It’s all about the triangles!

Finally got round to getting a lesson, I wanted to work on smashing long drives but  the professional Stephen mentioned to me when making the booking that if we have time we could work on the short game at the end, in other words he’s heard how dodgy my short game is. And so I went for a putting lesson instead.
I’m very glad I did as Stephen the pro pointed a glaring setup error with my leading arm setup, it was bent like a teapot handle instead of a straight line. This in turn caused the other arm to be over dominant, leading to inconsistent strokes. So we straightened up that arm and moved the ball a bit forward in my stance, it all felt very weird, visually and in the body.

But after a couple of days sticking with the new setup, my lag putting has improved. I have a nice triangle shape when putting, I still slip back to the old way but am going to stick with this. I also transferred the triangle theory to my chipping and irons with great results. It just feels much stronger and straighter setting up like that, my arms are locked nicely and it encourages me to swing through the ball in a good way. Off for a practise session now again before unleashing these triangles on the course for real.

Back to the putting basics

I’ve been practising a lot but with little improvement, in fact my handicap has gone up from 11.9 to 12.1 since I started this blog. A fair reflection that I’m not doing well. In fact I was so worked up about a competition recently that it affected my sleep, a far way from getting out of my mind as I aimed to do.

This was highlighted further by a fourball partner who after a frustrating round, gave me some putting tips. He gently pointed out that we were friends first before giving me an accurate demonstration of my putting process which resembled a Charlie Chaplin skit. He pointed out that he never knew what I was going to do when putting, there is no consistency, it was wooden and the whites of my knuckles were showing.

He mentioned that he watched Rory Mcilroys putting sequence and it reminded of something I had read in the 15th Club by Bob Rotella. Just look at the target and trust yourself to let the ball go. So the sequence we worked on to remove my mind from putting and allow a natural stroke is this

1. Look behind the ball and pick a line.
2. Walk along the the line up the ball and take a couple of practise swings
3. Step beside the ball and line up putter.
4. Step into putt, look at target and hit.

It’s uncomfortable to just look and hit as I still feel extra effort and thought means better results. I like the fact then when lining up you are always on the line. I know relaxing and allowing my mind to naturally take care of this process will be better, a lot better, but I don’t “feel” it or truly know this for sure in myself. I’m going to stick to this process for a month and report back the results here hail rain or snow.

Quiet month training, a lot of preparation.

In other words, I did feck all training this month, just enough to keep tipping over. I did start a summer league with the local club with a 1 mile race which I completed in 5.23 which leads me to admire Sir Roger Bannister even more. No harm to have a rest as I found out by going to a running info night held by local runner Kevin Murphy. I found out about VO2 rates, aerobic, anaerobic and speed work and about building performance over time. To be honest, ignorance was bliss before this night as I never really wanted to know how off I was with my training. By chance, the football I play does act as speed training, kind of.

Kevin spoke of mixed blend training, mixing up all different kinds of running, doing hills, slow long runs, runs where you are able answer a question but not talk and speed work, running short distances many times no longer than 4 miles. It made sense what he said, that when running at a certain pace for say 3 weeks your body’s performance will plateaux. Thus to improve your performance and efficiency as a runner you need to mix up the training and push it beyond the current limits, thus raising the bar.If you want to train for a 10KM, make sure your aerobic training is 1 and half times that distance, ie 15KM.

He explained that your 10KM pace can be used to decide your training pace. For example, for anaerobic training, to build your lactic threshold, the rate at which lactic acid accumulates in the blood, you should run 10-15 seconds off your 10KM pace. Lactic acid is a protective substance to prevent the muscles from damage, in cases where the body is pushed past it’s limits the lactic acid will limit the movement of the muscles as I experienced hitting the wall in my first marathon.

A lot to take in and fairly technical but if it is something that will help then it’s all good. There’s a 10KM in a couple of weeks, I’d like to improve my time there and so will get to work over the next 2 weeks with for once, a proper training plan.