Hip Speed vs. Hand Speed in Golf Swing
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How fast should the hips and hands move in the golf swing? Can the hips move "too fast" in the down swing? Will moving the hips faster move the clubhead faster?
- Research shows that maximizing hip speed does increase club head speed, but just by a few miles an hour
- Keeping the hips as quiet as possible cut rotation speed in half, but improved consistency & control
- Firing the hips as hard as possible contributes to back and hip strain
- Analysis of pros' swings shows they do achieve high rotational speeds, but they do it much earlier in the swing
- Hip speeds peak early in the transition, then decelerate into impact
- Kinetic energy is transmitted up the chain, resulting in higher club head speed at release
- The club is pulled down by the lower body movement, providing lag that also improves club head speed
As many of you know who've been frequenting the forums, I went and did some research at the TaylorMade Performance Labs here at Orlando at Grand Cypress, a great facility, Travis Kent, who runs the facility, is a first class guy and has helped us a ton in.
Starting to do some initial research on a couple of things that have been very interesting to me in the golf swing, because they impact so many things.
One is what is the relationship to hip rotational speed to the end result, club head speed, and what is the relationship of hand speed to club head speed.
Long story short, How this became of interest to me is that when I got fitted by TaylorMade years ago at one of the performance labs in Georgia, I was told that my hips moved a lot faster than the average Tour pro, and that my hands moved faster than average, and I didn't understand that.
Why wouldn't that be a great thing? And what I learned is that there's a lot of sequencing that goes into it, of course.
And what I'm going to talk to you about today is hip speed.
Because I think so many people don't necessarily understand how fast these hips should be turning, and whether or not they need to be turning really fast at all.
Because does it necessarily equate directly to club head speed? And that's the important question.
In other words, if you turn your hips fast, as fast as you can, does that mean that you'll hit the ball further? Bottom line, that's the end of the story.
That's where the big payoff is.
So, I had to know the answer.
So, that's what we did.
We went to TaylorMade and we started doing the research and we found some very, very interesting stuff.
First of all, I wanted to see two different things.
I wanted to see how fast, just on a normal swing, if I felt like my hips were really fast, what my club head speed would be.
And then I wanted to try and not move my hips at all, rotational wise.
Now, it was impossible for me to stop them completely.
But, I felt that my hips didn't move at all in the downswing.
And I tried to just swing with all my arms and hands and upper body and so on and so forth.
It would be totally normal how you swing.
And then for others, spinning your hips out as fast as you can is normal.
So, I did both and was able to generate both sets of data pretty accurately.
So that.
What was interesting is that when I moved my hips as fast as I could, there were a couple things that I noted.
One, I did have a little bit more club head speed.
I remember the numbers somewhere being around 3% more club head speed versus not moving my hips at what I felt at all in the downswing.
So, 3%, it's definitely a loss, But it wasn't necessarily a devastating loss because the side benefit of that was.
I was able to hit the ball more consistently by feeling that my hips were stationary going down.
So, I didn't feel like my hips were firing really hard, and I was able to control my hitting area and my impact position.
Much better.
At the cost of a couple of miles an hour.
Club So, Maybe 6 to 10 yards, assuming that I hit both balls equally solid, which when my hips were flinging out of control as fast as I could move them, I didn't.
I hit most of the balls off the heel and it was a struggle for me.
But here's the really big kicker for me, given that I've been somebody who struggled with a lot of injuries over my life.
And my hip has been a significant issue for me for a couple of car accidents.
And I have taught so many golfers who have had their left hip replaced that the hip issue is a big deal to me.
Something that I really spend a lot of time trying to understand more and more because it's so important to prevent injuries to this.
This hip is so important to the golf swing and when I spun my hips as fast as I could, my hip was definitely under strain.
It started to get sore, it started to ache a little bit.
Now I'm predisposed to that a little bit.
If you're younger or have a healthier hip, you won't notice it but as you get older, you probably will.
If you're a hip spinner, somebody that fires their hips as fast as they can coming down, Eventually, that's likely to catch up with you.
And so we'd rather prevent that and give you the data that you need to understand how to prevent that.
And what it's going to do to your golf swing.
The other thing that I noticed is that doing that, my back didn't hurt so much.
Obviously, when I'm spinning my hips as fast as I can, I'm moving my pelvis more independent of my upper body and so that puts extra strain on my spine, I'm doing it under great force and speed and so that hurt my back.
Without moving my hips at all, My rotational speed was 170, some odd degrees of rotation per second, and moving my hips as fast as I could, it was double that basically, about 370 degrees of rotation per second.
I was literally able to take my hip speed and cut it in half by feeling that I didn't move my hips at all.
As I mentioned, it cost me a few miles an hour but it wasn't radically different.
I was able to hit the ball more solidly.
But here's the important thing to understand that we took out of that was that A, you're not going to lose a ton of speed by stabilizing the hips and not firing them a ton.
In other words, They are not the sole benefactor or deciding factor in determining how much club head speed you'll have.
If you have back hip problems, those types of things, not being able to spin your hips as fast as you can isn't necessarily going to kill you.
You're not going to lose a ton of speed as long as you learn how to do the number one most important thing, and that is sequencing.
And so when we took my data and then we compared that with Tour Pro's data, we found some pretty interesting correlations.
And that was A, all of them, their hips decelerated into impact, every single one without fail.
And we measured some big hitters.
We measured Hank Keeney, we used Sergio Garcia's data, And we used Justin Rose's data as kind of bench lines for different types of golf swings and different movements.
But a range of club head speeds and peaking more towards the higher side.
All three of those guys averaged higher club head speeds than the average Tour Pro's.
And what was interesting is that every single one of them in all their swings, their sequencing was what made the big difference.
Their hip rotational speed wasn't necessarily any faster or slower than mine in terms of peak velocities.
But what was important was that they fired their hips sooner so they had a better transition, a more dynamic transition getting the hips going first and then decelerated.
So what does that mean? Does that mean you should try and turn your hips earlier in the downswing and then decelerate them? Well, yes and no.
You don't necessarily try and decelerate your hips.
That's not what we're trying to accomplish.
What we're doing is transferring energy up the chain.
That's what decelerates the hips.
It's not that I turn and then try and stop and then transfer it up that way.
It doesn't work that way dynamically.
Basically, The key to the golf swing, and the key to guys like Hank Keeney and Sergio Garcia and all those guys, is that the proper sequencing of the swing allows them to maintain.
And that was the one deciding factor, The quantifiable factor that allowed them to produce more club head speed was their hips fired first.
Earlier in the downswing or earlier in the transition.
And so they peaked out.
Their peak hip velocity, in terms of degrees of rotation per second was higher earlier in the downswing than most golfers.
And certainly, the higher the handicap goes, the more that that becomes more evident.
But as they start down, Their hips rotation peaks out very early, about the same as what mine was doing at impact when I was flinging my hips about 370, 340 degrees of rotation per second early in the transition.
And then after that, everything else starts to catch up.
But this was critical because if you move this first, grab a club here.
If I move my hips first, I don't have to do much with my arms.
Now, it doesn't necessarily feel that I'm not doing anything with my arms because in terms of sequencing, my arms have to work back in front of my body.
They have to catch up.
So that's why that throw the ball drill, for a lot of people, feels like it's a throw directly from the top.
They don't necessarily do that, But they feel that because if they have good transitions and they start getting those hips going early, well, those arms have got to start working earlier.
And so what they feel in terms of real time is that it's straight from the top.
Now, technically, it's probably not happening until later in the downswing, but it's a feel versus real thing because it's happening very fast.
So as they go to the top, the tour pros all transition earlier, which I'm sure you've seen that, but we saw the actual quantifiable data.
There's no doubt that they rotate very, after they shift, they rotate very fast, very early.
And then they slow down to half of what that rotational speed is, because they can't really move a whole lot more.
And they're starting to pass that energy up to the rest of the body, the arms and shoulders and hands to try and accelerate the club head.
So early transition, peak velocity early in terms of rotation.
Then everything catches up and then it releases.
That's the key to the golf swing.
That's the key to effortless power is firing those hips, transferring your weight, all of that during the transition early in the swing, peaking out that velocity.
And then once the hips have kind of turned as far as they're going to go, energy starts going up the rest of the chain and eventually gets to the club head.
The important thing for amateurs to understand, obviously most amateurs struggle with the transition.
That's no secret.
It's a hard thing to do.
The reason for that is they're typically in such bad positions at the top that they don't have a prayer of making a good transition.
That's why we spent time on the bucket drill and those types of videos.
So that you understand how to get yourself in a good position, so that you're able to have that good dynamic.
Early transition, early before the backswing is even completed.
So that you can get the right sequencing in the golf swing to get the right peak velocities at the right time.
The other thing to understand is that if your focus is on getting that hip rotation, that weight shift and early hip rotation, you should have more lag because you're not doing anything with the club.
It's just basically getting pulled down by the movement of your hips.
That's how these guys have so much lag.
So as I do that, if my hands stay basically passive during the initial phases of the downswing, which is going to feel like that if you're focused on driving your hips.
Again, most people, if they have a really good transition, they're going to feel that they're throwing from the top.
Everybody's going to feel certain things a little bit differently, But it should basically be the effect that your arms aren't really doing a whole lot until those hips have gotten everything moved over and rotated, then everything releases at the bottom.
That's the key to lag.
It's all sequencing and that's the key to power.
So we're going to do a lot more research on this hip speed, the amount of rotation through impact and all those things.
But that's the first piece I wanted to give you is that understanding the transition, knowing that it's got to happen earlier and it's got to happen at, you've got to peak earlier rather than spinning your hips through the hitting area.
The hips do have to decelerate.
That can't happen unless you sequence it earlier.
That's the key to power.
So as we start doing more research, We'll start showing you exactly how to drill into getting these positions and understanding how to feel that so that you can hit the ball further with less effort.
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