The Science of SuperSpeed Golf

It’s been five years since SuperSpeed Golf introduced the golfing world to OverSpeed Training. It’s been an eventful half-decade. Specifically, more than 700 Tour pros and nearly 100,000 Average Joes like you and me have added SuperSpeed to our training regimen.

And all of us share the same goal: increase our swing speed so we can smack the living hell out of the ball.

Some of you want more swing speed to work your way towards scratch while many others simply want to put Father Time in a headlock and give him a noogie. Either way, SuperSpeed Golf says practically anyone who picks up its sticks and starts the training protocols will gain swing speed after their very first session.

Those are bold claims. If you know anything at all about MyGolfSpy, you know bold claims get the closest and most cynical scrutiny.

Speed the Neuromuscular Way

“We’re just trying to reset that governor in your brain that says how fast you can swing,” says Kyle Shay, co-founder of SuperSpeed Golf.

It’s called OverSpeed Training. We gave you a brief overview last month, but here’s the Reader’s Digest version.

OverSpeed Training is a neurological reset and trains your brain and muscles into believing you can swing the club faster. It makes the body move faster than normal during training to permanently increase the neuromuscular reaction speed of the body. In plain English: swinging a training stick faster than normal causes your brain to remember this faster speed, and even start expecting it.

SuperSpeed provides you with three training sticks: one 20-percent lighter than your driver, one 10-percent lighter than your driver and one five-percent heavier than your driver. You swing each one as fast as you can as you go through a series of training protocols and, presto, your brain starts to expect a faster swing speed.

SuperSpeed says after just one session golfers can realize, on average, a five-percent increase in swing speed. That means a 95-mph swinger can see his swing speed approach 100 after just one session. SuperSpeed calls this the “Jump.”

What Sorcery Is This?

Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is some sort of magical fix and you’ll soon be bombing it past your buddies. That five-percent jump after just one session has a shelf life of about 30 minutes. You’ll need to train with SuperSpeed three times a week for six to eight weeks before any kind of lasting improvement can take hold. SuperSpeed calls this the “normalization” phase.

And don’t for a minute think SuperSpeed is a swing trainer. It doesn’t replace what your golf pro is telling you nor does it directly work on mechanics.

“There are some underlying things that can go into your mechanics to help you but we’re not focusing on that,” says Shay. “It’s really a process of athletic discovery. Most people find their swing does have some positive changes, though. It’s hard to create more speed if you start to become inefficient mechanically.”

Also, don’t make the mistake of confusing SuperSpeed with the Orange Whip or similar swing trainers. They’re different animals.

“Orange Whip is more complementary to what we do,” says Shay. “Orange Whip is more for sequencing, creating lag, tempo training. It’s not a speed trainer per se.”

Once the normalization phase kicks in, SuperSpeed says users will generally see a plateau in their swing speeds. That plateau can last anywhere from 60 to 90 days before another three- to five-per-cent swing speed jump takes place, followed by another plateau.

 

SuperSpeed says, in theory, this pattern can continue indefinitely with longer intervals between the jumps.

MyGolfSpy’s Case Study

Several MyGolfSpy Forum members have been using SuperSpeed for the past 18 months and what we’ve seen is one of those rare occasions where hype and reality actually coincide. The review thread on our Forum is ongoing and several additional forum members have chimed in with their own results.

One tester, Mike Mock from Wisconsin, started with a swing speed in the high 90s. At a driver fitting this past January, he posted a Trackman-measured swing speed of 111 mph. Another tester, Kevin Loughren from Tampa, is in his early 60’s and saw his driver swing speed jump from 88 to 99 mph during the initial testing, picking up nearly 30 yards.

“I’m a club-and-a-half longer, at least, with my irons now,” he says.

 

For the record, none of the testers started new workout regimes during the test. If they weren’t hitting the gym, they didn’t start and if they were working out, they kept doing what they were doing.

Several testers also mentioned there were times during their early protocols where they experienced varying degrees of wildness off the tee. Shay says that’s not unusual, as the skill part of your swing needs to catch up to your newfound speed. SuperSpeed has developed some new protocols that can help.

“We’ve added a test on how well golfers use the ground and a protocol to help them with that,” he says. “We’ve also added a test for how they sequence their golf swing and how well they use their arm and wrist mechanics for lag.”

The OverSpeed Regimen

OverSpeed Training doesn’t make you stronger and isn’t meant to train your swing mechanics. It’s brain training with physical benefits.

“Our brains tend to limit the speed our bodies can produce,” says Shay. “The brain may fear injury or pain or may even simply try to produce specific mechanic results. Overspeed Training proves to the brain that our bodies can move faster than it expects.”

Brain training is different than fitness training or even golf training. It’s not about the number of reps; it’s about the intensity of each individual rep. Once you’ve warmed up (an important step, says Shay), each training protocol takes about five to eight minutes to complete. And more, in this case, is not better.

“Over-training can be pretty detrimental,” says Shay. “We’re looking for three times a week with a full day off in between. That’s the sweet spot but you need to put some rest in there. We’re trying to build you up in your nervous system. Overdoing it won’t make any difference in your speed but you might injure yourself.”

SuperSpeed provides two years’ worth of training protocols as part of its package, and those protocols can earn you some pretty strange looks at the driving range. You swing each club – going from lightest to heaviest – as fast as you can from your dominant side and then you switch to your non-dominant side. The protocols also include a Kirby Puckett-style step swing, swings from a kneeling position and a Happy Gilmore hop, skip and swing routine.

“All of this is on purpose,” says Shay. “They provide huge advantages in creating more efficient biomechanics.”

“He Likes It! Hey, Mikey!”

Are you old enough to remember the old Life Cereal commercial with Mikey, the kid who hated everything?

Skepticism is certainly understandable. Hell, if someone told me I could gain 30 yards by July, I’d wonder where they got the peyote. But case studies are case studies and for our test group, the proof is in the proverbial pudding. Some found significant gains, others not so much. Still others simply didn’t keep up with regimen because, you know, life.

Others question spending hard-earned cash on something like this when a DIY option seems entirely reasonable.

“We put a lot of work into finding the proper weight, proper shaft length and developing the protocols,” says Shay. “If you get too light, it can really mess up your mechanics. If you get too heavy, you can not only mess up your mechanics but it can actually slow your swing down.”

So if you do want to go a homemade route, there’s nothing to stop you. As always, time and money are interchangeable. You can always save more of one by spending more of the other.

“We’ve seen guys putting washers on shafts. We just try to make it easier for people,” says Shay. “Just grab these and follow the protocols. I can’t stop people from building their own but we’ve made it easier not to.”

Whaddya say, Mikey?