What’s a WPI golf-swing analysis and how can it help your game?

Let’s be clear: There’s a golf-swing “analysis,” and then there’s a golf-swing analysis with the Wisconsin Performance Institute.

A slightly trained person can watch you swing a club, make a few ineffective recommendations and call it a golf-swing analysis. But that’s not how WPI does a golf-swing analysis.

When you come to WPI for a swing analysis, you’ll meet with a Titleist Performance Institute Certified Instructor who also happens to be a highly trained physical therapist. No amateurs here — just an expert in the golf swing and an expert in human performance, all wrapped up in one.

What To Expect During a Swing Analysis

They’ll start you off with a movement analysis and biomechanical assessment on how you’re swinging the club.

Just to be absolutely clear, this is not a golf lesson. Instead, you’ll be hooked up to our Noraxon 3D motion-capture system paired with two high-speed cameras that will record your golf swing.

Usually, swings are recorded using a middle iron and a driver. The recordings of those swings are then broken down into four main moving parts: your pelvis, trunk, and lead arm, and the club.

Once the recordings are complete, a kinematic sequence is run on your swings, and it’s this sequence, when it’s operating at its best, that makes golf swings efficient and reproducible.

If your sequencing — that is, the order in which your main moving parts coordinate and move within the swing to allow you to contact the ball — is in an incorrect order, you can experience decreased distance, missed fairways, pain, poor contact and ball striking, and lost club-head speed.

During the analysis, WPI staff will use the recording of your skeletal form as it moves through the swing to show you inefficiencies, where things break down, and how you can correct those issues and start doing the things you want to do on a golf course – namely, hit the ball further with greater accuracy and less pain.

Post-Analysis Recommendations

To put those recommendations into action you’ll be given exercises and drills specific to you and your body’s limitations and your ideal kinematic sequence. These exercises/drills may be related to flexibility, body awareness, muscle imbalance, weakness, and sequencing.

It’s important to do the exercises at the proper intervals recommended by the WPI staff. It’s the best and fastest way to see improvement.

Following your swing analysis, you’ll have a better understanding of how the body relates to the golf swing and why the biomechanics of your sequence are so important.

In addition to regular swing “tune-ups” at WPI, we recommend that golfers take lessons with a golf professional after a swing analysis, because they’ll improve more significantly when a medical/fitness instructor and their golf instructor work hand-in-hand.

TPI Movement Screen

For golfers who want even more, WPI offers a TPI movement screen and a fitness assessment. These dive further into your areas of limitation and look to optimize your performance for lower scores.

The movement screen further defines your flexibility and body awareness, while the fitness assessment helps pinpoint where you’ll benefit the most from strengthening exercises related directly to the golf swing.

Interested in learning more about golf-swing analysis and other golf-related services from WPI? Contact us today for a consultation. We offer a free, 15-minute initial phone consultation, as well as golf package deals that make a better swing even more affordable. You can have the golf swing you’ve always dreamed up … and WPI can help.