Tip Tuesday: Ground Series Part 1 – Let’s Amp Up the Power!

Ted Frick:

Hi, Ted Frick, Stefany King. We’re here at the Classic Swing Golf School, year 31. It’s 2023, and we’re going to keep the whole campaign all year on distance. I’m just getting back from the Coaching Summit. I’m real fresh with a lot of information, but I’m going to try to keep it “Simple Sally.” Here’s our formula for distance: power plus speed equals distance!

The three kings for power: numero uno, coming out of the golf club is going to be ball speed. We will measure that later on this spring and summer using the launch monitor. But, ball speed coming out of the golf club is number one. From your body, you will have to train your glutes. Remember this cliche from TPI, Titleist Performance Institute, where I kind of keep my avenue: glutes are the king, abs are the queen. We’re going to do some training here for those parts of the body, and we’re going to use some bands for elastic resistance.

Now, this is my Peloton girl right here. Maybe she’s going to give you some exercises in her bootcamp classes, whatever. But, let’s go with this, now. Ground forces are the third king, and we are going to focus this six-part series on ground forces. Here’s the three: laterals one. Stef’s on the teeter-totter board, left, right, left. I’m on a pressure mat where I got some sensors under here. Some people have the force plates, but power comes from the ground up. I’ve got lateral. I’m going to handle that series. We got rotary, turning. Then, Eddie Young, my head teacher for 20, 22 years, he’s going to handle the vertical, and the verticals coming out of the ground is numero uno for ground force reaction.

Stef, let me go ahead and get started.

We got an old cliche here at the golf school: “You can’t dump what you don’t load.” I know we’ve got to use the ground, but I’m going to give us a couple exercises just like Stef and Eddie, some exercises that are going to kind of amp up the power. That means we’ve got to get off the couch and stop complaining about distance. We hear distance all the time. We’ve got to get a little stronger, and it’s not too difficult, so take a look.

A band, you get to control the tension in the band, elastic resistance. The first exercise, because I’ve got to get loaded up (you can’t dump what you don’t load) is going to have to deal with strengthening. I’m going to stay to this right side and educate on the right side. Because, I’ve got a really cool tip coming at you here in just a moment.

Exercise number one, take a band, take your lead foot anchored under the band, take your trail arm and get into a little bit of a squat, a little bit of a lunge. This is where I’m going to be bracing my hamstring and my calf, and I’m going to use this arm, and I’m going to be making a single-arm rowing motion. As I take this up and I hold this, I get into a little isometric. I can feel this in the quad, the hammy, the glute, and definitely getting that shoulder warmed up for this teaching tip. Then, I would encourage both sides of the body, and I would do it in sets of 10, but control your resistance.

So, here’s a drill that I’m going to say, Eddie, because Eddie took a track about 10 years ago, Eddie Young, he’s going to be doing the verticals where he started following Jim Hardy. Jim Hardy’s got some great stuff doing the Plane Truth. He came back from school, for the longest time, like 31 years, 10 years ago, he said, “We’ve been talking about pushing the golf club back and really getting the students focusing on their lead shoulder to take the club back.” The Coaching Summit, just two weeks ago, the 2015, 2017, and 2022 guys did a presentation on their power and how power comes from the ground up. All three guys at different times over the two days talked about using the trail side to pull the golf club back.

Here’s the exercise we like to use at our schools. I’m going to go ahead and take a driver. Now, this is in archery. We call it the bow and arrow tip for archery. Now, think about my bow sitting here on a vertical plane. I’m getting ready to take the arrow and shoot the arrow on a horizontal plane like I’m going after a deer. If I’m uneducated, I would pull this arrow back with just my arm, and I would probably tear the rotator cuff. I would never have the strength to pull it back with just the arm because of the pounds of pressure and the string.

With a little bit of training, I’m going to learn to blade my body when I move the golf club back, which is what you need to do in a golf swing is blade the body. I’m going to focus on internal rotation of the right hip, the strength in the external obliques, and pulling this right shoulder back. This bone between my chest cavity and my shoulder, I got to get this moving behind my ear. Watch this now, watch how I pull this back. Now, I’m going to go this way with the arrow, just blading the body.

I tell the students, “Okay, so that’s when the spine’s vertical, but what about a golfer’s posture?” Take your bow, pretend you’re going into a freshwater stream. You’re going to do some trout gigging. Watch this motion here. When I pull it back, I’m pulling it back again with that right shoulder withdrawn behind that right ear trying to get it behind the spine. You all, that is power exercise number one. But, watch how we could put a little band into this. I thought this was so cool. I’ve never seen it done before. It’s like a $1.99 TheraBand from Walmart. The 2022 World Drive champ, he gets in there, and he says, “Well, I do a little push-pull exercise. I’m getting into my golf posture, and I’m really working on loading up, trying to pull that right side out of the way in the back swing.”

Energy’s going to move because I got the lateral forces into this trail leg, and you can measure it. If the ball’s on the ground. We all know we start out lead side heavy, we go lead, trail, lead, but then with the driver, we’re going to start out trailside heavy, get loaded up, and just really get lateral going on. Watch this again, adding some power to this load-up move. I’m going to pull this fan back, not with the arm. I’m pulling it back with the right shoulder, the right hip, and the oblique, and I’m getting loaded up into my right side. I’m strengthening, I’m adding power to my pivot. That is series number one of the six-part series, because series number two, I got to get us moving from the trail leg to the lead leg.

Let’s get off the couch!