We’ve all heard of Rotation Power – but anti-rotation drills?

Written by Mel Sole on September 6, 2016. Posted in Golf Fitness

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I must admit I had never heard of Anti-Rotational drills to increase power. However, I was familiar with rotational power, and this new concept of anti-rotational power intrigued me. As a progressive instructor, I always like to keep my mind open to new ideas and concepts. Adam Stevenson for Golf Wrx describes how this can benefit your golf swing and increase power. This article is a video with some great drills to do once you understand how anti-rotation works.

Golf is a rotational sport.

This means that for us to make an efficient golf swing, our bodies need to rotate. By rotating our body in our golf swing, we are able to utilize our body’s energy so that we can generate more club head speed. That will translate to increased distance.

Even though it is our arms that are swinging our golf club, it is in fact our body’s rotation that is generating the power. And the speed to swing our arms and the club. So I suppose it would be somewhat logical to think that if we just turned our bodies faster, then we would be able to generate more speed and hit the ball further, right?

Well, even though that presumption is not entirely inaccurate, it is unfortunately not entirely that simple either.

I need to go into more depth and give you some basic understandings of how the human body moves biomechanically in the golf swing, so bear with me.

Release the Safety Brakes!

In order for our brains to release the safety brakes — so that we can make a faster golf swing — we have to convince it that we have sufficient stopping power so that we won’t self-destruct. How?

We simply have to build a chasis strong enough to control our horsepower. One of the most efficient ways to do that is by strengthening our body to resist rotation first. This is where anti-rotation exercises are an excellent way to build strength in the appropriate muscles that stabilize your body in your golf swing.

Anti-Rotation with Single Arm Plank.

We’ve all heard of Rotation Power – but anti-rotation drills?

In an efficient golf swing, our body doesn’t make just one movement turning back and through. But rather it is divided up into different segments that turn at separate moments in the swing.

When done efficiently, our body will work in a pattern where one segment of our body reaches peak speed then slows down abruptly. Tis is so that it can transfer energy to the next segment of the body. And as that part reaches peak speed then it too has to slow down abruptly so that it too can transfer its energy on to the next segment. And so on and so on.

When the motion fires correctly, this amazing ability to leap frog energy from one segment to the next is what’s called the kinematic sequence in the sports science world.