HOW TO GET POWER LIKE DECHAMBEAU
There have been 2 rounds now since the PGA Tour started back up after an initial stop due to the covid-19 pandemic. There have been two different winners; Daniel Berger and Webb Simpson. Another huge talking point is DeChambeau’s swing: Actually, his swing speed to be precise. He has transformed from a very athletic looking golfer in 2017 with a club head speed of 119 MPH to a far bulkier golfer in 2020 with a club head speed of 139MPH. There was no doubt at the beginning of 2020 that there had been some weight gain and that he had bulked up in his off season. However, the 3 months that golf had been in hiatus gave him more time (and I’m guessing here) to train and gain even more mass.
My concern is that younger golfers are going to see this and focus on the sexy part, which is driving the ball 340 yards and adding 10-20 yards extra distance to every club and immediately want to go into the gym and train exactly like DeChambeau does. There is no doubt that the closer you are to the hole in one the lower (or the chance of lower) scores will be. My worry is that people will go into the gym and (without proper direction) start trying to emulate the type of training someone like DeChambeau does. Now I’m not trying to discourage people from training for golf. That’s a great idea. But let’s just think about what power is; what it takes to produce those golf head speeds. Then we can think about what foundations are needed in order to produce this power.
If we breakdown what power is..
To summarise POWER = FORCE x SPEED i.e. a powerful person is both STRONG (can exert a large force) and FAST (can do it quickly)
In terms of golf, more power = greater distance and a faster clubbed speed.
So where do you start with trying to gain more club head speed? How do you build power? Well as we’ve seen power is about great strength with great speed.
You have to start by building a strong foundation. That takes time and patience. So many people want the end result – the faster club head speed - without seeing the effort that goes into getting the end result. We don’t see what is beneath the surface; what is performed off the green and behind the scenes. We don’t see what makes up the day to day life of the elite and what they had to do to get that result. Let’s break it down:
To create a more powerful golf swing and gain more club head speed the foundation you have to build, first and foremost, is mobility and stability.
Finding out what areas are immobile and restricted or possibly too mobile and unstable in your golf swing will set you up to then start building strength.
Once you start becoming stronger then you can start focusing on the sexy stuff; becoming FASTER with your strength… and that’s POWER!
Without the foundations, without that framework, you are constrained to work within the limited confines of your current capabilities or else you are pushing beyond these and asking your body to move explosively in a way its not primed to handle. What do I mean by this? If you go straight into moving load as fast as you can without addressing the foundations of mobility, stability and strength then you will not be moving as well as you would do if you addressed the foundations. At best your potential is capped. More importantly you are creating a higher potential for injury.
Once working within the framework above and ready to incorporate power movements into your training what is the best way to do this for golf? To determine this we must think about the nitty gritty of the golf swing: How it works and what type of power you use. Primarily we have vertical force production and rotational power.
The best exercises are “jumping” and “throwing” based, I would recommend starting with body weight and working up to weighted (dumbbells and barbells etc) only when you are able to demonstrate stability and control in the body weight variations.
5 Jumping Exercises (Bodyweight)
Vertical Jump
Single leg jump
Box jumps
Lateral single leg jumps
Lateral single leg jumps into a hold
4 Throwing exercises (med ball)
Chest pass
side on med ball throws against wall
single leg side on med ball throws against wall
Sit up and throw
Having more power and being able to hit the ball further is a huge factor to improving your scores because (as mentioned above) being closer to the hole in one is going to give you more opportunity to score lower.
Trying to jump straight to power production without addressing mobility, stability and strength, however, can lead to problems further down the line. Try to understand that it is normal for this to take some time and follow the process.
As always hope this helps and enjoy your golf.
Andy