How Mike Garden Gained 15 mph of Ball Speed and 30+ Yards (in about an hour)

As a loyal reader, you know that my MO is to help golfers create speed and hit the ball farther than they ever dreamed. Over the years, I’ve seen speed and distance move to the forefront of all golfer’s minds as speed/distance creates:

lower scores
more efficient/better use of the body (better feel to the golfer)
more fun
makes golf athletic
the list goes on

As you’ve seen over my last 3 blog posts, I’ve taken high level golfers and increased speed within about an hour. Mike Garden found out about my speed training and was all in. He’s exploring the possibility of playing professionally and knows that he needs more speed to compete at the highest level.

He fits my criteria for the ‘easy speed increase’:

Not on the PGA tour (but a scratch golfer)
Ball Speed below 170

I boldly made that claim a while back, and so far, so good. Mike was here to put me to the test. By the way, he’s a strong guy under the age of 30.

Here is Mike’s before data:

CHS: 105-108 mph
BS: 154-156
Carry: 250-260 yard
Total: 270-280 yards
Tempo: 24/7

I don’t judge a golfer’s ‘before’ data, I just note it and say to myself, “this guy has potential to pick up some speed”. In Mike’s case, ‘some speed’ happens to be significant, because he’s in decent shape (strong) and he wasn’t sequencing properly.

I’ve found a winner in my protocols for developing speed, and I’m sticking to it, so first order of business is to fire up the glutes and core. We did our ‘band walks’ which fire up the glutes and then went to the tsunami bar, which I love for lighting up the core. Mike is so strong and he was flexing the bar like no other, which was a signal that this kid has tremendous potential for speed, we just need to unleash it!

In this video, I did a modified grip and a slight skip step to get Mike to feel how to use his lower body and better sequence energy. He was torquing the bar with serious power! Part of the elegance of my speed training system is that I find ‘workarounds’ to the subconscious mind. Meaning: I bypass the conscious mind and teach the body/subconscious to create speed and power with special drills and tools. This tsunami bar drill is just that. (to purchase a tsunami bar, click here) When the conscious mind gets involved in speed training, it works in a world of language and thinking and your body doesn’t speak English when training speed. It works with feelings and even better when those feelings have resistance to light up muscles. All the training/drills/products I use are based on this principle: give the body a (resisted) feel. give the body something to overcome. It will figure it out especially if the drill/device makes the correct ‘ask’ of the body. For many of my golfers, they live their life so much in their conscious/left brain (think lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc) that this is truly the only way to get them out of that mindset.

Next up: We need to learn how to Load the backswing.

Here is Mike using the Lagman and he doesn’t ‘pop’ it until way late in the backswing. There is no loading here. Without load, you can’t explode!

Check this video, he is now popping it and loading the system. (to purchase a Lag Popper, click here)

Now that we are fired up and can feel what it is to load, it’s time to hit the Speedball with Faceplates. Mike worked his way up to 131 mph! Keep in mind when doing speedwork, we must compare apples to apples. I know that he’s not going to swing a real driver on a real ball 131, but I know that is definitely an increase and I’m starting to get excited to see what happens when we go to a real ball and club. (to purchase the Speedball click here)

Let’s finish it off with my new creation, the Lag Whoosher. We do both ‘heavy’:

The Lag Whoosher works on 2 speed keys at the same time:

resistance
creating/feeling lag

The red tail gives you a heavy resistance (but safe on the body) that you must overcome and in order to do that, you must use the glutes/core. This is the key to speed to fire the glutes and transmit that energy thru the core to the arms and then the club. When you learn to do that, you torque the shaft and create lag. This is a double bonus, because lag is a mechanical lever that increases speed regardless of your size/strength/flexibility. We all have the ability to create lag! Once you create lag, you need to unleash the lag, so we take the tail off and then do a few swings to ignite the CNS and unleash that lag!

to purchase the LagWhoosher, click here…

Mike is now ready in every way to go back to a real club and ball. We’ve got every box checked:

Glutes firing
Core firing
Proper Loading of the system
Sequencing better against resistance
Swinging as fast as possible against resistance
CNS swings that are faster than ever (but just a few as you don’t want the body to adapt to no resistance)

Can’t wait to see the speed increases Mike is going to generate!!

Drum roll please……

CHS: 115-116 mph (+ 10!!)
BS: 167-170 mph (+12 to 15 mph!!)
Carry: 280-290 yard (+30 yards of carry)
Total: 305-315 yards (+30 yards total!!)
Tempo: 22/7 (shaved off 2 frames of backswing due to better loading)

Even I was impressed with this increase in about an hour!!! Are you kidding me?!? He went from 155 to 170 in ball speed!! That is mind boggling and equates to 30+ yards of distance! The average chs/bs on the PGA tour is 112-114/166-168 mph. Mike came in well below that average and he now has the ability to compete at the highest level!

He hit upon 2 ideas that resonated with me:

MIke: “It’s not about just swinging as hard as you can”

My comment: there a lot of golfers/trainers out there trying to just swing as fast as possible and this is a mistake. It’s a step in the right direction, but if you have bad technique, you are either going to get injured or just hit it farther, but farther off line. Your training must be fast, yes, but it must have correct sequencing/form.

Mike: “I was suprised that was my fastest swing”

My comment: The conscious mind (aka the mind you’re using right now to read this) equates speed with effort and trying hard:

Speed = Effort/Trying Hard

However, the subconscious mind (aka the body) only does what you ask of it, and when you give it the correct ask, and then LEAVE IT ALONE, it will deliver results. The tricky parts:

correct ask
leave it alone

The way to achieve the correct ask is to have the proper device/protocol and then make sure all the training is not conscious by nature so that ‘leaving it alone’ becomes a habit, something you practice!

If you want a few yards (30 :), then give me a shout, you can try the products or come see me and get the results that Mike achieved!