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2 Ways to Monitor Progress

In this video, I share two ways I monitor my progress in golf. First, I follow Tiger Woods' progression, focusing on technique. I start by understanding swing changes, then work on appearance, feel, range performance, course performance, and tournament performance.

Second, I compare progress in golf to injury rehabilitation. I monitor pain (contact and ball flight) and performance (range of motion and movement quality). Decreased pain and improved range of motion and movement quality indicate positive changes.

To track progress effectively, I use feedback from contact, ball flight, and video analysis. Analyzing my swing on video helps me assess progress accurately and make adjustments if needed. It's important to periodically review swing footage to ensure ongoing improvement, rather than solely relying on hitting good shots.

Tags: Concept

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This concept video is two ways to monitor progress.

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So when it comes to monitoring progress,

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you can't just go off of contact and ball flight. Um, yes,

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that's a really critical one,

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but every swing makes good shots and sometimes you're hitting good shots cuz

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you're in a good rhythm versus hitting good shots because you're improving your

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technique. Um, I always fall back on, uh, two things. One, a Tiger Woods quote,

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um, that, uh, I've seen recently, but I've,

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I've kind of described in my own way, but he said it better. Um,

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he said that when he is making a swing change, first he understands it,

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then it looks better, then it feels better, then it performs on the range,

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then it performs on a course, and then it performs in a tournament.

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So there's this little baby step progression,

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but it starts with understanding and looking better before it feels better.

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Many amateur golfers, the second a swing feels uncomfortable, uh,

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kind of freak out and want to revert back to what feels much more comfortable.

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But if you keep doing what you've always done, as Martin Hall says,

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you'll keep getting what you've always gotten or something like that. Um, so I,

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the second piece is I use progress, um,

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similar to how if you were rehabbing an injury, um,

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that your physio would approach it, um, which is,

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there's two ways that we could approach monitoring. If you're making progress,

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like let's say we have a shoulder injury and you're saying, man,

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it really hurts when I do this. Um,

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when I pick things up or when I reach for things, well, we can monitor the pain.

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That would be to monitoring kind of contact and ball flight.

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And you'd be saying, yeah, you know, we've been doing these exercises, these,

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this therapy, my shoulder doesn't hurt as much.

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But the other piece would be monitoring performance.

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We're monitoring range of motion, um,

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range of motion and kind of the functional movement that would be closer to what

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we're seeing on video. Um, so for example, it could still hurt,

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but if one week you're able to raise to here and then at the same amount of pain

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you're able to raise to here, that is also progress.

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And that's more what we see on video when we see positive changes, when we see,

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uh, getting better sequencing, you know,

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body more open when we see better shaft lean,

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when we see the arms more connected on the way through versus, or if we see, um,

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kind of getting a little bit more centered with our pivot.

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If we tend to see we're hitting the ball well,

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but we have some of the same amount of patterns. Um,

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then oftentimes at least when I see myself on video and I,

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I'm hitting it pretty well, I'll look at it and say, okay, yeah,

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I'm making really good progress cuz this is looking different. Or, um, no,

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I'm just in a good rhythm.

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Let's just enjoy it and hopefully play well when we get out there tomorrow.

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So I challenge a lot of my students to use both forms of feedback,

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not just contact how the club's hitting the ground,

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how the club's hitting the ball and ball flight, but also how it looks,

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the cautionary tale of how it looks is you have to know how to to use video,

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which is why I have, um, these, uh,

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analysis videos in each one of the courses to help you learn how to

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analyze your full swing, your short game, um, et cetera.

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But if you feel like you're plateauing,

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go more off of how it looks than how it's performing. Um,

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if it's looking good and it's not performing well,

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then you can do some little fine tuning based on balancing your seeps and

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shallows or club face or a height or any of those factors. Um,

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but hopefully this helps you, um, reinforce, uh,

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if you're not looking at it on video,

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at least do that periodically because that's gonna ultimately help make sure

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that you're trending in the right direction, um,

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not just getting into a good groove and hitting a bunch of good shots.

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All right. So all that talking,

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let's see if we can hit one good with my current thought and you'll be able to

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see on video if it looks any better.

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Felt good going at the flag, we'll take it. We better check it on video.

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