"Snapping the Kinetic Chain" - a new myth for the golf swing.
"Snapping the Kinetic Chain" - a new myth for the golf swing.
A golf swinging human body is not a bull whip with gradually diminishing diameter in a long chain or thong. It is a structure with levers, fulcrums, muscles, and limitations/strengths not available to a whip.
The left arm is a fulcrum at the left shoulder. It can be pulled around by shoulder turn, and at the end of it is a hand, a clamp, that holds the club. But the shoulders have two arms, the right arm separated from the left by about 18", to which is attached a two levered arm, and again a hand at the end for clamping. That hand also has use of muscles in the forearm that can add force from palmar flexion prior to or during impact.
If you "stop" the shoulders turning prior to impact, there is no speedup of the arms. If you stop the hands moving forward prior to impact, there is no speedup of the club head. If you stop the left shoulder pulling the left arm prior to impact, there is no speedup of the left hand. As said, it is not a tapered structure.
In fact, the faster the HANDS CAN CONTINUE TO MOVE through impact the faster the club head itself gets propelled into the ball. By necessity the left shoulder HAS to slow down prior to impact: it is because the human body simply can't get there with the left hand dragging behind: its range of motion isn't sufficient. And this is one of the reasons for the straightening of the RIGHT arm on the way to the ball: to provide more force AND MORE MOTION THROUGH impact -- precisely to KEEP the left hand from slowing down.
If you slap a stick into a tree hard, it breaks off by contact with the tree. You LOSE; you don't gain force, by slowing down prior to impact on the tree. On the contrary, the harder you continue to drive your right hand, the louder and more forceful the smack. This is what the right hand does, in support of the weaker left arm being pulled by the rotation of the left shoulder.
3-D golf analyzers measure the sequence motion of the hips, shoulders, arms and hands. They do not measure thrust and torque So how can they say slowing down adds speed to the club head. The bottom line is they just want instructors and golfers to buy their 3-D golf swing analyzers for big $$$$.
"Snapping the Kinetic Chain" is just another myth that will ruin the True G.O.L.F. Motion.