Could Putting Practice be Hurting your Swing?

When was the last time you rethought your pre-round warmup routine? Could your round and swing be suffering from putting practice?

The putting stroke involves sustained trunk forward flexion. Putting practice sessions may therefore fatigue trunk extensor muscles such as the peri-spinal extensor muscles, hamstrings, and gluteal muscles. Trunk muscle fatigue is important because these muscles are vital to the golf swing, and fatigue from your pre-round putting routine may be negatively affecting your performance and endurance.

A fairly recent study out of Australia in 2008 investigated the effects of a putting practice session on golf swing biomechanics. Here is a brief review.

Hypothesis: Trunk flexion with minimal body movement (during putting) would fatigue trunk extensor muscles and result in immediate changes in kinematics of full swings with an iron.

Participants: 29 male golfers volunteered to be in the study. Handicaps ranged from 0-8.

Intervention: After performing the same warm-up routine, data for the pelvis, torso, head, and hand movement were collected from 5 full swings with each participants’ own 5-iron. Next, participants performed a trunk extensor muscle endurance test followed by a 40-minute putting task. Next, immediately after the putting session, participants performed another 5 full 5-iron swings. Lastly, the endurance test was repeated.

Results: After the intervention, peak segmental swing speeds were reduced and total swing duration increased. There were reductions in the magnitude of pelvis and torso axial rotation during the downswing. The peak difference between torso rotation and pelvis rotation during early downswing was also significantly reduced. The effects on pelvis and torso rotation were smallest for golfers with higher body mass index (BMI). There also was a decrease in holding time on the trunk extensor muscle endurance test following putting practice.

Conclusion: Changes in swing kinematics were observed following 40 minutes of putting practice (and a trunk extensor muscle endurance test). These swing changes might have resulted from fatigue-related dysfunction of the trunk extensor muscles. Results showed that swing kinematics of golfers with high BMI were least affected by the putting practice.

Final thoughts…no study is perfect. You could say the size, design, and lack of shot performance data (accuracy, distance, etc.)  leave something to be desired for complete peace of mind. Nonetheless, there is evidence here to believe that trunk muscle function and therefore golf performance could be negatively affected by weak trunk muscles and prolonged putting practice. Trunk muscle endurance training could help golfers maintain their form of their swing after extended putting. Taller, thinner golfers may benefit most from such training.

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Source:
Horan SA, Evans K, Morris NR, Kavanagh JJ. Swing kinematics of male and female skilled golfers following prolonged putting practice. J Sports Sci. 2014;32(9):810-6.