STEP 4 The exercises you need to swing faster
can vertically jump results in 10 more metres! Measure how high you can jump and how far you can chest pass a med ball at the beginning and end of this program to get an a real sense of how much further you should be driving the ball. With the chest pass ( overleaf ), use a two-kilogram-ball and launch it at roughly a 45-degree angle forward. With the vertical leap ( below ), establish a sticky note as high as you can while standing and then jump and post another note to mark the difference. Your passes and jumps will im- prove by the end of this programme if you routinely do the exercises on these and the following pages.
The mobility work on the previous pages is paramount to avoiding injuries, so don’t proceed to this step until you pass all those tests. Now on to the cool stuff: Many assume the core muscles are the engine of the golf swing, but they’re more like the transmission. Their role is to transfer power, while the legs, butt and chest do the heavy work. Knowing that, there are two big indicators in terms of how far you can drive it—lower- body vertical power and upper-body push power. We’ve found that every foot further you can chest pass a four- pound medicine ball results in six more metres of driv- ing-distance potential. Every 9.5 centimetres higher you
VERTICAL LEAP
116 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
MAY 2026
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