The science of golf: Tiburon author out to alleviate the yips
John Dugan
Article Launched: 07/03/2007 05:16:07 PM PDT
Bob Prichard of Tiburon has written a book, The Efficient Golfer,
It happens to some of the best golfers in the world and some of the biggest duffers at the local pitch-and-putt. Golfer approaches the green, eyeing a six-foot putt for par. Golfer sizes up the land, steadies nerves, addresses the ball, pulls back the putter and - whoops! - yanks the putt four feet past the hole.
It is called the yips, and anyone who has played 18 holes has witnessed a putt botched so badly it defies explanation. It is almost like the golfer's arms spasm at the exact moment calm nerves are required. A Tiburon author and swing coach claims to have discovered the cause of those frustrating yips - and it's not what most people think.
Bob Prichard, author of "The Efficient Golfer," has studied golf swings and the yips since 2004. The universal assumption about the yips was that they were a mental condition - golfers succumbing to the pressure of the moment and sabotaging their own putts with disastrous mechanics. Prichard's theory is that the yips are physical, not mental.
"Everyone always assumed it was a mental thing," Prichard said. "There's been millions of people studying swings, but I measured them. No one ever thought it might be physical."
[This statement is inaccurate.]
Prichard's theory has taken a long road to develop. He started studying players' swings on drives to measure their spine angle during impact. Most normal golfers address the ball before the swing with a spine angle of 25-30 degrees compared to a vertical line from the ground, he said. Upon impact with the ball, most of them lower that spine angle to 15 degrees to account for the pull of the club head towards the ball.
He noticed some pros, however, didn't change their spine angle during the swing. Great players like Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller and Nick Faldo all gripped the club so hard that they actually fought off the pull of the club head and kept their backs steady. Prichard called up a friend at Golf Digest magazine to discuss his observations.
"I asked if all of these guys had something in common," Prichard said. "My friend said, 'Well, they all got the yips late in their careers.' I said, 'This is why they developed the yips.'"
Prichard argues that over-gripping the driver and keeping the spine angle constant puts so much strain on the forearms, it actually breaks down the muscle fibers in the arms. Those fibers then develop scar tissue when they heal and makes the muscles stiff and tight. When the golfer then has to lightly grip the putter for a crucial putt, the muscles will spasm and the golfer will botch his putt - ergo, the yips.
Prichard's theory has understandably met skepticism. It's the golf equivalent of arguing that Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret" - that new-age book that purports thinking positive thoughts will bring about actual, real-life positive results - is a scientific text. But Prichard has charts and measurements to back up his findings, and some people are willing to give his theory a test run.
"I've never heard anybody, until now, put that forward in a theory," said Bruce Wilmott, the golf pro at McInnis Golf Course and a native of Carnoustie, Scotland, site of this year's PGA British Open. "Nobody's fixed the yips yet, and there's no known cure. This may work."
Prichard has looked at some of current pros who utilize the "grip and rip" philosophy he claims is the culprit, and has found some startling statistics. In 2000, Sergio Garcia ranked No. 4 on the PGA tour in putts per round, but fell all the way to 141st in 2006. Tiger Woods - whose swing coach, Hank Haney, developed a nasty case of the yips in his playing days - fell from No. 20 in putts per round when he hired Haney to No. 137 last year. Vijay Singh recently switched to a long-shaft putter to combat his crippling putting issues.
Prichard has instituted his theory in his teachings of a few pros, with strong results. Miriam Nagl joined the LPGA tour in 2002 and hooked up with Prichard in July 2004. Since then, she has improved her putting performance from 60th on the tour to 35th. She had also been experiencing back pain (presumably from overgripping the club) which Prichard's techniques alleviated.
"I've been following his advice and his teaching. I do think with a lot of his ideas, he's right," Nagl said. "They're very different, but they work."
Nagl called Prichard's regimen the best training she's ever done and is a staunch supporter of his theory of the yips. So could Prichard become the golfing equivalent of Sir Isaac Newton? Or will people disregard his wild ideas?
"I hope it works," Wilmott said. "It would help a whole lot of people."
*****
At this website, I hope, all people are welcome, but it is important to back up statements, claims, beliefs, and opinions at least with sound argument or perhaps with scientifically valid observations and data and knowledge. Can you share some of your research and ideas?
For example, you mention "scarring" of forearm muscles. How has this been observed, in a medical sense? Has this been observed in Faldo, for example? My impression is that he lost his ability to putt shortly after starting to work with Craig Farnsworth in 1996, when Faldo plummeted down the putting stats to dead last on Tour and remained there for the ensuing years with a brief exception in 2000. Hogan was in a terrible car accident before he started suffering from the yips.
What about the many other people with the yips who do NOT overgrip their drivers?
Why would scarring of forearm muscles cause them to spasm when the golfer lightly grips a putter? What is the physiological mechanism that connects scarring to spasms?
Do these people with this sort of yips from overgripping also have spasms when using the forearms in a gentle pattern of muscle activiation apart from golf -- holding a paint brush or signing checks, for example? Any data or observations along these lines?
It's pretty easy to mystify someone about the yips when that person basically starts without any significant knowledge about the brain, the body, and different forms of movement problems. I don't think that is the case here.
The recent book "Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain" addresses brain "plasticity" and has a section on "focal dystonia" as it affects muscisians and others. The idea put forth there is that the fine network in the brain's "somatosensory" cortex (not the movement cortex), in which the different fingers are separately represented and tracked, becomes "trained" over long associated usage of close-by fingers into a state of "fused" neurons in the somatosensory cortex so that what formerly was two or three fingers acting and being used separately becomes one massed-together finger. A restraint-plus-retraining protocol regenerates the separate networks and restores former functioning.
This is one of a number of different theories based upon hard medical evidence. How do you account for these other theories and their apparent success?
Thanks for the information
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
PuttingZone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.
Not hearing back from Bob Prichard about the details of his "theory," I looked a little deeper into his writings at his website for his book The Efficient Golfer. (He also has the SomaxSports.com website.)
The bottom line is that his theory stands or falls on the idea that microfiber accumulation in the upper limb muscles from overstrenuous use of these muscles in the driver swing to resist centrifugal forces 'CAUSES SPASMS" when the golfer grips a putter lightly and tries to make a stroke. The technical term is "microfibrosis." The seminal sentence reads: "These bound up, tense muscles just can’t grip the putter lightly and they revolt by going into spasm, or ‘yipping’."
Okay, yes or no? Is there any merit to this claim that microfiber-encased muscles spasm in a putting stroke?
Just from jump-street, this proposition per se looks like half-baked logic (see my questions in the above post). From a neurophysiological perspective, what causes a "spasm"? "A spasm is a sudden, involuntary contraction of a muscle, a group of muscles." (Wikipedia, "Spasm".) One of many causes of spasms is "dystonia," our familiar term from "yips" research: "Dystonia is a neurological movement disorder in which sustained muscle contractions cause twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal postures. The disorder may be inherited or caused by other factors such as birth-related or other physical trauma, infection or reaction to drugs." (Wikipedia, "Dystonia">).
There is an extensive research literature concerning microfibrosis and heart muscle. The main idea in this literature is that the microfiber "scarring" changes the spatial distribution of nerve junctions and introduces "disturbances" in the normal firing rhythms of the heart muscle. That's not really a "spasm," which is a pronounced contraction out of the desired and intended nerve activation pattern. The only webpage in the universe that connects the terms "microfibrosis" and "spasm" on the same page is the one posted by Bob Pritchard (that's a VERY rare search result on Google! See the search "microfibrosis spasm"). The "theory" of microfibers according to Bob is laid out in the SomaxSports website. The microfibers are said to form in response to overuse and stress-induced muscle tension as a way to immobilize damaged muscle tissue so it can heal itself, but then the microfiber "cast" stays around and accumulates over the years and makes older people stiff. But nowhere in this does it say that accumulated microfibers cause "spasms". The closest he comes to saying that is when he says that microfiber restiction in the hips results in overuse of lower back muscles, and overuse of lower back muscles in turn results in pain, inflammation, and spasms. Not the same proposition at all.
The basic remedy offered by Bob for microbribrosis is stretching to restore flexibility and a tension-free state of the afflicted muscle groups. Similar therapy is sometimes used to alleviate dystonic spasms, such as that noted by the Mayo Clinic.
Another relation between microfibers and spasms is seen in "myofascial trigger points", which are muscle knots that result from chronic, unreleived tension or contraction of a muscle that ordinarily only contracts and relaxes in cycles. Massage therapy is a common allieviative approach. But even here the microfibers do not seem to cause the muscle contractions in the first place (trauma does), and a sustained muscle contraction is not really a "spasm" in the normal sense anyway. And moreover, the connection between microfibers and trigger points is controversial and not well supported by research:
"Muscle knots are abnormal areas within the muscle, which cause pain. The medical term for the muscle knots is myofascial trigger points. We do not know everything about what they are. When doctors have biopsied (cut a piece out of) muscle knots, some abnormal protein deposits seem to be present. Some treating practitioners believe that there is excessive connective tissue in these areas, but there is little evidence in the (unfortunately few) studies that have been done to support the idea of excess connective tissue."
The following is a pretty succinct summary of muscle cramps and spasms:
"Muscle cramps
Definition:
Muscle cramps are involuntary and often painful contractions of the muscles which produce a hard, bulging muscle.
Muscle twitching (fasciculation) is the result of spontaneous local muscle contractions that are involuntary. Typically, these contractions only affect individual muscle groups connected to (innervated by) a particular motor neuron. This twitching does not cause pain.
Ordinary muscle cramps are common and may be stopped by stretching the affected muscle.
Muscle twitches are minor and often go unnoticed. Some are common and normal, while others indicate a neurologic disorder.
Common Causes:
Muscle spasms can cause cramps and are usually brought on by the following:
* Muscle fatigue
* Heavy exercise
* Dehydration
* Pregnancy
* Hypothyroidism
* Depleted magnesium or calcium stores or other metabolic abnormalities
* Alcoholism
* Kidney failure leading to uremia
* Medications
Muscle twitching may lead to cramping and may involve the following:
* Benign, nonpathologic fasciculations (not caused by disease or disorders)
o Often affecting the eyelids, calf or thumb
o Commonly triggered by stress, anxiety
* Diet deficiency
* Side effects of drugs, especially diuretics or caffeine
More serious causes of fasciculations -- such as motor neuron disease, muscle diseases, or denervation -- are usually accompanied by weakness and atrophy of the affected muscle group, as well as other signs and symptoms."
(Healthcentral.com.) The term "fasciculations" indicates muscle twitches that may be related to muscle tension:
"twitch" is a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction (twitching) visible under the skin arising from the spontaneous discharge of a bundle of skeletal muscle fibers. Fasciculations have a variety of causes, the majority of which are benign, but can also be due to disease of the motor neurons.
Causes and risk factors
Conditions
* The origin of most cases is at present unknown and has therefore been given the title benign fasciculation syndrome[1].
* Werdnig-Hoffman disease
* Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease)
* Poisoning by organophosphates
* Benzodiazepine withdrawal
* Magnesium deficiency
* Dehydration
* Fatigue
Medications
Other risk factors may include the use of anticholinergic drugs over long periods, in particular ethanolamines such as Benadryl, used as an antihistamine and sleep aid, and Dramamine for nausea and motion sickness. Persons with Benign fasciculation syndrome (BFS) may experience paraesthesia shortly after taking such medication; hours later as it wears off (especially upon awaking), fasciculation episodes begin.
Stimulants can cause fasciculations directly. These include caffeine, pseudoephedrine (Sudafed®), and the asthma bronchodilators albuterol/salbutamol (e.g. Proventil®, Combivent®, Ventolin®). Medications used to treat attention deficit disorder often contain stimulants as well, and are common causes of benign fasciculations.
Treatment
Inadequate magnesium intake can cause fasciculations, especially after a magnesium loss due to severe diarrhea. Over-exertion is another risk factor for magnesium loss. As much as 80% of the population does not get the recommended daily amount of magnesium; this may be a common cause. Treatment is with supplements or increased intake of foods rich in magnesium, especially almonds & other nuts, and bananas. Ironically, magnesium supplements may result in diarrhea and more magnesium loss.
Fasciculation also often occurs during a rest period after sustained stress, such as that brought on by unconsciously tense muscles. Reducing stress and anxiety is therefore another useful treatment."
(Wikipedia, "Fasciculation".) That's all very interesting. However, actually USING the affected muscle makes the twictching cease:
"Benign fasciculation syndrome (BFS) is a neurological disorder characterized by fasciculation (twitching) of various voluntary muscles in the body. The twitching can occur in any voluntary muscle group but is most common in the eyelids, arms, legs, and feet. Even the tongue may be affected. The twitching may be occasional or may go on nearly continuously. Any intentional movement of the involved muscle causes the fasciculations to cease immediately, but they may return once the muscle is at rest again.
Contents"
From a mechanical perspective, if the connective sheathing of the muscle spindles is made stiff by excess microfiber, then the "stiffness" is a friction-laden sliding of one muscle spindle against another, and perhaps a "binding" or "sticking" of the sliding action. On this model, a sudden breaking free from the sticking would appear similar to a "quake" when a fault line between tension-compressed tectonic plates slips free and the opposing surfaces slide past or over one another. If that is the supposed mechanism that relates microfibers to muscle "spasms", then that is a one-off sort of occurence that is nothing like a nerve-action induced involuntary spasm that repeatedly occurs in a certain context like a putting stroke.
Perhaps Bob knows more about this than he has so far been able to express, but it doesn't appear so. I can't make any sense of his "theory" based on his explanations. He seems to get a lot of credit for the effectiveness of his "stretching" exercises to help golfers increase their range of motion, but this step into the realm of the "yips" looks like a stretch onto a branch that won't hold up under the tension.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
PuttingZone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.
This message has been edited by aceputt from IP address 75.177.5.154 on Jul 11, 2007 11:38 AM This message has been edited by aceputt from IP address 75.177.5.154 on Jul 11, 2007 11:33 AM This message has been edited by aceputt from IP address 75.177.5.154 on Jul 11, 2007 11:30 AM
So far I have parsed out two "yip theories", namely:
Prichard argues that over-gripping the driver and keeping the spine angle constant puts so much strain on the forearms, it actually breaks down the muscle fibers in the arms. Those fibers then develop scar tissue when they heal and makes the muscles stiff and tight. When the golfer then has to lightly grip the putter for a crucial putt, the muscles will spasm and the golfer will botch his putt - ergo, the yips.
... and ...
The recent book "Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain" addresses brain "plasticity" and has a section on "focal dystonia" as it affects muscisians and others. The idea put forth there is that the fine network in the brain's "somatosensory" cortex (not the movement cortex), in which the different fingers are separately represented and tracked, becomes "trained" over long associated usage of close-by fingers into a state of "fused" neurons in the somatosensory cortex so that what formerly was two or three fingers acting and being used separately becomes one massed-together finger. A restraint-plus-retraining protocol regenerates the separate networks and restores former functioning.
The Pritchard theory seems to suggest that the spasms are involuntary and only present themselves when grip pressure is softened and the full golfswing is not anticipated. The other theory seems to suggest that it's all in the brain. So are the yips an involuntary reflex or are they due to altered brain structure?
Also, which muscles of the forearm and upper arm are involved .. the large bellied flexor/extensor muscles, the pronator/supinators, surely not the finger tendons ...???
Spasms in the flexor/extensor muscles would cause elbow joint movement, while the pronator/supinators would cause rotational movement of the forearm. Can it be a combination of the two movements?
So where do yips originate and how do they present themselves?
Second, I would comment that there are more than two "theories" floating around right now, but the sound view basically says the yips are "neurological" (although the exact neurological mechanism is not known) and the neurological problem may be exacerbated by psychological stress or anxiety.
A couple of dead ideas: the yips are purely psychological; the yips are simply based on bad history and memory; the yips can be ground out of your system by correct practice 20,000 repetitions.
Some half-baked ideas with some poorly understood sense in them: hypnosis may help some; EFT may help some; certain therapeutic / rehabilitative protocols may help some; drugs may help some; a change of postural and movement strategy for the stroke may help some.
There are four basic areas in the brain and body to look for the problem: the arm and hand muscles; the motor cortex; the somatosensory cortex; and the cerebellum / basal ganglia complex.
I believe that the muscles per se are the LEAST likely place to find the problem, as the muscles ONLY misbehave during the specific task and even then only in certain situations where the task matters. This means the problem is more centrally located.
I think the second least likely source is the motor cortex, as this is really just the last mechanical phase of movement. The MC mostly just does what it is told by the planning process spread over the parietal lobe and the frontal lobe.
The somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobe is a vital link in movement planning because it is tracking the HERE of the body and its parts for the movement from HERE to THERE. Without good info about the body parts, the human has a problem moving that part. This is why the srticle about musician's fingers "fusing" in the somatosensory representation of the (delicate) fingers is interesting. My article suggests the same thing.
The usual suspect for "dystonia" is the basal ganglia, which is the area of the brain that has a problem in Parkinson's Disease (the cells of the substantia nigra lose the ability to generate dopamine). Treatments for Parkinson's are generally at the top of the list for dystonia as well: drugs, botulinum injections to calm the muscles, and a few other tricks. But dystonia is not the same as Parkinson's really, and very likely has causes beyond the basal ganglia. One aspect that bears scrutiny is the so-called "tri-phasic" pattern of muscle contractions that usually accompany everyday "reaching and grasping." The motor cortex fires the ballistic sending of the limb and hand at the coffee cup, the cerebellum fires the brakes with wonderful timing about midway to effectuate a graceful docking, and then when the hand has preshaped itself to take hold of the handle and gets there and does so, the forearm muscles then clamp everything down in place safely with a balanced tension of agonist-vs-antagonist paired muscles. The basal ganglia handles the proper sequencing and the sequential starting and stopping of the phases of a movement. Perhaps the whole system is frayed so that the difficulty knowing where the hand is located at the beginning throws a monkey wrench into the basal ganglia sequencing and this fires the brakes out of turn. This could "freeze" the starting of the stroke, generate some anxiety, and then the stroke does not come unstuck gracefully but jerks loose.
Who knows, really? The Mayo Clinic under the leadership of Dr Charles Adler in the Scottsdale office is now heading up the effort instead of the "sports science" folks in Riochester Minnesota, so perhaps we will hear something interesting in a year or so.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
PuttingZone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.
This message has been edited by aceputt from IP address 75.177.5.154 on Jul 12, 2007 12:34 PM This message has been edited by aceputt from IP address 75.177.5.154 on Jul 12, 2007 12:32 PM
Sorry to take so long to respond to your comments on my new yips theory but I have been very busy ever since the publication of my new book The Efficient Golfer.
Microfibrosis is well-known in the scientific research community. The only reason that there are no websites other than our own is that we have developed the only reliable means of reversing microfibrosis.
To find research papers on microfibrosis, enter 'microfibrosis muscle injury' (without the apostrophes) in www.google.com. When the results come up, at the top of the page you will see a menu. Click on 'More' and then 'Scholar' in the drop down menu. Then click on 'Search'. The top item will be a paper by W.T. Stauber "Eccentric action of muscles: physiology, injury, and adaptation". Clck on 'Related Articles' just below the title and you will find a listing of 119 articles on microfibrosis.
Microfibrosis is the body's response to tearing of individual muscle fibers (there are tens of thousands of individual fibers in each muscle). This tearing occurs most frequently from 'eccentric contraction', when the muscle is contracting but is also stretched at the same time.
In response to the tearing of the muscle fibers, fibroblasts (fiber creating cells) migrate to the injured site to create scar tissue or microfibrosis.
Microfibrosis is the 'dirty little secret' of weight lifting. A strength trainer is not going to tell you that he is going to make your muscles bigger by tearing them, but that is what happens. Scar tissue forms and the individual fibers and muscles increase in size and strength as they repair.
Most people experience the tearing as soreness the next day. This is why trainers recommend training a different set of muscles each day so that the torn muscle fibers will have time to recover.
Steroids speed up the recovery process, allowing lifters to lift heavier weights, tear more fibers, and bulk up more.
The propensity to form microfibers is genetic. Some people form them more readily than others, just as some people form more adhesions (another form of scar tissue) after abdominal surgery than others.
This is why someone like Tiger Woods can lift weights, bulk up, and not be adversely affected right away.
But others, who develop microfibers more readily, lose their flexibility and find their golf plateaus or goes in the tank (David Duval is a good example).
Certainly gripping the driver to prevent extension of the arms and club on the downswing qualifies as an 'eccentric contraction'. It is difficult for golfers to be aware of the amount of pull generated by the driver, because it happens so quickly. But the driver does pull away from you with about 100 lbs. of force. Imagine, if you will, holding onto a 100 lb. sack of cement that is supported by a table. Suddenly, the table drops away for a fraction of a second, but you try to keep your elbows bent. You can imagine the stress on your forearm muscles. This is what Snead and Hogan did. You can see it in their photos at www.theefficientgolfer.com/yips.html
They did this hundreds of times a day for decades on end.
It's not hard to see that some muscle fiber tearing had to take place.
In looking at the swings of dozens of well-known golfers, we have not found one that 'went ballistic', that is, let their arms and club extend, who developed the yips. Yet, we have found nearly half a dozen who gripped their driver so hard that they were able to fight off a hundred pound pull who did develop the yips.
Because we see that the yips are related to overuse of the forearm muscles, we caution golfers against lifting weights. In most upper body workouts with free weights, you have to contract the forearm muscles to stabilize the weight. This leads to overuse of the muscles and tearing of the muscle fibers.
Most of the work we have done with professional golfers has been undoing the damage caused by lifting weights. Since more and more amateur golfers are now lifting weights, we find that much of the work we do with them is reversing the damage that they have done to their bodies with weight lifting.
The problem, of course, is that you don't know if you are going to be the 1 in 1,000 who develops microfibers very slowing, or one of the 999 who will develop them quickly enough to affect your flexibility. Do you want to risk the chance of losing your flexibility in your 50's and 60's (or maybe even developing the yips) just to have bigger, stronger muscles today?
We have also seen the effects of microfibers on putting from accidents and injuries.
When we started working with David Frost in January 1998, he was ranked 113th on tour in putting average. We released microfibers in his neck and back caused by an accident he had when a teenager. We know from experience that microfibers tend to accumulate over time, which is why people get stiffer as they get older. David gradually lost flexibility in his spine and neck over the years.
Good putters putt with their stomach muscles, rotating their rib cage during the putt. The arms and shoulders go along for the ride. If the vertebra in the back are bound up with microfibers, the golfer does not have a smoothly rotating core. He has to fight against these microfibers during his putting motion.
After we released microfibers along Frosty's spine, his rank in putting average went from #113 to #67. We worked with him again in January 1999 and he went from #67 to #12. By 2001, he was #1 on tour and subsequently set a new putting record.
During this time, we did not work on David's technique at all. In others words, David was already an excellent putter. All we did was release the microfibers that were holding him back (pun intended).
We have seen similar improvements in all the other golfers we have worked with. As we release microfibers around their spine, they putt better. Typical injuries that can affect putting are falling down on your back, getting the wind knocked out of you, and automobile accidents. Even illness can cause microfibers. If you had a heavy coughing spell when you were young from bronchitis, for instance, microfibers can form around the posterior inferior serratus muscles (the coughing muscles) in your back, restricting the movement of your spine during putting.
I recommend to all golfers that they set up their camcorder at chest height and videotape themselves from the back (with their shirt off) while they are putting. Most golfers are shocked to see how little movement there is at each vertebrae. Often there are 5-8 vertebra that move as a group. Many times, all movement stops 5-7 vertebra from the bottom.
You can sometimes see this on tournament players. Watch their shirts from the back when they putt. Good putters like Tiger Woods have movement all the way down to their belt. On others, like Charles Howell, you can see that there is no movement half way down his spine.
Although training and technique are important in putting (we have a whole chapter on it in our book) it is critical to remember that you putt with your body. Problems with flexibility, whether global or local, can and do affect your putting motion. Releasing microfibers that are restricting flexibility is the fastest way we have found to improve putting.
Cheers.
Bob Prichard
www.the-efficient-golfer.com
www.somaxsports.com
I don't have the yips. I began playing golf seriously late in life and after being a decent tennis and badminton player with a well developed right forearm ... and as you know, these racquet sports stress the swinging forearm.
When I obsessively took up golf in later mid-life, I realized I had to develop my left forearm and hand for a more exquisite control to the striking clubs, particularly the driver. I developed my left forearm 50/50 conditioning exercises/ball striking. Now my forearms are equal size and my left hand is slightly larger than my right..go figure!! I tell you this anecdotally as a preamble to my question and suggestion.
what you are talking about is the lead arm and hand that is subject to the gripping tension and supination torque applied to the driver and irons, not the rear arm which is only an extending ballistic arm, where the gripping pressure at impact drops approaching impact (Evaluation of golf club control by grip pressure - Budney & Bellows - Science and Golf I, pg. 30-35 - 1990). Therefore the rear arm is not subject to the same repetitive stresses as is the lead arm and should not suffer 'microfibrosis' scarring. The lead arm 'pulls' while the rear arm 'pushes' .. very different forces.
The yip culprit must be the lead arm since it is the only arm that is subject to the forces and torque causing 'microfibrosis' in the lead forearm.
My question is: if the lead arm holding the putter at the top of the grip is in fact causing the yips, can you eliminate yips by placing the rear hand on top of the putter handle and putt either cross-handed or on the opposite side? Can yips be eliminated or reduced by placing the offending lead hand on the bottom of the putter handle and relegating it to pulling and pushing the putter while the rear hand is supporting the putter from the top?
If these changes do not affect the yips, then there must be a psychological component that perhaps is triggering some kind of feedback from the involuntarily yipping arms to the mind that exacerbates putting stability, i.e. the chaos grows as the putting stroke proceeds. Do both arms yip?
I believe you are not attributing the yips to microfibrosis in the back spinal muscles.
I have been working with Bob Pritchard on and off for the past year, helping him develop his new book and instructional video called "THE EFFICIENT GOLFER". I admit that it took me quite a while to open myself up to his theories and logic, but as time goes by I keep finding more and more things that are correct about his theories.
A little background on myself: I am a professional golfer who has been competing on the mini-tours here in California for the past 2 years. I graduated from UC San Diego in 2005 with a degree in Biology and played on the golf team there for 4 years. I also recently entered the PGA Program to become a Class A Teaching Professional, and if you throw in my work with Mr. Pritchard, I have at least a working knowledge about the science, theory and practice on this topic.
Bob calls the yips a spasm caused by extreme tension in the forearms due to microfiber accumulation and other factors. You challenged that theory in one of your posts, stating that by the biological definition of "spasm", such an action could really not be caused by the tension in the forearms. While this may be true by the book, in my experience what biology calls a "spasm" and what golfers call a "spasm" are quite different. In my playing experience, I have had occasional bouts with the yips, and afterwards I have tried to analyze what was happening in my brain and my body that caused me to yip.
First, I noticed a similarity in my thoughts between putting and driving a car. The thoughts in my head when I yip a putt are similar to that immediate reaction of "Oh, Crap!" followed by a swerve and overcorrection and slamming of the brakes in your car to avoid an accident. I can feel in my body when something is off in my swing or putting stroke, and when I have yipped it is when my body sends me warning signals that the start of my stroke is incorrect which my brain responds to in the middle of my stroke to try to rectify. That "spasm" is the quick attempt to overcorrect an incorrect maneuver to avoid an accident.
Second, those warning signals that my body sends to my brain prior to the yip can be caused by factors along the lines of Bob's theory. My putting stroke breaks down when my hands, arms and shoulders become disconnected from each other and move out of sequence. When I am putting well, they all move as one piece or in the order shoulders, arms, hands. However, when things go wrong the stroke starts from the hands followed by the arms, then shoulders. This is oftentimes caused under periods of tension like clutch situations, where subconciously my grip pressure increases and tension throughout my body increases. Because of my work with Bob on my swing, I do not have much of a problem with overgripping the driver to cause the tension and microfibers in my forearms, so my yipping only happens occasionally. But imagine the professionals that do have that problem, and the thousands of hackers with careers in other areas that you see grip every club to death and how much tension they have in their arms. Every single putt could be a constant battle between your brain and your body to make a correct stroke. If you could somehow release that tension I think you would see that the yips would go away.
I welcome your response. Thanks
Joe Dolby
PGA Apprentice
Coyote Creek Golf Club
Morgan Hill, CA 95037
joebirdie3@yahoo.com
Thanks for the help in getting into this subject more deeply.
I agree with your basic observation that problems come into play when the golfer starts the stroke using the hands, as this usually gets the body parts out of synchronized coordination or at the very least creates timing and spatial movement problems that didn't have to crop up. Now, with that common ground to start from, we ought to probe the best way to avoid that.
The basic premise in your post is that "tension" causes the use of the hands and a breakdown in coordination and that pressure causes tension. I agree that this is the case for almost all golfers on earth and that something needs to be done about it. I just don't quite follow what "microfibers" have to do with eaither causing tension or reducing / eliminating tension, especially under pressure.
I don't really get what you mean when you say a golfer "spasm" is not the same as a "spasm" as the term is used in a physiological sense. (Your description and use of the term "yips" is not the same as that used by researchers into movement dystonias.) I don't see a clear explanation of how "microfibers" can be said to "cause" tension. I don't see how ONLY golfers with "microfiber" problems experience tension (this is obviously not the case).
My prejudicial view is that all of this vague talk about "microfibers" causing problems or leading to cures in putting lacks merit completely, with the possible exception that certain physical therapies may or may not reduce microfiber encasement of muscles, may or may not reduce tension generally in stroke movements, and may or may not have some influence on improving performance under pressure. But of course I willing to listen and learn!
I would appreciate anyone filling in the blanks here for me. Can you tell me more on these specific issues?
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
PuttingZone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.