If you’ve finally decided to take the plunge and begin a concerted pursuit of swing speed, congratulations. Speed training can unlock distance, lower scores, and bring more fun on the course. Your motivation is undoubtedly high to get going, but let’s first discuss what you should expect to encounter on your speed training journey.
Easing Into Speed Training
Gaining distance is tantalizing. The mind wanders into thoughts of your home course, the hazards you can carry, and the shorter approaches you’ll have once you gain some speed. You’re probably even looking forward to a “whoa, what have you been doing?” from your buddies when you first blow it by them. These are perfectly understandable pearls of motivation. Hold onto them but understand that speed training isn’t something you dive right into.
Every speed training system on the market today is based on a training principle of swinging with maximal effort. If you can raise that maximum swing speed, then your cruising speed that you play at on the course will come up too. But you will not start at that maximal effort. You’re going to have to take some baby steps first.
Swinging at maximum effort right out of the gate is a great way to injure yourself and end your speed training journey before it even starts. Be patient. Trust the process and know that the hair-on-fire all-out swings are coming soon.
And speaking of injuries: warm-up. Always warm-up. Never skip the warm-up. Are you getting the hint? If you are not warmed up, your injury risk goes up exponentially, so if you don’t have time to do it then skip the speed training workout entirely until you do. You’ll find that without a good warm-up you won’t get anywhere near your peak speeds anyway, so you’ll only be training to be slower. The bottom line: if you’re not already sweating a little, you’re not warmed up and ready to train. Warm up!
Expect the Unexpected
You’re hydrated. You slept great the night before, you haven’t had any booze, and you’ve eaten remarkably healthily for days. The sun is out, the birds are chirping, all is right with the world. You’re feeling so good, you just know you’re about to smash through all your personal speed training records.
Nope. Instead, you hit the same speeds as your last five sessions, including the one where you were sleep-deprived and a little foggy. It doesn’t make any sense, right? It does make sense if you understand that speed training gains are not linear. It’s not uncommon to toil away for weeks or even months with no noticeable improvements, until one magical day a jump happens, and the hard work pays off big. This is how speed training works, so embrace it and be prepared to put your head down and stick to it.
If it’s your first time out training for speed, chances are high you’re going to see a jump in speeds early in the training. Then, you’ll plateau. Stick with it. Control the one thing you can control, which is your effort and intensity on each swing. The gains are coming, probably in bunches and when you least expect them.
Taking It to the Course
Experiences vary when it comes to taking your speed training gains to the course. It’s not uncommon to be inaccurate and spray it a bit in your first round out when you take up speed training. This phenomenon usually normalizes quickly, however. The fact is that bad golf swings are slow golf swings. One of the big benefits of speed training is that you’ll force your body to self-organize into a more efficient movement pattern to get faster. Know what else that more efficient movement pattern will deliver? Accuracy. That’s right, speed training often improves accuracy. You’ll bomb it longer AND straighter!
Speed training offers the potential to radically improve your golf scores and your golf experience. Regardless of what system you select to pursue it, be patient and trust the process, and stick with it knowing the gains are coming. You’ll be hitting bombs in no time.