The Measured Golf Podcast

Why Most Golf Speed Training Fails And How To Fix It

• Michael Dutro, PGA • Season 6 • Episode 10

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Looking for more distance without sacrificing control or your back? We dig into why most golf speed programs fall short and what actually creates sustainable gains: sequencing, braking, and face stability. Instead of stuffing a V8 into a Civic, we focus on upgrading the brakes—teaching your body to decelerate at the right time so the shaft can kick and speed shows up where it matters.

We break down the chain from pressure shift to ground reaction forces, how a closing face in transition forces a stalled pivot, and why “left going left” is the only ball flight that never works. You’ll hear how to pair speed with face control, why carry is the metric that pays the bills, and how to avoid the trap of chasing ball speed with pull‑draw knuckles that look fast but go nowhere on wet fairways. We also tackle common myths: vertical force isn’t the answer by itself, juniors need balanced torque and horizontal components to stay healthy, and real speed doesn’t come from jumping off the ground.

Along the way, we share a pro case study: a 26‑yard carry gain in minutes by de‑weighting sooner to create an effective brake—no arm yanking required. Then we zoom out to the system that sustains progress: four to five focused sessions a week, objective feedback from pressure or force tools when available, and smart strength work that supports rotation, stability, and clean deceleration. If you’ve tried speed sticks, stacks, or radars and didn’t see lasting results on the course, this conversation shows what’s missing and how to build speed that holds up for 18 holes.

Enjoy the episode? Subscribe, drop a review, and share it with a golfer chasing distance. Have questions or want help with your pattern? Find us on YouTube at Measured Golf and connect through the Measured Golf website.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Measured Golf Podcast, where you, the listeners, sit down and join me, Michael, as we discuss all things pertinent to the world of golf. And this week we are going to talk about a subject that most people are definitely interested in, want to know more about, and it's the off season, the indoor golf season, as we like to call it here at Measured Golf in Ann Arbor. But it is about speed training. And a lot of people want to hit the ball farther. It is definitely the thing that the kids are into. It's hot, it's cool, and a lot of us are thinking, man, if we could just hit it farther, the game gets so much simpler. Well, I don't necessarily agree with that sentiment for a lot of golfers. I do think that a lot of us could do with more speed. But we're going to kind of talk about what are the barriers to speed and why does speed training really not work for a lot of people. Um, you know, here at Measured Golf in Ann Arbor, we're very fortunate. We have the stack system, we have the Mach 3 speed training system, we have the super speed sticks, uh, we have everything I think they make when it comes to doing uh speed creation, speed generation. But a lot of people, when they think about creating more speed, they kind of think about taking their Honda four-cylinder engine and trying to put a six-cylinder or an eight-cylinder engine into the Honda, and things will go faster. But if I put an eight-cylinder motor into a Honda Civic and I don't upgrade the brakes, well, then I'm gonna have a real problem because yes, I might be able to generate a bigger impulse or make the tires spin faster or be able to chirp the tires in second and third gear. But what happens when I need to slow down? And we don't think about that a lot. And where a lot of people unfortunately get messed up with the speed training is a lot of people are just applying concepts that don't work. So we're gonna get into a little bit of those concepts today, why some of them work better than others for certain types of players. But long story short, you know, I've I'm very uh I love what I do. I I think force plates are great. I don't think force plates are for everybody or even for that many, uh, because you have to understand the entire system and the entire chain, and you have to understand club delivery and the physics that go into that. You really have to understand the human body and the anatomy and how joint segments work relative to one another. And then you also have to understand how the the action forces or the pressure shift or transfer as I prefer to call it, uh ties into the the ground forces and the ground reaction forces that we create. So generally I think of pressure as the action force, and then we have the reaction force, which is the forces we look at on the 3D motion capture plates. So, excuse me, 3D dual force plates. So uh if you can hear it, I apologize that my voice is a little weird this week. I literally just got back this afternoon from an amazing couple days out in Scottsdale, Arizona, when none other than the short game chef Parker McLaughlin uh had an amazing time with him, got to spend some time with some amazing players, Frederick Lindbloom, Hannah Gregg, uh a few tour players. Uh just really a cool experience. And, you know, even the tour players, they're looking for more speed. I mean, it's it's definitely the hot commodity out there. So I think it's a it's gonna be a fun conversation. Uh, I apologize if I don't sound as I normally do. Hopefully, we can do a little bit of editing with this that makes me sound a little bit more normal, but the desert drives me out. If you're watching this on our Measured Golf YouTube channel, uh you can take one look at me and realize I don't belong in the desert. Uh, so it it definitely has an effect on me, but uh, we're gonna carry on nonetheless because you know, people have been listening to the podcast have been getting a lot of feedback, uh, and I'm I'm just blown away. So I want to make sure that we're getting this content out for everybody. So we'll soldier through it. Um one quick note, I would like to uh say a special thank you to golf.com and 8amgolf uh for recognizing me as a teacher to watch on the 2026-2027 uh golf.com list that just came out uh in the past couple days. It means a lot to me. Um, a big part of me being on that list is you, the listener to this podcast and the support that you guys show and the engagement and trusting me uh to help you with your golf game, whether it be through listening to this podcast or working with me virtually, which is an option if you're interested in doing, uh, or working with me in person here at Measured Golf or when I'm on the road. So thank you to everybody. The support means a lot. Um, I really in a million years never would have thought uh that I would be on these lists or I would even be recognized for what I do, to be honest with you, because it's not why I do this. Um I'm not trying to become famous. I'm not, I can't stand honestly, I can't stand the content creation side of the business these days. Um I'd I would much rather spend my time like working with people and helping them and having a tangible effect. And I don't want to just make clickbait and put things out there that are more or less just regurgitated information. So uh that's why I like the podcast. That's why I like the YouTube. It gives us the space and the time to kind of get into some of these concepts and help people get a better understanding. So, with that being said, let's get into some concepts about speed training and why it doesn't work for most people. And I think one of the biggest reasons the speed training doesn't work for a lot of people is because what ends up happening is people try to swing faster with the same movement pattern, with the same sequence. And from what I have seen and what I've measured and what I've kind of researched over since 2017 when I bought my first set of force plates, is that most people do not sequence their body motion very well, which leads to a lot of compensations with the golf club. And kind of an easy way to think about this is there's no doubt in my mind that if you're listening to this, you've probably hit a good golf shot before. And you might have even played a good nine holes, maybe you played a good round. Uh, but I know that no matter how bad you think your ground forces are, or no matter how bad you think your sequencing is, or no matter how ugly you think your golf swing is, we're all sometimes able to kind of time things up and get it to work for us. But generally speaking, it's very difficult to be consistent when our sequencing is off. And the reason for that is because we're all human beings. And I don't disagree that we all have our different ranges of motions and things like that. But if I was to hurt my hip and you were to hurt your hip and somebody else was to hurt their hip, we could all go to the same surgeon and the surgeon could fix all of our hips. And the reason for that is because the hip works in a particular way, just like all the body parts work in a particular way, because we're all human beings and we all have to kind of abide by the rules and the structure of human beings. So, with that being said, the sequencing isn't unique. It's how we all need to move. And the way that I like to think about it, and I know it doesn't get talked about a lot, but there are these things, these meridians that our myofascial system work in. And if you're unfamiliar with the myofascial system is, it's the layer just beneath your skin that's outside of the layer where your bones and your muscles and your tissues and your ligaments are. So between that layer of bone structure and tissues and muscles, and between the skin, there's this like white substance, it's everywhere, it's all over our body. It kind of surrounds and encapsulates all the muscles in the bones. And that's called a myofascial system. And there's essentially six meridians that the myofascial system kind of works on. And if you apply what I what you understand about the meridians that the myofascial system works on, and you layer that in with the three planes of motion, it gets somewhat easy to understand how a body can and cannot move, and how a body can sequence and not sequence. And the reason that the sequencing is so important is it's really what leads to consistency. And it also is what leads to longevity, meaning that when we move out of sequence, yes, we can still play good golf. Yes, we can still hit good golf shots, yes, we might even hit one kind of far, but the risk of injury is higher because we're having to compensate. And anytime we compensate and do weird things like that, what ends up happening is we put more stress on certain joints in the body. And that stress over time and over continued usage leads to injury and can lead to fatigue of the muscle in the joint. So we want to do our best to create this speed, but we want to create the speed in a correctly sequenced way. And when I when I talk about this sequence thing, I think a lot of people it goes over their head a little bit, which is totally understandable. It went over my head for years. But if you think back to, you know, Fred Couples, if you're old enough, Freddy's nickname was Boom Boom, and Boom Boom just absolutely knocked the snot out of a golf ball. He hit it far. That's why it was nicknamed Boom Boom. But if you talk to people about how Fred Couples swung a golf golf club, everybody says, well, it looked really easy. It didn't look like he was swinging at all. And if you think of Ernie Ells, same kind of story, doesn't look like he's swinging very hard. If you look at a lot of the tour players now that that really knock the bananas out of it, they don't look like they're swinging very hard. And that smooth appearance is the sequence in good shape and good order. And when we sequence things well, it's almost like the speed is effortless. It's almost like it's just on tap and it just kind of comes pouring out of us. And that's where we really can take advantage of the human body. And when we sequence well, that gives us the opportunity to use the ground to create leverage. And now all of a sudden, we're able to really ramp up the club head speed and the and the hand speed. And now all of a sudden, we, if we can deliver the club still, now all of a sudden there's massive potential there to hit the ball farther and still have control of the face. But when we start thinking about this club face and speed training, they generally don't get talked about together. Um, I'm not trying to be controversial, I'm not trying to throw, you know, any sticks or stones at anybody else. But there's recently been this big kind of uh big push in the golf space, especially on Instagram and and YouTube. Uh, and there's an organization that's talking about, you know, how high you can jump is going to tell you how far you can hit a golf ball. And I just think that's ludicrous because there's tons of NBA guys who can jump out of a gym but can't hit a golf ball 200 yards to save their life. And club delivery is still very, very important. Having face control is still very, very important. And we have to understand that having speed and having a manageable club face go hand in hand. They're not mutually exclusive. We don't like lose control when we gain speed, or we don't gain speed and then or lose speed and gain control. It doesn't work in that kind of relationship. And the reason that it normally has worked that way in the past is because most people aren't actually changing their motion, they're just trying to swing their arms in the club faster. And it's kind of like I said, it's it's given that Honda Civic a V8 and it doesn't have better brakes, and it doesn't drive very well, it's not very functional. We can't slow down, and we're not going to speed something up that we can't slow down safely. And that's where I think speed training really runs amiss because we're swinging heavier clubs or lighter clubs, depending on the system you're using. And instead of learning how to brake more efficiently, which is going to work on the kick point of the shaft to release it, which generates more speed, we're generally just trying to yank on the club harder and make the hands go faster. So where I see speed training really not hitting the mark for the most part, it's because generally people aren't changing their pattern or their motion. They're just trying to swing the end of the stick faster. And the faster we try to swing the end of that stick, we start running into these things like face closure issues. And the only ball flight in golf that doesn't work is left going left. It's called a duck hook. And the reason it doesn't work is because it doesn't get in the air. And you may be saying, well, right going right doesn't work. Well, you haven't played enough public golf because there's lots of people that play golf that aim 80 yards left of the fairway every single time and hit the biggest, highest slice you've ever seen right in the middle of the fairway almost every time. Right going right works just fine because it gets in the air and airborne versus the duck hook, which doesn't get in the air, which means it doesn't go very far. So, generally speaking, I think that the biggest drawback to speed training is we're trying to increase the horsepower and not paying attention to the brake. And I think that's why we have this epidemic of handle draggers who are early extending. And if I'm early extending, then I'm shutting the face. And when I shut the face, I then have to try to use the body to try to back up to get the face back open so that I can hit a functional golf shot. And now I don't have the opportunity to create that leverage against the ground using the ground forces. So it's there's really it's it's not a simple answer for everybody. And the example that, you know, I was kind of getting to earlier, and I got a little distracted was being known as the force plate guy has in a way painted me into a corner. And a lot of my business, a lot of the people that I coach here at Measured Golf, you know, fly in to work with me from somewhere else, and they show up and they'll say something to the effect of, well, you know, I really like my golf swing. It's really, really good. I don't want to mess with my golf swing, but I want to do the ground stuff because I know there's more there. And I have to almost talk them off the edge a little bit, because what people don't understand, and this is very, very important, if you get nothing else from this podcast and you want to gain some speed, pay attention now because this is the secret. But if the club face is closing in transition due to the fact that it was opening during the backswing or even in transition, but if it's opening during the backswing, you're going to have to close it in transition and/or the downswing. And the thing is, is that if the face is closing in transition, you're never going to use your body to rotate and turn and drive your pivot through the shot. You're going to have to stall your body to try to get behind it again to get the face back open. And now it turns into a stalled chest with an arm swing, no extension past the ball, which means the face is shut. And the first step that I have to do with everybody that wants to gain speed, assuming that we're going to do it through ground forces, is I have to get the face to stop closing in transition because there's no way you're ever going to use the ground when that's happening, because you know inherently, or I'm sorry, you know subconsciously or consciously that left going left doesn't work. It's not an option for a golfer. It doesn't get in the air, it doesn't go anywhere. And generally it doesn't stop if it like starts rolling across the ground until you get another golf ball out of the bag. So we've got to get this face to stop closing so that I then have the opportunity to create that leverage and create some thoracic rotation through the golf shot. That's the key. That's really the magic sauce to helping people gain speed. Most people, if you watch them, their upper body, okay, like if you put a dot right here, kind of like at the bottom of your neck, kind of right in between your two sternoclavicular joints, most people have that point moving backwards with a ton of right side bend, assuming they're a right-handed golfer, with a ton of right side bend coming into the ball, because they have to try to open the face back up because it's already been shut. And that's really where golfers get in trouble because the excessive right side bend puts a lot of strain on the lower lumbar, puts a lot of strain on the trilabrum. And it's an epidemic of people that have issues with their trilabrum in their hip, especially the younger people, because they're trying to make speed and they're having to try to hang back to launch this thing. And it just creates a nightmare in terms of the sequencing, which unfortunately for young people tends to lead to these injuries because the golf clubs tend to be too long, too heavy, and now they're having to try to create some launch because they don't have enough loft normally as well. And it's just a bad recipe. And I spend a lot of time with my juniors not trying to increase speed, but trying to build a solid foundation with a sequence that works in accordance with the way the human being moves, and then we go from there. And as they get bigger and stronger, the speed naturally goes up. But giving them the opportunity to use the ground is key. And jumping away from the ground and early extending is not the answer. It might look cool on the gram, but it's not functional and it's not helping people. And the sequence isn't going to be one that's going to make us consistent or give us longevity. So we really want to make sure that we're treating the right thing. Another reason I think speed training tends to come up a little bit short is that most people, you know, have their PRGR radar and you know, whatever they're using to measure the club speed. I know that both Foresight and Trackman now have a way to do speed training using their systems as well. But, you know, we're looking at the output only. We're not looking at how we get there. You know, as long as the everything is fair in the name of making ball speed go up. And one of my big rules here at measured golf with my clients is we don't count the ball. If we're doing speed training, it doesn't count if the ball finishes left of the start line. So if that ball is like a pull draw, or if that ball like starts online and then draws, um, essentially like it's always going to read higher with the ball speed. And the reason that is, is because to hit that particular style shot that finishes left of the target line, generally speaking, assuming we hit the middle of the face and it's not off the toe and a gear effect left, but assuming we hit the middle, if it's left of the target line, generally speaking, the face to path is going to be left of the target line. And it's going to be a negative number for a right-handed golfer. And the face to path being closed decreases the effective loft in three dimensions. You can think of as dynamic loft or effective loft. But it I'm sorry, you can think of it as effective loft. Dynamic loft is an actual measurement. So the effective loft is lowering as well as the dynamic loft when we get the face to path closed. And if I get the face more upright with less meaning less loft, it would be more bent back if I had more loft. But if the face is more up and down, the transfer of energy is going to be higher and we're going to get like a high smash factor. But this thing is going to be left and it's going to be a knuckle, typically speaking. And that doesn't count because I don't care about ball speed. I care about carry. Because depending on where you live in this country, you're not getting the optimized 35 yards of rollout where you play golf. And so many golfers are not carrying the golf ball as far as they should, but getting a lot of roll because it doesn't have enough spin, it doesn't have enough trajectory. And it's more or less kind of one of those knuckleballs. And yeah, Trackman says the total is far, but the carry is low. And when you optimize that, you can look at that for yourself. And the thing is, is when we think about carry versus total, carry is kind of like your paycheck. Let's say you're on a salary, you get paid every other Friday, you know how much it's going to be. You know what the taxes are, blah, blah, blah, right? The deductions, all that stuff. But you know how much money you're going to get if you show up to your job and you're on salary. Now, interest is like total. And depending on how the economy is doing and what your bank offers you, you may get a little interest or you may get no interest. And that's where golfers have to realize that if we're going to actually optimize a number, we want it to be carry over total because we're guaranteed to get the carry when we go play golf. If you are sacrificing carry in the name of total and you go out to your local golf course and it's rained the night before and it's a little soggy, you might not get any roll that day. So if that's what we're counting on, then we're in trouble. And we've got to optimize the carry of the driver. So I think that when we go and do speed training and we just chase ball speed or club speed, I think that's a very small part of the equation. And it also doesn't factor in the delivery of the club, once again, and and delivery still matters. Last time I checked. So I think it's really important that when we're doing speed training, instead of looking at club speed or instead of looking at ball speed, I think we need to understand like where is the hang up and why are you not producing more speed? And unfortunately, that's a complicated question. And the reason it's complicated is because, you know, is it the path is way too far left, which is making you leave the face open? Uh, is it because we're not using the ground well? Is it because we don't have enough thoracic rotation? What is it? And I think if we really want to go about building speed in a sustainable way, then what we want to do is we want to try to treat the issue that is actually keeping the speed out of our equation instead of just trying to ramp up how fast we swing the arms with the same set of problems. Because what ends up happening is yeah, maybe we figure out a way to swing it a little bit faster, but then we go out on the golf course and we can't put it in play. So it's super, super important to understand where does the actual problem originate from and are we doing anything to solve that problem or not? And in a lot of cases, we're a lot of golfers don't have access to force plates or a pressure mat, and they don't even understand kind of what's going on at the ground level. And they don't understand if they're making enough break and they're getting their pelvis to stop moving left uh prior to impact, which is kind of a key recipe uh for hitting the golf ball far, because when we play golf, we don't play with rigid golf clubs. The shaft bends. Now, there's something to be said that maybe a lot of golfers are playing with shafts that are too heavy and too stiff. But even for somebody playing with a shaft that's too heavy and too stiff, when we swing that club backwards and then start moving it towards the ball again, we're going to put some amount of bend into the shaft. And if you want to make speed, we have to unbend that shaft, which means we need a break. But for a lot of golfers who don't use the ground well, they're having to use their lead arm to try to create the break. But if I do that, then I have to figure out a way to line the face back up and get the dynamic loft somewhere that's reasonable. And that's really difficult. That's asking for a lot. And not only that, if you think about the left arm, it's not that strong relative to the left leg. And if you don't believe me, go put 200 pounds on the bench press. Maybe you're able to do that five or six times. But if you put the same 200 pounds on a leg press, you're gonna do it until the cows come home. And the left leg is way stronger than the left shoulder and arm. And we're gonna have way better luck breaking using that lead leg versus using that lead arm. And that's where I think so many people struggle with speed creation, is that they're unable to get the pelvis to stop moving left during the downswing. And when we can't stop moving left and getting the pressure left, it's just a recipe for disaster because, like I said, we're gonna have to try to hang back with the rest of our body above the pelvis to try to line this thing up and get the loft on the ball. So if we're not dealing with some of these things, it's gonna be very, very difficult for us to create more speed. And I hate to tell people this, and it makes me sound like I'm just trying to sell force plates and pressure mats. But generally speaking, golfers go to the driving range and they move the club around differently until they get the desired ball flight they want. But they're still making the same motion. They're not changing their motion. And when you do change the motion of somebody, it's very uncomfortable in the beginning because our nervous system wants to do what it knows how to do. It doesn't want to do something different, and it's not going to do something different unless you really kind of act upon it and force it to do something different. And most people are completely unaware of that, which is why I think it's very difficult to teach yourself golf unless you have access to some force plates or some pressure mats, and you can be objective with your movement pattern in your sequence. And if you can be objective with that, well, then you can maybe help yourself a little bit. But we have to first understand am I moving through the ball and never stopping? Or am I getting a nice break to happen, which stops the body moving left and then makes the club shaft or the kick point of the club shaft actually release. And if we can get the club shaft and the kick point to release after it's been bent in transition, now we have the real opportunity to not only hit it farther, but we're going to have a lot more face stability as well. Because when we're just kind of falling into the ball, now we're having to rely on wrist angles and things like that to try to get the face pointed in the right direction. So getting an objective viewpoint of what's holding us back from the speed is really, really key. And then we want to treat that and then try to see if that helps the speed creation, which it should. But I should be able to do that in a way more meaningful way that's structured and actually leads to positive outcomes. But when I just chase the outcome and I'm just trying to ramp up the club head speed and the ball speed without changing anything else, I think that that's really a proposition that's not going to work very well for most people. Uh, generally speaking, you know, one of the biggest problems of speed training is that people do a session and then they immediately go get their driver and they try to do it. And, you know, people want to see the ball go straight or excuse me, or want to see the ball curve the way they expect it to curve, whether that's right to left or left to right. And if we actually are making ourselves uncomfortable and changing that motion pattern, our contact might be off for a little bit. Because generally speaking, if we change the motion of the body, we're now going to have to match up a new delivery for that. If we just kind of mess around with the club until we get it to go straight, that's not really the same thing. So having an expectation that I can do speed training once a week and I'm going to gain serious speed, I think is unrealistic. Generally speaking, we're going to have to be at this four or five times a week, and we're going to have to be systematically working on the problems that are in the way of the speed creation. We can't simply do a session and then expect to go and gain 15 miles an hour and hit the ball as straight as we have before. That's just not fair. And it's not, it's not reasonable. But that's kind of how golfers think because we've been conditioned to think that the answer is always one swing away and that we can buy the solution. But when it comes to human motion, we really do have to kind of get some objective data. And then we have to really kind of come up with ways to where we can train the new motion without a golf club in your hands, because it's very difficult once I put the golf club in your hands to make the motion change because the nervous system wants to know it wants to do what it already knows how to do. So I think it's it's a tough proposition for people, which is why I think the idea that I'm going to do some speed training a couple times a week and that's going to solve all my problems. I just don't buy into that. So long story short, you know, they got to train more often, they've got to forget about the target a little bit, and they've got to get uncomfortable. Like those are probably three of the main pillars for creating more speed. But we need to create more speed in a way that is sequenced correctly within the body and is going to keep us healthy, which is going to create some longevity. And the biggest thing that really bugs me with the speed training stuff is a lot of people get hurt. I mean, it's it's happened more than once here to where you know people have kind of a little bit of a wonky swing and kind of a wonky move at it, and they just kind of want to get into speed training because that's the the en vogue thing. And because they aren't prepared, they haven't prepared their nervous system, they haven't prepared their body, the motion pattern still is a little bit wonky, they just start ramping up the speed. And and like I said, if we're trying to break the club, for example, with the lead arm instead of the lead leg, now all of a sudden we've got massive issues and we've got a much higher risk for creating injury. Um, I hate speed training with young people. Uh I don't know why people don't think about this, but young people hopefully are growing. Uh, hopefully they're getting enough food, they're getting enough water, they're getting enough sleep, they're kind of like plants. We're trying to get them to grow big and strong. And, you know, when they're in that growing phase, at the end of those bone segments where the joints are, it's pretty rubbery. Uh, they're kind of gumby, right? Like they're very flexible and very mobile, and all of those things, and they don't have. A lot of stability. And if we don't have stability, then it's very difficult to create the ranges of motions appropriately through the correct joints. And when we're not kind of doing these things well and we start creating compression on these joints that aren't fully formed because they're still growing, uh, it can really lead to some developmental issues and kind of create more injuries down the road than it's even worth. And, you know, one of the big things that bugs me the most is I see, you know, I get a lot of other coaches who use force plates, use pressure mats, uh, and they send me, you know, captures and like, oh man, look at look at this junior. Look at, you know, he's got 280% vertical force. He's going to be a killer. And it's like, vertical force is not the answer, folks. Um, it really isn't. And the reason that young people tend to have really high vertical force is because they haven't grown all the way yet. And if you think about how we grow, it typically goes legs, uh, arms, and then the torso. That's generally the sequence in which we kind of grow and get bigger and kind of fully formed adults. That's kind of the process of how it works for most people. But generally speaking, as I said earlier, the legs are by far our strongest limbs. They're much stronger than our arms. And if you think about juniors, they tend to maybe have, you know, decent legs, but they don't have enough upper body strength. Like they haven't really formed that yet. Maybe they, maybe they have, you know, maybe they've got some decent arms. But I almost guarantee you that they don't have the core strength yet that they're going to need to transfer this energy that they're creating from the legs and from the arms and use it in a reasonable sequence way. So when they only really have their legs when they're youngsters to kind of use to make speed, what ends up happening is is because they're using their legs so much, and that's really all they have to use. Well, wouldn't you know it, they create a lot of vertical force. But once again, they're not fully formed, and these joint centers aren't really stable enough to support that kind of force being shot through them. And I think it's a bad recipe. I think it's going to once again potentially lead to more injuries down the road than it's worth. And not only that, but you know, a lot of these youngsters don't have a lot of mass. So when we get lots of force being created with not a lot of mass, they tend to jump. And I I don't understand why people don't get this, but when people are moving away from the ground, that is extension. And everybody knows or thinks they know about early extension, and it's kind of a bad thing in golf, and it is, because it puts a lot of stress on certain areas of the body that we don't want to be stressing that way. Ideally, the lumbar. Like, I'm sorry, where we put the stress tends to be on the lumbar through extension. And when we're really putting a lot of stress on these and we're doing this very one-sided repetitive motion, it's not going to lead to this body really growing and developing in a healthy and balanced way. And when we kind of overdevelop it one way, it's going to play out in the sequence in the way that we try to deliver the club. So, for a lot of the youngsters that I get, you know, we get them on the force blades and we look at this and it's like, hey, yes, like no duh. Like they're trying to use a lot of vertical force. But what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to create a little more horizontal force for some stability. I'm trying to create more torque to kind of take the pressure off the lumbar. And now all of a sudden we're creating this more balanced swing for them to where, yeah, maybe they do lose a little bit of speed. Um, but they hit the ball so much better with every other club than just the driver that the trade-off is worth it. And we can guarantee that they're going to be able to go through their growth cycles being non-injured. And that's key. And like where I've had success with tour players is twofold. You know, tour players have to play four really high-level rounds together, and that requires quote unquote consistency. And if we get the body sequencing correctly, then it's much easier to match up the delivery of the golf club and the golf swing with a well-sequenced anatomy and body. And now all of a sudden it's easier to show up and play consistent golf. But when we don't have the sequencing quite there and we're having to make a lot of compensations with the swing and the delivery of the club, it's very hard to like have your timing four times in a row or even really two times in a row, which is why it's very difficult for a lot of golfers to follow up a good round. It's not because they like are mental, you know, having mental issues and don't know how to think and don't have good course management. It's that their motion doesn't really support the swing that they're making. And if their timing is a little bit off, it tends to be quite disastrous. So we want to make sure that we're looking at this from a much wider perspective when we think of speed training versus just picking up a stick with a weight on the end of it and trying to make it go faster. Because generally, most people, and I do mean this, and I've seen this repeatedly, most people are capable of making way more speed and do make way more speed than what they deliver to the ball. And the reason is is they don't have that body and the pelvis stopping from moving left in time to act upon the golf club and transfer the energy from the ground through the body, through the club, and to the ball. We only have one second to make a golf swing. So we've got to like not only ramp it up, but we got to slow it down, and that's gonna require that sequencing to happen because you can't think about that many things when you play golf. So I I really don't want to get on here and say, I don't think people should do speed training. But what I think people should do is I think people should address the body first. I think people should address the sequencing first. I think going to the gym is a great thing for every golfer. I'm not giving you a pass to not, you know, work out this winter in the effort of gaining speed. I think working out and doing a well-balanced kind of routine in the gym, I think that's a great thing, uh, especially considering how one-sided and repetitive golf is. So I like the gym work a lot. But generally, if you're working with a great trainer, and we're super fortunate here at Measured Golf, uh, we've got a great trainer in-house. He's here every day. His name is Aram Kinshig, I'm sorry, Aram Kushigian, uh, Smash Factor Performance on Instagram. You know, we work very well hand in hand because I'm able to go to him and say, hey, this is what's not really working for us. And then he programs to that. So instead of having to do, and I'm not saying he doesn't do whole butt body workouts, he does, but we also sprinkle in the exercises and the drills that we need to see happen for this motion to get better and the sequence to clean up. And while when we do that, and then we try to swing the golf club faster, because it's sequenced better, it's easier to get the club where it needs to be. And now people actually feel encouraged to swing harder because they're hitting it on the middle of the face and they know where the face is pointed. And that's a way more realistic way of getting some extra speed. It's not the, hey, you're gonna gain 15 yards and right now, right here. It's just not that simple. You know, I mentioned earlier being out with Parker, and a lot of the people that I worked with wanted to gain speed, and you know, it's pretty cool. Parker, uh, we have it, it's gonna be a YouTube video. Um, and this kind of goes against what I just said, but Parker gained uh 20, I believe it's 26 yards in seven minutes. Um, and it was magic. It was like really cool. We got it all on film. You're gonna want to see that. And sometimes it can be that simple, but we didn't get there by trying to swing the club faster. We got there by actually trying to D weight faster. And what I saw with Parker, you know, obviously a tour player for four years, I believe. He was on the PGA tour for four years, uh, had a win on the PGA tour. He's very proficient at delivering the golf club. So, you know, he hits it straight, he hits it pretty far. Uh, I think he said his carry number was like 265, 270. It was kind of like where he's been living. You know, he's got a couple kids now and he's not playing full time. Um, so he's kind of lost a little bit of it. And we were able to get him to D weight, which made the vertical force higher for him, which acted as the break that we needed to get the club to kind of kick. And he got to where he could carry the golf ball 300 yards again. He was pumped, he was super excited. And, you know, we're gonna put that on Instagram, and a lot of people are gonna see we're gonna, I'm sorry, we're gonna put that on YouTube, and a lot of people are gonna see that and go, oh, that's it. See, I can just go get it. But I'm gonna tell you the same thing I told Parker. Yes, this is the way to do it, but just because we've done it here today doesn't mean you're forever going to do it this way now. And we have to train this, we have to be consistent with this, we have to be actively thinking about this, D weighting that he has to do to create more break. But at the end of the day, he's going to have to continue to reinforce that and be consistent with that because for a lot of us who aren't already moving well, and for a lot of us who aren't sequencing well, and for a lot of us who didn't play on tour and went on tour, you know, there's other fish to fry when it comes to the speed generation. And it's going to take time. It's going to probably take more than one session with somebody like me. It doesn't mean in that one session we can't figure out what it is that's preventing you from making the speed and getting you an answer that you can start working at, but you're still going to have to put the work in. And I know that's not the selling thing to say. Like, I'm supposed to say, Oh, yeah, I can get everybody that kind of yard, like, but I can't. Um, like I said, if if you're showing up and your miss is left and the face is shut, and like, okay, we got to kind of deal with that. And then once we get the face to start opening and transition, now I can teach you how to use that body to pivot and use the ground for leverage to make more speed. So, like I said, there's not a silver bullet to creating more speed. And I know that, you know, every speed training system claims to have the answer, and a lot of people go and do it. And, you know, I've seen two things. I've seen um, you know, better players that know what they're doing and and are sequenced somewhat well, and a lot of those things, you know, yeah, they do gain speed and they do get better using these these programs and these systems. But for a lot of people who have other issues as well, you know, I've seen injuries and I've seen people go and, you know, hey, I I've gained six, seven, eight miles an hour of club speed, you know, doing the stack or Mach 3 or Super Speed or the Toad or whatever it is. Uh, and then they go to the golf course and yeah, they have six or seven more miles an hour, but it's going, you know, another 10, 15, 20 yards into the woods, and they have no idea where the ball is going because, like I said, they never really worked on the motion. They just learned how to move their arms and hands faster, which isn't going to really lead to any of that face stability that we talked about. So I think understanding the root cause of why you don't have as much speed as you think you should is very, very important. And if that's something you're interested in, uh, I would recommend getting with somebody who can show you the ground forces, the, the, the ground pressure, uh, can interpret that data, show you where that's not really working for you from a sequencing perspective, and then you can kind of start working at the root cause a little more so than just trying to move the hands and arms faster, because that's just going to lead to face closure issues, and it's going to lead to not the ball not going straight. So, anywho, uh, I started right now uh as I'm filming this. It is five o'clock uh East Coast, and I started today at 3:30 a.m. Uh I guess it would be mountain time because Arizona doesn't do uh the fall back thing, the the time change, thank God. I wish more places were like Arizona. But uh it's been a very long day with lots of air travel and all the fun stuff, and I am exhausted and my voice is giving. So uh that's probably where we're gonna wrap up the conversation on speed training and why it doesn't work for everybody. But once again, um thank you to everybody. Uh, you all definitely are a big part of the reason that I've been successful uh and why anybody knows what I'm doing. So I can't thank you enough for that. I really do mean that. I appreciate it. Um, and the podcast has just been on fire lately. So it sounds like you guys like what we're doing. Uh, we'd love to know what you think. You know, like I said, if you haven't heard this before, uh obviously most people listen to this podcast, as most people do, but we also put a video version of this, the same exact thing. Uh, it's on YouTube. You can find us by searching Measured Golf on YouTube. The comment section is open. You're more than welcome to leave your thoughts, uh, ask your questions, whatever you need to do. Uh, but please feel free to reach out. Um, we'd love to hear from you. If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast. That helps us tremendously. You can also find us on Instagram, uh Measured Golf and uh the force plate guy from mine uh and kind of keep up with my travels and the cool guys and girls I get to work with. Uh, that's really cool as well. And if you can't remember any of that, then you can just take the name of this podcast, the Measured Golf Podcast, and you can remember Measured Golf and you can put that into your web browser, Measured Golf, and we have a website and everything is linked there. Uh, and you can find out more information there about if you're interested in working with me, uh, whether that be virtually or whether that be here in Ann Arbor, or if you're interested in having me come out and work with you at your club and maybe get some buddies together, or maybe you're a member at a club and would like to do like a group clinic or something like that. We can discuss all of that there. So please feel free to reach out. Please make sure to subscribe. And lastly, please leave us some thoughts, uh, feedback, comments. We'd love to hear from you. So thanks again for tuning in. And as always, keep grinding.

Head Shot

Michael Dutro, PGA

Host