It would be challenging to find a golfer on the planet that doesn’t want to increase their distance with all of their clubs.
How about you?
One of the crucial elements to achieving more distance is to increase your golf swing speed. There are a several different areas that you can improve to get this accomplished; some of them deal with swing mechanics and proper club fitting, while the ones we are focusing on are the physical attributes.
In todays blog post video, I’ll demonstrate a unique way to increase your arm speed, which is one of the most influential physical components of increased swing speed. I’m pleased to share this exercise with you that I learned at my latest Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) Fitness Level 3 Certification.
It was developed by Tom House, originally of baseball fame, for training pitchers to dramatically improve their throwing velocity. Then Tom added NFL quarterbacks to his client list, and works with most of the elite ones on developing even more powerful throwing arms. Just last year Tom teamed up with TPI and now we can benefit from the same protocols he is using with Tour professionals.
This is a prime example of how not every exercise in a golf fitness program has to look just like golf. TPI has a protocol using drivers with shafts of different weights (don’t worry, you don’t let go of them!). I’ll be covering this in a later post. However, they actually like this “throwing drill” even better than swinging the drivers for increasing your golf swing speed.
The specific medicine ball set that I am using is from TAP Conditioning, and can be purchased here.
Test out this drill, 2 sets per side, 3 x week for 3 weeks. Then progress to the standing version, and finally a step and throw version.
As always, let me know if you have any questions in the comments below, and keep me posted on your progress. Let’s increase our golf swing speed and “Get After Old Man Par”!
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If you were doing the throwing exercise demonstrated here for golf instead of pitching, why would you throw overhand? Wouldn’t a three-quarter sidearm motion more closely approximate the way the trail arm moves in the golf swing?
Hey Sam – thanks for the question. I don’t think it would hurt anything to throw sidearm. As a matter of fact, TPI recommends throwing frisbees sidearm (both overhand and underhand). Keep in mind that when building strength and especially speed, the motions don’t have to directly mimic the golf swing to still have a high carry-over to improving the power in your swing. That is why power exercises like the overhead Medicine Ball Slams or using a sledgehammer on a tire work so well. Even though the motion is overhead and straight down, the power developed in those muscles is the same as the angle change in the golf swing. Does that make sense?