High-intensity training can unlock potent speed in your golf swing – and the desert dunes of Big Red make the perfect playground

By Claudine Foong-Riggs
Speed is the essential raw material required in any powerful golf swing. When you can control it through balance, stability and good mechanics, that’s when you unlock explosive power. But without speed, a golfer will always have limitations. So how do we increase our dynamic power? We do it through high-intensity training, and a trip to the desert dunes on the Dubai-Hatta road provides the perfect environment in which to train. The soft sand and dramatic contours of the dunes make the following exercises especially challenging, but your focus should be on quality, not quantity. High-Intensity Interval Training and dynamic control for a golfer is beneficial for improving conditioning, strength, power and anabolic response to build muscle and reduce fat.  Each of the following exercises should be performed for no more than 20-30 seconds with a rest period of 30-60 seconds. Remember to always do a full warm-up before getting started.

Spiderman Crawl (main image)
This is a great exercise to do in the desert. Begin in a strong push-up position and bring your right knee to right elbow, left hand out in front and keep your body low to the ground. Alternate your hands and legs to continue to crawl forwards.
3 sets of 8

Speed Parachute Training
Once you have mastered the sprint technique, the parachute can be an excellent tool, which provides resistance in the drive phase of sprinting. You can do this exercise without a parachute.
Perform 3-5 sets of 30m sprints

Hill Sprints
Hill Sprints require an athlete to use a lot more leg power to drive hard into the ground. Sprint UP the hill and run back down, focusing on looking forward. Experiment with different hill lengths – short, medium and long.
Perform 3-5 sets

Bound with Med-Ball Pass 
Stand with your feet wider than hip-width apart. Hold a light medicine ball (or basketball) at your chest. Hip hinge and push off the ground as hard as you can, jumping forwards. Push away with your arms and release the ball. Land softly and sprint to the ball and repeat.
3 sets of 5

‘180’ Jumps 
Your lower body is the driving force for this movement. The sequence is: lower body, core, then arms. Load and drive off the ground to rotate and face the opposite direction. Land softly, stabilising your body and immediately load and jump back in the other direction.
3 sets of 10

Claudine Foong is the Brand Ambassador of PXG Middle East. Instagram: @claudinefoong

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
A Beginner’s Golf Guide: What every new golfer should know when picking up the game
Move better to chip better: The body-swing connection you need to knock it close
Still Trying to Hit Down? Learn how great players compress the ball while pulling up!
The mystery of the mud ball

The post Golf Fitness Special: Speed drills in the desert appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

High-intensity training can unlock potent speed in your golf swing – and the desert dunes of Big Red make the perfect playground

By Claudine Foong-Riggs
Speed is the essential raw material required in any powerful golf swing. When you can control it through balance, stability and good mechanics, that’s when you unlock explosive power. But without speed, a golfer will always have limitations. So how do we increase our dynamic power? We do it through high-intensity training, and a trip to the desert dunes on the Dubai-Hatta road provides the perfect environment in which to train. The soft sand and dramatic contours of the dunes make the following exercises especially challenging, but your focus should be on quality, not quantity. High-Intensity Interval Training and dynamic control for a golfer is beneficial for improving conditioning, strength, power and anabolic response to build muscle and reduce fat.  Each of the following exercises should be performed for no more than 20-30 seconds with a rest period of 30-60 seconds. Remember to always do a full warm-up before getting started.

Spiderman Crawl (main image above)
This is a great exercise to do in the desert. Begin in a strong push up position and bring your right knee to right elbow, left hand out in front and keep your body low to the ground. Alternate your hands and legs to continue to crawl forwards.
3 SETS OF 8

Speed Parachute Training
Once you have mastered the sprint technique, the parachute can be an excellent tool, which provides resistance in the drive phase of sprinting. You can do this exercise without a parachute.
PERFORM 3-5 SETS OF 30m SPRINTS

Hill Sprints
Hill Sprints require an athlete to use a lot more leg power to drive hard into the ground. Sprint UP the hill and run back down, focusing on looking forward. Experiment with different hill lengths – short, medium and long.
PERFORM 3-5 SETS

Bound with Med-Ball Pass 
Stand with your feet wider than hip-width apart. Hold a light medicine ball (or basketball) at your chest. Hip hinge and push off the ground as hard as you can, jumping forwards. Push away with your arms and release the ball. Land softly and sprint to the ball and repeat.
3 SETS OF 5

‘180’ Jumps 
Your lower body is the driving force for this movement. The sequence is lower body, core, then arms. Load and drive off the ground to rotate and face the opposite direction. Land softly, stabilising your body and immediately load and jump back in the other direction.
3 SETS OF 10

Claudine Foong is a Brand Ambassador for PXG Middle East.

The post Golf Fitness Special: Speed drills in the desert appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

A perfect impact position is what we all strive for in golf, and there are things you can do in your set-up to help you get there. Follow these four tips to start crushing the ball
By Justin Parsons   With Robbie Greenfield

[divider] [/divider]

’d like to look at some of the things that you can do in your set-up position that will both subliminally and technically help you to achieve the right type of position at the crucial moment of impact, too. In previous features I’ve done with Golf Digest Middle East, we’ve looked at the lag you need to generate to produce a powerful impact position, and the separation between the upper and lower body that’s required for an effective transition into your downswing. But one of the more instructive ways to practice is to work on elements of your set-up that will help you to feel how your body should arrive in that impact position. Overleaf I’ve looked at four key areas of the set-up that will prime you for impact. It’s time to get you ripping it!

GET THE TOUR PRO SET-UP

Feet with Flare
Over the years I’ve observed many great players and gotten to work with a few more, and one of the things that has struck me is that almost without exception, they position their feet the same way at set-up. For a right-handed player, that would be a front (or left) foot that is flared ever so slightly toward the target, and a back foot that is square, or perpendicular to the body alignment. Why? Because on the backswing, that square back foot helps a player feel good resistance in the right leg, and then as they move from transition into the downswing, the flared front foot allows them to get their hips opening up a little faster. Ben Hogan once said that he felt he would almost twist both feet towards the target at address (as the graphics indicate), so that gives you an idea of the powerful forces these great players felt through their feet.

Pressing Ahead
The second thing you might look for from face-on is just how few good players set up with their hands behind the golf ball. If you were to do that you would tend to get a little draggy with your hands on the takeaway and get no real load with your wrists in the backswing, making it very difficult to create the type of downward strike that you want, certainly with your iron shots. With a 7-iron, you’d be looking for your left arm (as a right-hander) to form almost a straight line with the shaft at set-up, and get yourself into a position at address where the velcro strap on your glove hand sits just out in front of the golf ball.

Getting a Grip
From a down-the-line view, we usually see with these great ball-strikers a position where the arms hang fairly vertically and the club shaft protrudes from their grip at a nice angle. By creating this angle at address, what these players feel through the base of their thumbs is a little pressure on the grip to allow the club to move upwards, and this is a crucial component of allowing the wrists to hinge correctly.

Balancing Act
Balance in your golf swing isn’t just about weight shift or movement laterally, it works on a 360 degree level. Pete Cowen often talks about making sure that at set-up, your weight is distributed evenly between the front of your body (shoulders, quads and balls of your feet) and the back (glutes, back and heels of your feet). On our swing analysis software, we look for a nice straight line that extends through a player’s left shoulder and down vertically through the knees and into the floor. This ensures that when you come to make a swing, you can use the back and front of your body in equal measure.

Justin Parsons is the Director of Instruction at the Butch Harmon School of Golf. For more information, contact +971 (0)4 425 1040 or visit butchharmondubai.com

Photographs by Farooq Salik

The post Find the perfect impact position appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Why this move is so crucial + 3 keys for you to work on
By Justin Parsons

Transition is what links the end of the backswing to the start of the downswing and of all the stages in the golf swing, this is the one that separates great ball strikers from good to average ones. Certainly we’ve seen with Tiger Woods how his struggles in this department – lacking stability at the top and also losing a great deal of height as he begins the thrust of his downswing – have adversely affected his ball striking in recent years. Put simply, if you want to hit the ball pure and straight, you have to get the sequencing of your transition right. I’ve put together my three key tips for making a solid transitional move and I believe by working on them in practice you will start to see some very positive results.

3 KEYS TO A GREAT TRANSITION

Over the summer I’ve been working a lot with European Tour player David Howell to improve his transition. We’ve been making sure that he has good stability at the top, ensuring that he completes his backswing properly and giving him some time and room to start things going down. The work David has done has defi nitely given him a lot more accuracy and better ball striking with his long clubs. Here’s what you should work on.

KEY 1 : STABILITY AT THE TOP
So here are my top three ideas on transition that may help you work on this complex but crucial part of your swing on the range. You can only initiate a good transition from a position of strength, so fi rst up in my view, is to get to the top of the backswing with that club shaft nice and stable. You watch the guys on the PGA Tour and you’ll notice how settled and supported the club looks at the top of their swings. Granted, there’s a lot of work being done by the core and the lower body to make this position appear so quiet, but I think the key point here is that you should allow yourself a moment in time to complete the backswing and let the club settle into a slot before you get things going with the lower body. A lot of golfers tend to rush this part of the swing because they’re eager to generate speed. Work on your tempo and don’t initiate the downswing too quickly.

KEY 2 : LOWER BODY WORKS BACK TO THE BALL
As the downswing begins, the best players in the world are able to separate their lower body from their upper body and return it back almost to where it was at address. What feel you use to help you do this is largely down to you. Ben Hogan talked about feeling his left hip bump towards the target and begin to rotate; other top players say they focus on feeling pressure through the lead foot. In this instance, I think the important thing to think about for you is getting the correct rhythm and sequence. You want to get your hips and lower body initiating the downswing move without throwing the club at the top.

KEY 3 : CLUB SHAFT SHALLOWS
The third thing we should see in transition is the club shaft gently dropping underneath the plane it went up on as it starts back down. There are many ways to swing a golf club effectively, but when it comes to the best players in the world, I’d estimate that 95 percent of them get that club shaft shallowing out a touch as they begin their downswing. This is the move that helps create a neutral club path, and while it’s essentially a reaction to the correct sequencing of lower and upper body movement, some players like to feel a slight bowing of the left wrist as they pull their arms down, like the revving of a motorbike.

It is vital that you don’t rush your transition into the downswing.

Getting transition right is arguably the most challenging part of the golf swing and it’s something that even the very best players struggle with. But by working on your rhythm and tempo, and giving yourself enough time to sequence the start of your downswing correctly, your ball striking has the potential to improve dramatically.

Justin Parsons is the Director of Instruction at the Butch Harmon School of Golf. For more information, contact +971 (0)4 425 1040 or visit butchharmondubai.com

Photograph by Farooq Salik, Photo Illustrations by Clarkwin Cruz

The post Talking Transition: Breaking Down This Crucial Part of the Swing appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

We detail how Alex Riggs and Claudine Foong at the Butch Harmon School of Golf have been helping to transform a BRIGHT talent

THE SWING: How Sana Is Taking Her Game To The Next Level

A home grown success story

By Alex Riggs

Sana Tufail is the most successful female junior golfer in UAE history. If you play regular tournament golf here, you will probably be familiar with the exploits of this home grown success story. Now 18 and embarking on a college golf scholarship at the Old Dominion University in the U.S., Sana has won all there is to win at an amateur level in the UAE, even playing in the Omega Dubai Ladies Masters as a 15-year-old in 2011 and carding a debut round of one over par 73.

Sana is a dedicated athlete who has put everything into achieving her goals. Having worked with our director of instruction Justin Parsons as a junior, she has set new standards for what is possible as a female golfer in the UAE, but is right now facing her biggest challenge – to compete against the best college golfers in America.

 Claudine Foong, our director of fitness here at the BHSG, and I have been working with Sana these past three months to help prepare her for that big step up. When we first started, the priority quickly became adding power to her game. Although she’s always been consistent, Sana wasn’t hitting the ball far enough to compete with the top women golfers in her age bracket internationally.

From a golf swing perspective, we have therefore been working to make a powerful draw her stock shot. Most of the women on tour play this shape for that very reason – it can be a difference maker. Away from the course, Sana has been working hard with Claudine to transform her physical capabilities, and the results have been encouraging. We wish her well with her collegiate career, and anticipate plenty more success down the road. I’ve outlined some of the swing techniques we’ve been focusing on, and for anyone seeking to hit a draw these positions will help.

POWER UP: How Sana Is Taking Her Game To The Next Level

Catching up off the course

By Claudine Foong

When Sana first came into the gym at the Butch Harmon School of Golf she was very green – she’d never really done much strength and conditioning work in the past. So our first goal was to develop her athleticism and make sure she had good movement patterns. As a golfer, you need strength, power and mobility, and these three components have been something we’ve been focusing on over the last three months. I’m really impressed with how far she’s come in such a short period of time. Along with the work she’s done with Alex on her swing, she’s been able to gain a significant amount of distance and more consistency of ball striking. With Sana going into collegiate golf in the States, conditioning-wise she’ll now be equipped to handle the rigors of regular tournament play. Here I’ve outlined three of the exercises that Sana has been doing in her training program, and I would recommend you also give them a try to help develop strength and power in your golf game.

1.  The Tyre Push

We’ve used a tyre here, but this exercise is traditionally done with a sled. It’s a great one for developing strength in your glutes and the entire posterior chain, as well developing core stability. It also challenges the upper body and works the entire shoulder girdle. This exercise works either for sprints or strength. With Sana we focused on the latter, so she’s using a tyre that weighs around 30kg. Ultimately, you want to choose a weight that’s heavy enough to challenge your body over each set.

Perform 4 sets of 15-30 metres, with a full rest and recovery in between each set.

2) The Bulgarian Split Squat

This unilateral exercise challenges the entire lower body. It’s excellent for core strength and stability. Begin with the rear foot elevated 4-6 inches off the ground, progressing up to having it rest on a bench. Slowly lower your body until your back knee lightly touches the ground, holding your arms out directly in front of you. Drive through your front heel to return back to the start position, ensuring that your front knee stays behind the toes of your front foot.

Perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps on each leg

3. Farmer Walks

This is a great addition to your workouts for developing power in your legs, glutes and hips. It strengthens the core and develops a stronger and more stable back and shoulders, increasing grip strength. Use a deadlift to bring the dumbbells to your thighs, and taking short, fast steps, maintain a tall spine, keeping your chest and eyes up. Vary the weights and distance. Light weights for longer distance (40m), right through to heavy weights for short distance (10-15m). At this end, you should aim to carry half your body weight acorss both hands.

Perform 4 sets, taking full rest and recovery in between each set

Sana Tufail: Owner of six UAE course records (including a 67 at home club Yas Links), Sana Tufail enjoyed a prolific junior career that culminated in an invitation to play the Omega Dubai Ladies Masters in 2011. She shot a gross 64 in the 2014 Faldo Series Asia at Al Ain Shooting, Equestrian & Golf Club, en route to winning the event. She has won 29 Ladies EGF events and a record 17 Ladies Opens in a row

Photographs by Farooq Salik

The post Big Draw: How Sana Tufail is Transforming Her Game appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.