Are you ready to take your gold game to the next level? If so, one of the things you should work on is increasing swing speed and club head speed. Increasing both of these will allow you to get more distance on your irons and hit longer drives.
Some players, both seniors and amateurs, are often intimidated by the idea of increasing both of these because they are worried it will negatively affect their swing. However, the good news is you have nothing to worry about as long as the proper tools and strategies are used.
In this article, we’ll show you how to increase swing speed and how to increase club head speed in ways that are fun, safe, and effective. These methods can be applied to any club in your bag, like woods, drivers, and irons.
How to Increase Swing Speed and How to Increase Club Head Speed
Here are some ways you can improve swing and club head speed.
Increase Your Physical Fitness:
Your overall range of motion and strength can significantly affect your swing and club head speed. While the exact effect that physical fitness has is hard to measure, it has been observed many times that players who are more fit have both increased speed and distance.
Find a workout regime that takes your commitment, age, and time to improve your physical fitness into account. Be sure to concentrate on working on your core.
Get Your Club Fitted:
There are lots of drivers available to purchase, whether it be online or in big box stores, but it’s so crucial that the club you play with fits you and your play style. It is essential so that you don’t end up potentially struggling for years if you choose the wrong club.
A club that fits you is not only good for distance and speed but also accuracy. Pro golfers switch out their driver shafts often until they find a comfortable medium.
Make Rotation the Center of Attention:
Rotation should be something that you really focus on because how you rotate your body has a significant impact on your swing and club head speed. Your upper body needs to turn at 90 degrees while your back stays facing the target at the top. Your hips should rotate only at a 45-degree angle.
The pairing of these angles will create the torque needed to have a powerful swing. By rotating your body optimally, you’ll be able to quickly increase your swing speed by a lot!
Look at Your Wrist Like It’s a Lever:
This may sound weird but look at your wrist like they’re levers when you swing your club. Your wrists will hinge as you take the club away on the way back. For a good swing, your wrists need to stay hinged until impact.
By keeping your wrists hinged and not releasing them, you will not waste energy by casting the club. This energy is then put into increasing the speed! Additionally, treating your wrists like levers can cause them to serve as a last-second energy burst.
Swing Freely:
Novice players generally think that swinging harder would cause a faster speed, and while this is somewhat true, swinging harder causes tension which slows the club head speed down.
Another disadvantage to harder swinging is that there’s a chance of sending the speed in the wrong direction, which decreases accuracy. The one thing we want to take away from this is to keep your body loose and swing freely.
Add Some Lag:
For those who don’t know what lag is, it’s the angle between your forearm and the shaft of the club in the downswing. It can turn a level swing into real power! This means the bigger the angle, the more charge you can get through the golf ball.
When the angle is released in the elbow and your wrist after, the swing speed can increase!
Don’t Use a Club with Too Heavy of a Shaft:
Believe it or not, using a golf club that is too heavy is one of the worst things you can do. This is because it will significantly decrease club head speed.
Don’t get us wrong; you need a specific amount of weight for your golf club in order to cause speed. However, having a shaft that is too heavy will make it very hard to get into the right stance and generate speed through the golf ball.
The weight your shaft needs to be is going to depend on the player. For example, things that should be looked at are your swing speed, strength, and tempo. Stronger players with quicker swing speeds will more often than not benefit from a shaft on the heavier side. Conversely, slower swingers will benefit from a shaft that is on the lighter side.
Increase Your Level of Flexibility:
Flexibility is something that is often overlooked. But, like every other sport, improving and maintaining your flexibility is essential. The more flexibility you have, the easier it is to generate power.
Flexibility allows you to have an extended backswing with a wider arc and get into the stances necessary to boost speed through your shot.
However, there is a negative connection between muscle mass and flexibility. What we mean by this is extreme muscle mass can lessen flexibility. So it’s important to find a good balance between both things.
When improving your flexibility, you’ll find that your hip mobility gets better as well. This is also great because better hip mobility makes turning in both the backswing and downswing easier. In addition, you can improve hip mobility with exercises like lunges and squats.
Use a Broader Stance:
This may seem minuscule, but it actually helps more than you would think. A broader stance can increase club head speed in several ways. Keep reading to find out how:
- it encourages you to get a good rotation and maintain stability
- you can achieve a wider arc in your swing
- it helps you increase your angular velocity and torque the ground more
You first need to position your feet to have a good stance so they’re shoulder-width apart. Once you do that, you can start to carefully move your feet outwards to the point where you feel stable. Of course, your stance width can always be altered depending on the club you’re using or the shot you’re trying to hit.
Go to Some Golfing Lessons:
This may seem redundant if you’re taken classes before or have been a player for a long time but trust us, going to some golf lessons is one of the best things you can do. It doesn’t matter if you’re a novice, a senior golfer, or anything in between. A swing coach will be able to spot any flaws in your swing. They can then be corrected, resulting in more club head speed.
Conclusion
As you can see, you can do many things to increase your club head and swing speed. Of course, you don’t have to implement everything we’ve discussed here, but you should try them out and see what methods work best for you. This way, you can see what you like and what will bring you results.
Many pro players can produce a club head speed of 120 miles per hour. If you put in the necessary effort and time, you can reach that number yourself!
