Contact: Kenneth Billings
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Findings in a recent study conducted at Mississippi State could change the way golfers train and prepare to play.
Titled "Strength and Functional Training on Golf Performance," the report is a joint effort of the university's kinesiology department and the Institute of Golf, a unit of the MSU Golf Course. Its purpose is to determine the relationship between strength training and club-head speed, and whether it imparts a performance advantage.
Tony Luczak, MSU director of golf, said the study's finding demonstrated--contrary to popular belief--a surprising inverse relationship: a decrease in performance.
"We expected to see nominal gains in club-head speed with general strength, but the opposite proved true," Luczak said. "We actually saw a measurable decrease in swing speed at the conclusion of the study."
Ten majors in the university's professional golf management major assisted in the research. Five were assigned to the experimental group, five to the control group.
The experimental group was given a battery of 20 strength-training exercises to perform, including bench and leg presses. The control group did no additional training.
Swing-speed measurements were taken at the beginning, third week and the study's conclusion.
Kinesiology assistant professor Brendon Hale, who conducted the research, said the five subjects in the strength training group saw on average a 3.5 mph decrease in club-head speed. This would translate into a measured decrease in driving distance, he added.
"This first study gave us a strong indicator of the relationship of strength training to golfing performance," Hale said. "The observed club-head speed decrease in the experimental group indicates improvement in absolute strength does not relate to golf performance."
Hale said the study is only the first in a series planned to examine the relationship between strength training and performance.
Because the golf swing is considered a power movement, a second eight-week study that began in January is examining the effects of power training and how the speed at which golfers train impacts their performance.
Hale said the study also is using an expanded base of golfers, now with 20 each in the two groups.
For the first four weeks of the second study, the experimental group is undergoing the same strength training protocol as those in the first study. They then will switch to power training protocol that focuses on explosive, fast-moving movements.
Hale said he is hopeful that splitting the new training into four-week segments will enable a replication of findings from the first study, only on a larger scale. Additionally, it may better quantify the difference and impact of the two different training regimens.
For more on MSU's Institute of Golf, visit www.golfcourse.msstate.edu/.
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NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information, contact Luczak at 662-325-3028 or al77@msstate.edu. Dr. Hale may be reached at 325-7233 or bsh121@msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.