do, don’t take too long, and will open your eyes to where you are physically.
