Why You Need This: In this video, "Body Speed vs. Arm Speed in the Golf Swing (Which Is More Important??)"...

You'll finally learn where speed is created in your swing.

First, consider how your body creates speed.

Your body creates momentum.

To maximize your momentum, make sure you get a full turn.

Load up in the backswing, and come all the way through the finish.

The body is extremely important for creating momentum and speed in the swing.

But what about your arms?

Your body acts like a base for all your speed...

And your arms add additional speed to your swing.

To maximize your speed, you need to sequence your body AND your arms.

So, to hit your driver with pro-like speed, let's say 120 mph...

It's all about sequencing.

Don't believe me?

Well, have you ever seen a scrawny guy pummel the ball 300+ yards?

That guy is sequencing his body and arms well and gets tons of swing speed!

In this video, you'll learn how your body creates speed...

And how your arms create speed.

Watch now to put it all together and smoke your drives just like those long hitting scrawny guys!

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 7:57

Video Transcription:

Hey guys, welcome back. Great topic here today, we’re going to talk about speed, does it come from the body? Does it come from the arms, the wrists? Where is the speed coming from, and what’s happening with the body?

This is often called the kinematic sequence. I had a question the other day where I have a very simplified video on the site, talking about we want to use our body to create momentum.

As I go to the top of the swing I’m going to get a good Power Turn like we teach in the Top Speed Golf System. I’m really getting loaded up, and then I’m coming on through all the way on around with my body into the finish to get the overall momentum of the body.

The body is really important to create that overall speed and that momentum. It gets that baseline speed going, that we can then add on to with the hands, and the arms, and then release the club to get those really high peak speeds.

If we’re going to swing a driver, say 120 miles an hour, we have to start with the hips and the build on it with the shoulders, then the arms, then the club, and I’m going to go over that with you guys today.

So what this looks like, and the cool thing nowadays is there’s a lot of research, there’s technology you can use to actually measure this. What this shows is, as I go to the top of my swing, let’s say this is the very top of my swing, I’m going to start down by accelerating my hips first.

The very first thing that’s going to start down – actually as I’m still swinging back, I’m going to be about right here, and my hips are already starting to start forward as my arms and hands are still completing the backswing.

My hips are going to start first. Now the key here is, and where I see a lot of people go wrong, is they’ve been taught it’s all about hip speed, and from there you just try to fire the hips as fast as you can to get a lot of speed.

Now in high swing speed players, the hips are firing fast, but it’s in synch with everything else. We’re not trying to go all out all at once.

So my hips are going first, and what’s going to happen, you’re going to see my hips kind of peak out in speed about halfway into the downswing. My hips are moving about as fast as they’re going to move as I’m getting max lag with my hands.

My hands hadn’t really begun to fire, my arms haven’t begun to fire.

Now from there, what happens is as my hips get closer to the straight line release, and this is one of the reasons that the straight line release that we teach in the Top Speed Golf System makes so much sense, is that as my hips get closer to the straight line release, or 45° in front.

They’re actually going to start to slow down. So they’ve built this overall momentum, you can kind of think of it as a train rolling down the track, and this is actually the video that I got the question on.

If you imagine a train rolling down the track going 45-50 miles an hour, these are your hips.

Now imagine on the roof of that train, you had another train and this first train’s going 60, the train on top of it is going 60 miles an hour but it’s riding on the roof, so that would add up to 120.

That’s a very simplified version of it. In reality what’s happening is, my hips are starting that momentum, they’ve got some speed with them, they’re going to start to slow down a little bit and my shoulders are going to continue to speed up.

Then as my shoulders slow down, then my arms are going to speed up. Then as my arms slow down coming through contact, the club is going to finally speed up. So it’s kind of the hips in the downswing, let’s go through this step by step.

If I’m looking at my hips, they’re going to accelerate until about halfway into the downswing, and they’re actually going to decelerate, slow down a little bit, as I get to my straight line release.

Now let’s take it up to the shoulders. My shoulders are going to continue to accelerate, and then as they get closer to the straight line release, they’re actually going to slow down a little bit.

So everything’s kind of catching up to itself, everything is coming to that release point about 45° in front. My hips went, slowed down as I got to he straight line release.

My shoulders built on top of the speed in my hips, they start to slow down as I’m getting closer to the straight line release.

Now my hands and my arms moving, they are going to speed up in the downswing and then as I get closer to impact, they begin to slow and then they kind of max out and slow down as they get to the straight line release.

Now it’s my hips, my shoulders, and my arms in the straight line release. Then my club does the same thing. It maxes out, it’s going slow as I’m about halfway down.

As I’m getting to my max lag position, my hands and arms aren’t moving very fast, or my club isn’t moving very fast. It’s going to accelerate, accelerate, accelerate, all the way through contact it’s accelerating.

It’s the last piece to go, it's kind of like the tip of the whip cracking through contact. It’s going to accelerate as it comes through the ball, and then it’s going to start to decelerate as it reaches the straight line release.

So the straight line release is where everything kind of catches up to each other. That’s why we picked this point. The hips, the shoulders, the hands, the club, all those are fully released about 45° in front.

That’s the sequence of things happening. Our hips start the ball rolling. As they slow down, the shoulders build on the hip speed, as they slow down the arms build on the shoulder speed.

They slow down, the club whips on through, reaches maximum acceleration as it's coming through the ball. Then right after tht it’s going to start slowing down.

So which piece of this, or what should I feel? That’s the overall idea, that’s great to know. Hey Clay that’s nice, we know what’s happening from science, but if it’s not going to make me play any better, what do I do?

What I recommend, is working through what we do in the Straight Line Release section of the website, where we really focus on pairing up your lag position here with getting everything synched up.

So my hips, my shoulders, my arms, my club, are all synched up, releasing on out in front. If I’m flipping the golf club, and I’m releasing my hands, what that’s telling me is, my shoulders, and my hips, and all that, should still be moving forward, but I’ve already fired my hands.

My hands went too early, and I’m losing some speed. If I can get some lag and then tear all that up as I release out in front, that’s going to ensure that everything’s maxing on out in front.

Don’t feel like your hips, your shoulders, your arms, don’t feel like you’re in a rush to fire them as fast as you can.

Worry about the timing of those, worry about let’s get everything happening 45° in front of the golf ball, all this synched up he, and that’s going to help me to time up the rest of it to get a lot of speed.

So one quick tip here before I hit a couple shots, and we’ll kind of see the sequencing in action. You don’t have to actually move your body that fast, you don’t have to move your arms that fast.

If I’m swinging a driver, let’s say I’m going to swing this 120 miles an hour. I only have to swing my hands through contact, the velocity that my hands are moving, how fast these are moving forward, is just barely over 20 miles an hour.

These hands aren’t moving very fast. If you look at a PGA Tour player swinging 120, his hands are barely moving over 20 miles an hour. I bet you, you can move your hands 20 miles an hour.

The key there is, I’ve got to have that nice lag, I’ve got to store up this energy, and then as my hands decelerate, whoosh, that’s got to whip on through there to get the speed of the club coming on through.

So that’s how those scrawny little guys that drive you nuts on the course that are hitting it 40 yards past you, it’s about that sequencing and getting that club to whip through there in the last little bit.

Let’s try this out, and I want to hit a couple balls here. I want to focus on getting my hips, shoulders, hands, club, everything, to get to that straight line release in front.

I’ll do one full speed, and then we’ll go ahead and look at a slow motion swing so you guys can see this in action. There we go, nice solid shot. Right at the pin, so everything synched up there.

Let’s go ahead and play one in slow motion now so you guys can see this in a lot more detail.