Below are various articles by two of the most influential mentors that I have had in my career. Phil Cheethem and Dr. Greg Rose, cofounder of TPI.
Please select from the headings to read the full article.
By Greg Rose - Posted September 5, 2005
The Kinematic Sequence:
If there's one thing that I have learned over the past 11 years, it is that no two golfers have the same golf swing. But for some reason every time I meet a golfer it seems like all they want to do is visually compare their golf swing to another golfer. This type of mentality never made sense to me. Why would I want to compare myself to another golfer who probably doesn't have the same physical structure or physical capabilities as me, and therefore, could never feel what I feel when I swing the golf club. The problem comes from us not having a better way to evaluate the golf swing. What we should do is figure out if our golf swing is efficient or inefficient and then make corrective changes based on that information. Unfortunately, we have never been able to measure efficiency of the golf swing, only how it looks or its style, until now.
By Phil Cheetham - Posted February 14, 2006
In this article two swings will be compared using data from the Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) in Oceanside California. One is from an elite golfer and one is from a lesser skilled golfer. The methods used by TPI are based on a full-body 12-sensor analysis using the AIM-3D golf swing biomechanics system (Advanced Motion Measurement LLC) and the Liberty electromagnetic tracking hardware (Polhemus Inc). The sample rate is 240 samples per second.
By Phil Cheetham - Posted August 29, 2005
In sports such as golf that need to create maximal speed of a distal segment or implement (club, bat, racket etc.), it is generally found through motion analysis techniques, that there is a precisely timed sequence of body segment motions progressing from the proximal, large segments to the distal, smaller segments. In the biomechanics literature this is often called "proximal-to-distal-sequencing", "kinetic linking" or the "kinematic sequence".
By Greg Rose - Posted December 31, 2007
One key observation you need to make when looking at the Kinematic Sequence is the rates of acceleration for each of the segments (pelvis, thorax, arms, club).
Notice on Figure 4.0.1 that all four segments are accelerating relatively at the same rate (slope) from the start of the downswing to when each segment peaks. Whereas, the player in Figure 4.0.2 has a dramatic reduction in the rate of acceleration of the pelvis (orange arrow). To understand why this happens, lets review the five major reasons why a segment will have poor acceleration: