April 19, 2024 • 8 mins
Today Chris breaks down the physical side of Scottie Scheffler's footwork including the ground and vertical forces, weight shift, and biomechanics behind it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Golf Fitness Bomb Squad podcast with Chris Finn,
a production of P for S Golf. Welcome to the
golfn This Bomb Squad. My name is Chris Finn. I'm
your host, and today I wanted to talk about Scheffler's
footwork because everyone else is talking about it and I
(00:22):
think a lot of them are wrong. Actually I know
they're wrong. So I think it's interesting whenever we see
something different in the game of golf that everybody like
flips out, they lose their mind. They're like, oh my god,
that's so weird. Like in reality, if you look at
the actual biomechanics and the science of it, it's actually
(00:43):
not weird at all. He's just using the ground a
little bit differently. He's got a significant way shift to
the left and actually nothing's left on the right foot.
But what we'll get into that more So, I think
the thing that I want to talk about today is
there's nothing wrong with this swing today. I think there's
definitely thoughts and I guess kind of what I would
(01:05):
say like yellow flags or asterisks that uh, hopefully his
team is working on with him and thinking about with him.
As we're talking about his longevity in the game being
in his you know, in his twenties, he's still young,
but as he continues to approach thirty and into his thirties,
the move that he's making, UH definitely puts a lot
(01:26):
of stress on that lead side. And so I want
to we'll dive into what all those stresses are and
what that means. So when you if you watch his
swing from uh front on, so the camera's facing his
you know, facing him, you know, so you're looking basically
from the side of him, right, so you're you're looking
at his belt buckle. You know, you're not necessarily behind
(01:47):
them or down the line right when you look at that,
when you look when he gets to P five, So
his foot doesn't actually his trail foot doesn't actually start
kicking backwards behind him until just after So and if
we have no and understand kinetics and how people use
the ground, the peak vertical force wants to you want
(02:09):
to be hitting that at or before P five. So
his foot and the reason his foot moves. If you've
ever seen, like look at a Google or you go
to YouTube and watch a video of somebody trying to
swing a golf club on ice, right, you're going to
see that trail foot go back and the front foot
goes forward. That is a nature of how somebody pushes
(02:32):
into the ground and their tow heel forces. So the
reason his foot kicks back is because he has a
very strong push and the toe heel side of things
on his right foot. At the same time, he has
basically shifted one hundred percent of his weight and his pressure.
You know, so pressure and force are different. Okay, Uh,
(02:52):
He's gonna get all of his weight onto his left side,
which is why there's nothing left on the right and
basically why that right foot kind of flies up off
the ground. But that is flying back because of the
toe heel force that he put into the ground with
his trail foot. And then at the moment that you
see his foot come up off the ground on the
right side, it's because all of his weight has shifted.
(03:15):
Now he's already applied his peak vertical forces and he's
in his hord on the left side, he's actually having
to apply a negative horizontal for a side to stabilize him.
I think that's where when you look at his left
leg down from P five or lead arm parallel coming
down through impact. If you look at his left side,
(03:36):
people will make note of his ankle and how rolled
out he is. Basically, in order for him to be
a cop to accomplish what he's doing physically, what needs
to occur is he needs to number one, have great
lead hip or left hip for him, his left hip
internal rotation. So if you look at him in slow mo,
you'll see how much that left hip continues to clear
(03:58):
because he moves so much of his way to his
left side. If he did not have that left hip
internal rotation, then we start to worry about back issues,
knee issues. You can already see how much stress is
going to go through those lateral ligaments on the left
side of the foot because of how much inversion of
the left foot he has. Basically, it looks like almost
(04:19):
he's going to roll his ankle right. So your concern
as a player like that with that extreme of a
move as they get older is he naturally is going
to be more prone to losing mobility on his lead
side right and so you know he recently has had
a lot of the neck and shoulder issues. You start
to wonder, hey, is that compensatory? Is that just overuse
(04:40):
and nothing? Maybe it has nothing to do with it,
but I think you start to understand this guy's swing
as the top player in the world, you want to,
on the physical side, have those those kind of contingency plans,
you know, if you want to call him that, you
know laid out. This is how this guy swings, This
is how he is successful. How are we making sure
(05:01):
that he definitely has as much lead hip internal rotation
as humanly possible to minimize the stress on the ankle,
on the on the lead ankle, the lead knee, and
then up the chain into the shoulder and the neck
as well. Right, So does he have the rotary motion
that he needs in the lead shoulder and the spine right,
So those are all the I think when I look
(05:22):
at those that swing, those are the things that stick
out to me of wanting to make sure that those
number one from a mobility sense are present. Number two,
I want to understand what his strength and power output
levels are currently in his right and his left leg
and his leading his trail leg. And how do we
make sure we monitor the strength and the power outputs
in the in the lead leg, particularly so that he's
(05:45):
able to break, you know, break that movement basically slow
it down, not like break it into pieces, but break
like you're hitting the brake in your breaks in your car.
How is he able to slow that down and control
that in a safe manner? You know, as it comes
the forces come up from the ground up through his
body and then as he's slowing down, ultimately stopping the
follow through. And I think those are ratios that are
(06:08):
very important that we look at as guys get older,
in particular because he's going to lose his elasticity, which
is when we look at how much speed he can create.
That's a result of force production or power production, which
is how much force he can produce strength plus how
fast he can produce it. And that's a lot of
the elasticity. So as guys start to get old, he's twenty,
(06:28):
and he's his late twenties, I technically could call it
mid twenties, but the latter end of his mid twenties,
elasticity is going to start to decrease, particularly as he
gets into his early thirties. So there's going to have
to be a bit higher reliance on his strength in
order his he's because his elastises speeds are going to
tend to decrease a little bit, his force production will
(06:50):
have to increase relatively to maintain the same speed outputs
in terms of the club as speed. So and then
I think most importantly when you're talking about longevity, his
strength is going to have to make sure he's got
better breaks as he gets older, if he's going to
continue swinging at the speed that he's swinging and continuing
with the same move that he's doing. So hopefully it's
(07:11):
a little bit of insight. There's it's actually nothing wild
about that swing. It's just that he gets such a
such a shift to his left side that the toe
heel force he's put he obviously i'd have to I
don't know his actual plate numbers. Would be interesting to
see how much to toe heel force, how much of
a basically a torque player or maybe if you want
(07:31):
to call it, a rotational player, but basically how much
toe heel force he's putting in a relative to his
horizontal and his vertical forces. And it's there's some players
who that magnitude is a lot higher. He may be
one of those players. And so when you combine that
is one of his power sources speed sources with a
strong shift to his lead side, so there's no more
(07:53):
kind of pressure weight on his trail foot. It just
makes sense that the foot's going to come back. Like
I said, go go watch on YouTube a golfers swinging
a golf club, somebody swinging a golf club on ice,
and you're gonna see that same exact move of that
trail foot and that's just a result of total force.
So hopefully a little bit of insight there. He's playing
(08:14):
some amazing golf, so hopefully he continues to be able
to do that, and hopefully he remains healthy. And you know,
like with like everybody listening, our number one goal is
to help people play this game as long as possible,
and for you as well as Scotti and his team,
and it really starts with understanding what the player needs
to do in order for them to perform well and
then making sure your body is able to support that.
(08:35):
So thanks for listen, thanks for hanging out. Hopefully we
defuse a few myths for you, and hopefully maybe you
learn at least one thing today and we'll look forward
to catching you on the next episode.
Welcome to the Golf Fitness Bomb Squad podcast with Chris Finn,
a production of P for S Golf. Welcome to the
golfn This Bomb Squad. My name is Chris Finn. I'm
your host, and today I wanted to talk about Scheffler's
footwork because everyone else is talking about it and I
(00:22):
think a lot of them are wrong. Actually I know
they're wrong. So I think it's interesting whenever we see
something different in the game of golf that everybody like
flips out, they lose their mind. They're like, oh my god,
that's so weird. Like in reality, if you look at
the actual biomechanics and the science of it, it's actually
(00:43):
not weird at all. He's just using the ground a
little bit differently. He's got a significant way shift to
the left and actually nothing's left on the right foot.
But what we'll get into that more So, I think
the thing that I want to talk about today is
there's nothing wrong with this swing today. I think there's
definitely thoughts and I guess kind of what I would
(01:05):
say like yellow flags or asterisks that uh, hopefully his
team is working on with him and thinking about with him.
As we're talking about his longevity in the game being
in his you know, in his twenties, he's still young,
but as he continues to approach thirty and into his thirties,
the move that he's making, UH definitely puts a lot
(01:26):
of stress on that lead side. And so I want
to we'll dive into what all those stresses are and
what that means. So when you if you watch his
swing from uh front on, so the camera's facing his
you know, facing him, you know, so you're looking basically
from the side of him, right, so you're you're looking
at his belt buckle. You know, you're not necessarily behind
(01:47):
them or down the line right when you look at that,
when you look when he gets to P five, So
his foot doesn't actually his trail foot doesn't actually start
kicking backwards behind him until just after So and if
we have no and understand kinetics and how people use
the ground, the peak vertical force wants to you want
(02:09):
to be hitting that at or before P five. So
his foot and the reason his foot moves. If you've
ever seen, like look at a Google or you go
to YouTube and watch a video of somebody trying to
swing a golf club on ice, right, you're going to
see that trail foot go back and the front foot
goes forward. That is a nature of how somebody pushes
(02:32):
into the ground and their tow heel forces. So the
reason his foot kicks back is because he has a
very strong push and the toe heel side of things
on his right foot. At the same time, he has
basically shifted one hundred percent of his weight and his pressure.
You know, so pressure and force are different. Okay, Uh,
(02:52):
He's gonna get all of his weight onto his left side,
which is why there's nothing left on the right and
basically why that right foot kind of flies up off
the ground. But that is flying back because of the
toe heel force that he put into the ground with
his trail foot. And then at the moment that you
see his foot come up off the ground on the
right side, it's because all of his weight has shifted.
(03:15):
Now he's already applied his peak vertical forces and he's
in his hord on the left side, he's actually having
to apply a negative horizontal for a side to stabilize him.
I think that's where when you look at his left
leg down from P five or lead arm parallel coming
down through impact. If you look at his left side,
(03:36):
people will make note of his ankle and how rolled
out he is. Basically, in order for him to be
a cop to accomplish what he's doing physically, what needs
to occur is he needs to number one, have great
lead hip or left hip for him, his left hip
internal rotation. So if you look at him in slow mo,
you'll see how much that left hip continues to clear
(03:58):
because he moves so much of his way to his
left side. If he did not have that left hip
internal rotation, then we start to worry about back issues,
knee issues. You can already see how much stress is
going to go through those lateral ligaments on the left
side of the foot because of how much inversion of
the left foot he has. Basically, it looks like almost
(04:19):
he's going to roll his ankle right. So your concern
as a player like that with that extreme of a
move as they get older is he naturally is going
to be more prone to losing mobility on his lead
side right and so you know he recently has had
a lot of the neck and shoulder issues. You start
to wonder, hey, is that compensatory? Is that just overuse
(04:40):
and nothing? Maybe it has nothing to do with it,
but I think you start to understand this guy's swing
as the top player in the world, you want to,
on the physical side, have those those kind of contingency plans,
you know, if you want to call him that, you
know laid out. This is how this guy swings, This
is how he is successful. How are we making sure
(05:01):
that he definitely has as much lead hip internal rotation
as humanly possible to minimize the stress on the ankle,
on the on the lead ankle, the lead knee, and
then up the chain into the shoulder and the neck
as well. Right, So does he have the rotary motion
that he needs in the lead shoulder and the spine right,
So those are all the I think when I look
(05:22):
at those that swing, those are the things that stick
out to me of wanting to make sure that those
number one from a mobility sense are present. Number two,
I want to understand what his strength and power output
levels are currently in his right and his left leg
and his leading his trail leg. And how do we
make sure we monitor the strength and the power outputs
in the in the lead leg, particularly so that he's
(05:45):
able to break, you know, break that movement basically slow
it down, not like break it into pieces, but break
like you're hitting the brake in your breaks in your car.
How is he able to slow that down and control
that in a safe manner? You know, as it comes
the forces come up from the ground up through his
body and then as he's slowing down, ultimately stopping the
follow through. And I think those are ratios that are
(06:08):
very important that we look at as guys get older,
in particular because he's going to lose his elasticity, which
is when we look at how much speed he can create.
That's a result of force production or power production, which
is how much force he can produce strength plus how
fast he can produce it. And that's a lot of
the elasticity. So as guys start to get old, he's twenty,
(06:28):
and he's his late twenties, I technically could call it
mid twenties, but the latter end of his mid twenties,
elasticity is going to start to decrease, particularly as he
gets into his early thirties. So there's going to have
to be a bit higher reliance on his strength in
order his he's because his elastises speeds are going to
tend to decrease a little bit, his force production will
(06:50):
have to increase relatively to maintain the same speed outputs
in terms of the club as speed. So and then
I think most importantly when you're talking about longevity, his
strength is going to have to make sure he's got
better breaks as he gets older, if he's going to
continue swinging at the speed that he's swinging and continuing
with the same move that he's doing. So hopefully it's
(07:11):
a little bit of insight. There's it's actually nothing wild
about that swing. It's just that he gets such a
such a shift to his left side that the toe
heel force he's put he obviously i'd have to I
don't know his actual plate numbers. Would be interesting to
see how much to toe heel force, how much of
a basically a torque player or maybe if you want
(07:31):
to call it, a rotational player, but basically how much
toe heel force he's putting in a relative to his
horizontal and his vertical forces. And it's there's some players
who that magnitude is a lot higher. He may be
one of those players. And so when you combine that
is one of his power sources speed sources with a
strong shift to his lead side, so there's no more
(07:53):
kind of pressure weight on his trail foot. It just
makes sense that the foot's going to come back. Like
I said, go go watch on YouTube a golfers swinging
a golf club, somebody swinging a golf club on ice,
and you're gonna see that same exact move of that
trail foot and that's just a result of total force.
So hopefully a little bit of insight there. He's playing
(08:14):
some amazing golf, so hopefully he continues to be able
to do that, and hopefully he remains healthy. And you know,
like with like everybody listening, our number one goal is
to help people play this game as long as possible,
and for you as well as Scotti and his team,
and it really starts with understanding what the player needs
to do in order for them to perform well and
then making sure your body is able to support that.
(08:35):
So thanks for listen, thanks for hanging out. Hopefully we
defuse a few myths for you, and hopefully maybe you
learn at least one thing today and we'll look forward
to catching you on the next episode.
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