DrTstandy

This is awesome! Great gains and awesome hard work throughout this process.

I love that you keep going after it. Through the ups and downs of life, you have tried your hardest to get in the training when you can and you are seeing those gains. Love it! Keep it up!

We for sure see that at some point you really have to start unovering more of where your power leaks are to jump to the next speed gains. As you pointed out you have some really great gains at this point, 20 yards with both driver and irons is stellar and we are happy to see this! What is interesting is that often that second jump is hard to pinpoint when it will come for players. I have an LPGA player I am working with, she had some good initial gains over the first 10 or so weeks. Then she just kind of sat on the same number for a bit, we couldn't connect to do any serious testing to uncover her power leaks, but she kept at it and kep training. In the last month she has had some great jumps again, is not up to over 100 mph for her driver, started around 93, and so I would also say don't stop training when you finish. Step into that maintenance phase, stay in it for at least 4 weeks and then jump to the next protocol and find those next gains!

You are describing the idea of "speed is a skill" as you start to put speed on your swing, you are moving differently, and you need to learn these new movements through practice as you described. Dialing in your new distances with irons, and getting comfortable with the new speed of the driver. LIke any skill in the game of golf, it will take some practice, not nearly as much as correcting a swing path, but still will take a bit of time. Drivers on the range at these new speeds can be a great way to learn to harness this new skill of speed.

If that is the case and you are havint some pain and difficulty I would suggest just doing double the non dominant swings. If that wrist is a limiting factor I would rather see you moving fast, I love the non dominant swings, such good research showing that benefit, but that would be for individuals who can swing freely from that side, with a limitation you should probably just switch to dominant only.

We see that 5 to 6% throughout level 1 as the average for golfers, that is pretty standard across all ages and genders as I have gathered data. After that, the gains are much more difficult to predict. The "newbie" gains as you really lock in the neuromuscular stimulation to swing faster are much easier to come by as a result of that training. Afterwords it is a bit of sticking with it, learning the new drills, staying consistent with the training and remember a few things. 1. That you have gained 5 to 6% potentially which is a huge gain, somewhere in the ballpark of 15 to 20 yards, that is huge! Continuing to train is going to help you hang onto your new swing speed and even enhance those gains. 2. We have seen a second jump that sometimes just comes out of nowhere, you are going at it for another 4 weeks, maybe no real progress and then all of the sudden you see a jump out of nowhere. 3. Continuing upward indefintely is not a very realistic situation, at some point you will start to max out your speed, but if you stop training then you will start to lose all you have gained so keep training. 4. After the initial gains then it is time to think about how other gains could come. Do you not utilize the ground effecitvely and need to improve how you use the ground, do you have an inefficient kinematic sequence that needs to be improved, do you have strength limitations somewhere (grip, lower body, upper body), are there some balance issues that could be improved etc. Hope that helps. I think the very worst thing I see golfers do is to see these initial gains and then you plateu off and you stop training and then come back 6 months later and you have lost the 6% you gained and then you start back over from scratch.

I haven't every heard of the idea of distance raising the floor but I like that a lot. I think that is a perceptive aspect of golf impovement. I have been doing speed training for 2 years, some swing work as well. Felt a little lost last year, but am playing better this year. Hitting it much much farther and better than I ever have in my life. Have shot some great rounds, but I did that with my old swing and speed. I came home from a round yesterday and my wife asked me how I played, shockingly she knows scores now after 13 years of marriage. I told her I just didn't feel like I played great a few bad holes, and she said "well what did you shoot" It was a 78. She was like "wow that is great, it seems like your old bad rounds used to be way higher" I think that is the case, my floor is definitly raised up a lot.

So irons are tough because we don't often hit irons at the same distance every time, or even at max intent every time. I love that you point out that the normal swings, either with driver or irons are faster. Raise the ceiling you raise the walls, as the saying goes. I find more and more that players who can start to trust the new speeds out on the course get a big benefit from the speed. Being able to keep the same swing, and by that I mean intent, but have it be 3 to 5 mph faster is that 10 to 15 yards out on the course that makes a huge difference.

So first off great work finishing the first level and good to see some increases in speed. I think it is important that if you have any pain in a drill or position, we would advise you to not do that drill. There are other ways to get similar results without those drills. What you bring up about "learning" a new drill is a very real thing. I would suggest that as you start learning this new drill, for example the heel stomp, that it would be good to take a few very slow swings and really try and feel that movement. That would be the heel coming down before the downswing starts, to really feel that loading into the lead leg. Once you have done that a few times and get the feel, then go right into the 3 max effort swings. Hopefully over time those slow starting swings don't have to be as high in number and you can get into the training. On a side note, I find that players who get upper body dominant and lead with the arms/chest as apposed to the lower body, these drills feel very uncomfortable for them. So the technique of feeling the lower body firing first is very hard for a lot of golfers. If I coudl physically screen everyone we could understand some of those limitations a little more. But one quick one you could do in your home would be the ability to rotate on the lead leg only. So put a club across your chest, lift up your trail leg and first try balancing on just your lead leg, after that try adding some rotations to that position. If you really struggle with that movement, it would for sure alter your bodie's ability to transfer force to the lead leg, because you wouldn't feel comfortable in that position. Could easily add in some of that to your evening routine or anytime during the day, just balance on the lead leg, arms across the chest and do some rotations.

I love those ideas for week 5. The footwear and ground is such a big piece of the puzzle. I am amazed at how footwear and surface can make a difference. Good connection can really help you feel confident pushing in those horizontal directions without that foot slipping at all. Love the ideas you have and can't wait to see how week 5 goes!

Fun to take a quick read at people's experiences. A few things that jump out to me. First is that it is okay to swing a little more "controlled" on the course. The goal of course is to get speed to transfer to the range hitting balls and then to the course, but it does take some time. Whats awesome is to hear a lot who have the balanced swing that is now going farther than ever, great stuff! Some people mentioned the step swing vs the normal. Some players who struggle leading with the lower body have a hard time getting those step swing numbers to jump up above the normal. Really focusing on initiating the movement of the lower forward can help that and it might always be a struggle. Try and push through and break through the plateaus. IN your speed trianing, get creative, get crazy, really try and push those speeds up as high as possible and then of course as you play and practice work on getting the club and ball to connect solidly, but on the speed days, push that speed. Great work so far!!

You will for sure get some initial big jumps, that will maybe level off a bit and then incrementally keep going up and up throughout the rest of the 10 weeks. Goal and what we see again and again is that 5 to 7% number. But each player is different. I actually had an LPGA player I was working with for the past year, she had some nice steady gains for a while, our goal was to get to 98 mph of CHS, after we hit that she wanted 100. After four weeks of only training once a week due to a busy training schedule she did a driver session and had three driver speeds over 100 mph. So this is why we cycle through the 3x a week primary training that you are in now, and the 1x a week maintenance that you will begin after the 10 weeks. Its the ebbs and flows and being consistent leads to those gains that may come a little differently for every player.

This is always a debate we have with our users. I have centered on the idea that if you are like 5 to 7 mph slower than normal, I would just shut it down for that day and then go again the next day when you are feeling more refreshed. Not skipping the session, just moving it back a day. If you are just a couple of mph slower than normal then this is where you push through. I for example on Saturday my green dominant swings were about 7 mph slower than normal, but then my non dominant swings were actually faster than the last time. So then I kept swinging and my blue club swings were right where they were the last time. So I decided to keep training. Use that radar as a guide, pushing through all 39 swings when you are signifcantly slower can be detrimental to gains, but having a few swings slower then others that jump up or are similar can be good.

Nothing wrong with adding in a bit more rest during the swings, especially after the start. Might try resting after changing each club for the first few weeks. It won't add much time to your training and will help you to get more speed!

Yes lets get these initial speed gains from the foundation of the SuperSpeed system, the 3 club system. Then for sure we can connect and map out a plan for the future!