Dr. Greg Rose Discusses Considerations For Coaching and Training Female Golfers On The Felix Fortis Podcast

Dr. Greg Rose joined the Felix Fortis Women's Golf Fitness Podcast with host Kaitlyn Pimentel.  Kaitlyn is a TPI Certified strength coach, speaker and creator of the Felix Fortis Online Golf Fitness Academy.  Her podcast is designed for women (and coaches or S&C/medical professionals who work with female golfers) and features a number of leaders in the TPI community.

We outlined the podcast below and pulled a few highlights.  You can listen to the full episode here: 

 

Rory's Unique Hip Movement (via ESPN Sports Science)

 

Rory has one of the fastest hip turns in professional golf (~700°/sec), but what is so rare and remarkable about his kinematic data is that his hips actually change direction due to the forceful firing of his oblique abdominals (via ESPN Sports Science). pic.twitter.com/2UTv9n0dbQ

— TPI (@MyTPI) March 18, 2019

 

“His hips move backwards faster than the average golfer moves forwards.  We’ve seen that maybe 5 or 6 players all time.”

 

Keys to Increasing Swing Speed (6:20 - 10:25)

 

“Speed is one of the most important things.  It's a top 3 indicator for how you end up scoring.”

“Women have advantages and weakness compared to guys. You tend to have an advantage in flexibility.  One of the weakness you have is strength and that’s a genetic thing. The lower body on women tend to have a higher concentration of muscle fibers. So, if I compare a woman's lower body to a man's lower body and look at under a microscope the muscle anatomy, women tend to have 75-80% of the muscle fibers that a man does in the lower body. If I look at the upper body, there's a lot of women that have 35-40 percent of what a man does in the upper body.”

“If you’re trying to develop power in women, do not neglect the lower body. That is where the muscle fibers are.” 

“There's two things that mobility give you an advantage for speed: 1) Mobility helps you create elastic energy. 2) The length of your swing can directly impact how far you can hit the ball.”

“Your muscles are like rubber bands, rubber bands can create elastic energy. Muscles can create elastic energy, but you have to be able to pull the rubber band back to create elastic energy.”

“A longer swing allows you to have more time to accelerate the clubhead, create elastic energy and create more … and why women tend to have an advantage here when it comes to elasticity and mobility and we definitely want to use that.”

 

Taking Advantage of Attack Angle (10:45 - 13:00)

 

“If you look at the stats on the PGA TOUR and LPGA, one variable that is always very important is attack angle.  Attack angle is how the club is coming into the ball at contact.  The longest drivers players in the world tend to have a more upward strike on a ball.”

“To launch that ball into the air, you can either use your loft of the club or you can use your attack angle.  If I swing up when I hit it (using attack angle) I don’t have to add a lot of loft. If I add a lot of loft, it creates too much spin and the ball doesn't travel as far. So, if I can swing up on it, I can lower my loft and the ball will actually go farther.”

“People who have higher attack angles have the potential to hit the ball farther.”

“On the Long Drive Tour they’re hitting it plus-6, plus-7 degrees attack angle. Average on the PGA TOU is one degree down. If I took the top 20 in driving distance on the PGA tour, the average attack angle is probably closer to plus 2 or plus 3, they’re actually hitting it more up."

“The average attack angle on the LPGA tour is positive. It’s almost 3 positive. That’s a huge advantage and you don't want to take that attack angle advantage away.”

 

Differences in Common Injuries Between Men and Women (13:25 - 14:20)

 

“Women tend to get more injuries in the upper extremities, wrist and elbow. Might have to do with the amount of muscle mass.”

 

Misconceptions in Weight Training and Importance of Club Fitting (14:35 - 17:05)

 

“It’s a lack of understanding.  You know how hard it is to get bulky? We are talking about becoming lean and more cut.”

“The weight of the golf club is very important too. A lot of women get second hand clubs or men's club that are heavy and all that does is make you swing slower. What you want to do is swing the lightest club and the most flexible shaft that you can control. That will help you hit the farthest.  Sometime we have to add a little weight or more stiffness, but when in doubt, lighter and more flexible will hit the ball farther.”

“Bad patterns develop because the club is fit wrong.”

 

Keys to the Kinematic Sequence (17:50)

 

“It's more of a measure of how athletic you are, than how good of a golfer you are.”

“All great athletes (including golfers) know how to use the ground to create energy and transfer that energy to the club (bat).”

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Considerations for training female golfers is an important part of our advanced Fitness curriculum.  For a short preview from TPI instructor Janet Alexander, check out the online Fitness Level 2 page on our site.  Our Level 1 seminars are prerequisites for online Level 2's.