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Would like to start a discussion on biomechanics...
Does any one know what the power generation process is?
How does the human body create the power generation process?

Thank you Vital Performance,
In general I was asking the question to start conversation about biomechanics...
We would like to develop what peoples understanding of biomechanics in golf is.

Vital you mentioned the upper body lags.... If you turned your hips to far left and lag your upper body would it be fair to say this would put huge rotation torque on the lower back..... Would this also cause lower back issues and tightness in the lower back...
By turning your hips to far left and lagging the body ....
Why would you want your body to lag for and how long?
how can the upper body close back to square and deliver speed
Would the lower body have to stabilise or slow prior to impact so the upper body can close back to square and deliver the speed?...

Hi Zeno, as dougk says - you will receive many ideas and points of view on this topic. This often equates to no one real answer. For example, if you look at say, 2 fast bowlers in cricket such as Jeff Thompson and Malcolm Marshall, you have 2 completely different actions (JT used a very lethal slinging motion, and MM was very square on and had different foot rhythms) with the same end result - really fast bowling. This then leads to the principle that is drastically overlooked in most sports - physical and biochemical individuality.
In golf, there is this strive to build the 'perfect swing', rather than striving to build an individual's perfect swing. The most important thing though is not how nice your swing looks, but the accuracy, power and consistency of the contact (perhaps dougk can verify that - just my opinion).
So, after all that, to answer your questions: Most of the angle creation through rotation in the golf swing will come from the thoracic spine. The lumbar spine generally only has between 3 and 18 degrees of rotational ability. The thoracic has about 30 to 35. In my opinion, any sporting movement (I say sporting movement because it means most of these movements are tried and tested by many millions of people) will only create an issue in the body if the body was not in a good place to start with. Yes, the lower back can become tight, but is that just because of the golf swing or because the golfer's lower back was already too tight, or trying to compensate for tightness and lack of mobility in the thoracic spine, for example? Anyone at all with say, forward head posture, which is just about the whole western society, will have reduced thoracic rotation. Therefore when they attempt to get the club to a certain position because they saw it on TV, then they will invariably create injuries in other areas of the body such as the shoulders, elbows, wrists, and lower back due to them overusing those areas to compensate. As I said, the individuality of each golfer must be addressed.
Also, the muscular restrictions and/or hyper-mobility issues must be addressed if someone wants a long-lasting, repeatable, pain-free swing that makes golf so much fun.
I'm not sure how much 'lag' you're thinking of, but here you will find huge variances in lag times - Sergio Garcia has a huge lag. Peter Lonard doesn't. There is no formula to this - only a formula to the individual body. As dougk said, the lag creates the whip motion of the upper body, hence the increased power. Watch any baseball pitcher in the MLB - at the moment before their hand actually begins travelling forward, their body is way ahead creating the sling. The speeds they throw are not possible without the lagging arm. To add another dimension, the body will not allow those arm speeds if they cannot decelerate properly after they let go of the ball - they would break their leg with their hand. This brings us back to golf - anyone playing with pain will find consistency very difficult because the body will always move away from pain - this is a natural instinct (thankfully). So a golfer with back pain will continue to sub-consciously alter their swing to stop it hurting the back.
The upper body doesn't get back to square with the lower body at impact. The hips are well past being square. I'm sure dougk can tell you exactly what happens when your hips are square at impact. It's not very much fun.
The lower body has to be stable all through the swing, otherwise you are trying to deliver power through an unstable environment which is virtually impossible. Throw a ball when standing as hard as you can (after warming up), and then try kneeling on a swiss ball and getting even half that power. Even if you can get some power, your consistency would obviously be quite poor.
Be well,
Peter

Nice to have some constructive input Troy.

While this thread seems to be heading away from the original questions, Blade I am curious as to why the questions were asked in the first place. To me they did seem a bit oddly worded, meaning that if someone or some people are interested in the answers, then the questions should have been more technical and definitive in the first place. Perhaps you don't know why these questions were asked, but from what you said earlier, if all this research has already been done on a variety of sports, which is great, then why would Zenolink ask these very basic questions, if not for some kind of marketing agenda?
If that was the plan then that's fine, but I'm probably not the person Zenolink wished a reply from, and now it may have backfired somewhat.

I had a look at the Zenolink website, and it's hard to see exactly what is done. However from my perspective based upon what you (Blade) said to Doug about being an assessment/training tool for coaches, it appears so far to be a product that may cross a delicate line. Meaning that for the same reason that I do not teach golf, only golf fitness, because I am not trained to teach golf, golf coaches are not trained to teach exercise and movement patterns. Assessing a golf swing is one thing, assessing movement patterns and delivering safe meaningful exercises and stretches that are taught properly is completely different. Admittedly I have no experience with Zenolink, however I do unreservedly know that exercise prescription and teaching is a very complex issue, especially when you start delving into injuries and prevention, as the cause and effect relationships in the body simply cannot be assessed only on video, and teaching correct technique for the correct exercises should never be underestimated. This is the area where I think a stronger relationship should be made between golf coaches and golf-specific exercise coaches - there needs to be a higher mutual respect. I do not teach golf -even though I hover around the 3 handicap, I am out of my league when someone asks me even relatively simple questions about how they can improve their swing because I know the teaching is layered and one needs a trained eye. I know there are golf coaches trying to teach exercise, and I know there are golf exercise people trying to teach golf - neither work very well, and the ultimate loser is the client. It's the same as an electrician trying to do plumbing work - he may have a fair idea, but he's much better off working alongside a plumber than attempting to do everything himself. The goal of both tradesmen is a functioning house for the client.

I wish all of you well.
Peter

Hi Scott,
I can see that you have spent a lot of time and energy creating your product, and I respect that.
I do not wish to enter into a right vs wrong discussion here. I will say that my opinions are different - in that I know through my work that exercises are very often underestimated in the qualitative requirements. I also think that if someone gave me a book on how to teach golf, I wouldn't really understand the true nature of what I was teaching. Please correct me if I'm wrong there.
I also know that pain in the body is often derived from a seemingly separate issue. As an example I know of an olympic level swimmer who had chronic pain and inflammation for 2 years in the right shoulder. All the treatments that were received over that time including pain killers, anti-inflammatories, cortizone, therapy, ice etc did nothing. It was then strongly suggested that an operation was completely necessary, but this swimmer wouldn't be able to swim at that level anymore. If you love something enough to get to that level, then it's soul destroying to think you have to give it up before you're ready. The true nature of the problem lay in the left foot. 2 years before, the left ankle was sprained and therefore only restricted plantar-flexion was possible. This caused over-compensation in the right shoulder to keep swimming in a straight line, hence the over-use injury. The left ankle was mobilised and it returned to full range of motion. No more pain the the right shoulder, and the swimming career continued. This is one example of countless incidences where cause and effect are completely different.

I'm not sure about the myth you speak of. One of the key stabilisers of the lumbar spine is a correctly functioning transversus abdominis. If this muscle does not know how to switch on at the correct times then the lumbar spine is far less stable and far more prone to injury. The lower body mechanics will suffer because of the pelvic and spinal instability, not the other way around. As an example, if got a female golfer who has had a child through caesarian section, her lower abdominals would be very dysfunctional unless she has been through an extensive and quality rehabilitation of the lower abdominal muscles, as the brain switches off to using these muscles once they are severed. She will not create effective and consistent ground forces because of spinal instability. This is again one example of many.

If the hips are to not continue their rotation to the left through impact, then where should they stop?
Are you suggesting that there should be very limited or no right lateral flexion of the spine at impact?
What injuries are caused on the left side by bending to the right, assuming someone has a healthy posture to begin with?
I agree with you that you can't have generic exercise programs, but I also know you can't have generic assessments. Much will be missed, as far as my understanding goes. I have had many instances where the spine looks to be in one position, such as hyper-extension of the lumbar spine, yet upon measurement it shows that the lumbar spine is actually quite flat. So if i was to prescribe exercises based on what I saw rather than what I measured, I would give this person the completely opposite exercises to what they needed - this will cause injury in no time at all.

I wish you all the best with your research Scott, I am happy to talk about this any time you like.

Be well,
Peter

Peter,
To know where we got our research from this is a backgroundhistory of our founder... He's a Biomedical Engineer and also did a fellowship and became biomechanist at the American Sports Medical Institute studying Injuries in golf...
In the early 90's was name golf reserach co-ordinator evaluating performance and injuries at the
American Sports Medical Institute...
He was the first to do a feature article in Golf Digest on footpressure patterns during the golf swing and a long term product evaluation project for FootJoy World Wide.

He went on to work at Biomotion foundation as Director of Sports Medicine reseraching perfomance and injuries in baseball hitting/ throwing with major league baseballer.. Also continued the same research in golf.

He was involved in re-designing clinical evaluation software for Motion *****ysis Corporation as well as developing techniques for integrating motion, force and Emg data. Emg data measure muscular activity and function of the muscles.

He intergraded Force, Motion and Emg data into our research and technology we use to measure athletes.
Doctors,Physios, Chiros, Personal Trainers and Coaches use our technology to measure athletes in sport, work related activites, rehabilitation applications...
For over 15 years we have tested 10's of thousands of athletes in a long list of sports...

Peter... poor core stability has no impact on lower body mechanics... The lower body stability is a result of good ground reaction forces... Poor core stability the root cause is due to having poor lower body mechanics from poor ground reaction forces in dynamic motion...
How can you have good core stability or how can the body turn around the axis of the spine if you don't have a stable base so the body can turn around the axis of the spine... The lower body provides a stable base...
You will find most people with poor core stability or poor spine stability in motion is due to poor lower body mechanics...
Of course once they have good lowerbody mechanics and they have poor core stability then you can take into consideration there is physical limitations. How ever also this could be also due to have poor movement patterns dynamically... Simply the athlete doesn't know how to load and fire their muscles between the lower body and upper body realtionship or know how to turn around the axis of their spine..
By providing movement pattern training the athlete can learn how to load and fire their muscles in the upper body and lower body relationship and learn how to turn around the axis of their spine... We would provide coaches with pre tested training program how to train these areas... This is a dynamic movement patterns issues which is the coaches field...
If it's physical they go to a physio this is his field

You can indetify whether or not it's a physical issue or movement patterns issue by measuring the loading and firing of their muscles in the golfswing...
Although in dynamic motion most poor stability issues... the root cause is poor lowerbody mechanics from poor ground forces ... This has been proven from years of research...

A lady who had just had a caesarian isn't a very good example... Generally the doctor and pyhsio would put a lady on a rehab program...
Although having weak abdominals the effect it may have is the muscles aren't as strong and would restrict the loading and firing of the muscles... The only effect this will having is effect her power out of creating upper body speed.. Although this won't affect her core stability in motion as such... Ok statically may effect her posture in the way she stands although in motion the muscles function and activate differently dynamically in motion...

Peter here is a good example I was crushed between to front enloaders... Prior to my accident was on my way to playing the tour ... My discs in my back are permantly bulged and have arthritis from L5 up to L1... I can't do an over head squat...
Although I can play scratch golf and has no impact on my golfswing... My back never hurts playing golf or the day after...
Reason been is we have trained my body dynamic movement patterns to move the way our body is designed to move and wants to naturally create speed...
We also have a guy who has so much back pain he blacks out at times... he can also play golf pain free and to see him strike a ball you wouldn't believe he has back issue by the way he moves so freely...
Reason we taught the guy how to create the right movement patterns so he moves the way our bodies are designed too..


Kind Regards
Scott

Swinglab,
The power production process or kinetic link is how the body naturally wants to create speed and move....
By training the body in dynamic motion the body learns how to create the power production process nautrally the way our body is designed to move in motion...
It's not about the body knowing where to go... it's about the body learning how to create the power production process naturally in dynamic motion...
It' not about body positons or moving to positions .... This is a huge problem in biomechanics is people measure golfers and say this is where you should be.... Then people try to teach people positions or moves to get this end result... this fails every time.... and this is where there is a lot of misconceptions in biomechanics...
Through training dynamic movement patterns teaches athletes to naturally get in these positions naturally in dynamic motion...
Firstly in biomechanics real researchers don't measure the top 100 golfers and say these are the ideals where a golfer needs to be....
Researchers look at how does the body move and create speed as anatomically possible... Then we research how can we teach the body how to achieve this...
Positions are the end result from creating good dynamic movement patterns...
Teaching people to turn to certain positions using static positions isn't going to improve their dynamic movement patterns...
It's all about knowing how to train the body how to create dynamic movement patterns the way our body is designed to move anatomically...
Again to know how to do this needs to be researched and tested.... Everyday we are testing various training techniques and exercises... how to train dynamic movement patterns...

Every athlete is unique and different they all have different dynamic movement pattern issues... You need to test athlete's to identify their issues .... each athlete needs custom built individualised dynamic movement pattern prorgams specific to their dynamic movement patterns issues...
There's no such thing as a generic one size fits all exercise or training aids for athletes...Ther are so many contributing factors to poor lower body mechanics...
Without testing a golfers biomechanics and giving them a training aid for lower body mechanics could also create poor lower body mechanics... You don't know what a golfers dynamics movement pattern issues are unless you test their biomechanics first.....They may not even have poor lower body mechanics issues...

Swinglab we have tested the Swing Govenor and for these reasons above we can't say this training aid is good for everyone with poor lowerbody mechanics... There are so many reasons for poor lower body mechanics... So you have to continually test and develop training programs to adress lowerbody mechanic issues...
Again you need certain biomechanics technology to measure and identify lower body mechanics issues as well.....

Kind Regards
Scott