Phil's Overload-Underload Training

Alright, it is time for the info I promised about the training technique Phil Mickelson used to boom his membership head velocity for the duration of the off-season.

The talk began during a media session before the Masters. Here's the primary quote, reprinted in GolfWeek :

"You should retrain your muscle groups to swing it [the driver] quicker, and you do this via overload-underload. So you are taking a 20 percentage heavier motive force and swing it as rapid as you may, hit balls as difficult as you may. Then you take a motive force it's 20 percentage lighter than a ordinary driver and swing that as difficult as you can. Then you're taking a everyday driving force and swing that as tough as you can."

Phil was talking about a technique used by Tom House, a trainer who used to be a major-league baseball pitcher. Here are a couple of links to give you some more indepth info if you're interested:

• An explanation of using weighted baseballs at DriveLineBaseball.com
• A PDF about the process at Noland Fitness

Alright, here's the idea behind the technique. It's been used by Olympic athletes in various disciplines since the 1970s to improve performance. It's in the same vein as plyometric exercises, which are used to increase explosiveness.

As Phil said, you are working with three drivers -- a heavy driver this is 20% heavier than a everyday one, a light driving force this is 20% lighter than a everyday one, and a regular driving force. That 20% wide variety is generally considered non-negotiable, although some exercise programs will vary the weight by way of a greater percent.

You make full-out efforts with the heavy motive force (which builds power), then full-out efforts with the mild motive force (which builds speed), then complete-out efforts with the everyday motive force. You want to make every effort as ideal as viable, and Phil noted that you're truly hitting balls with the drivers, no longer just swinging them -- which makes experience, doesn't it? Faster swings won't help your recreation in case you can not observe the membership face correctly to the ball.

I suspect Phil just had Callaway custom-construct a few drivers for him, although there is a organization called SuperSpeed Golf that makes weighted gadget and has included Phil's interview on their website. The system pictured of their website online header don't appear to be real drivers although.

Anyway, this is how Phil expanded his club head velocity. It looks as if programs can turn out effects in as low as 6 weeks -- if they're accomplished effectively, that is. You can locate all forms of data approximately the approach just through typing "overload underload" into Google.