The Long Ball Trainer

What is the Long Ball Trainer?

Used by PGA Pro Steve Jones, 1996 US Open Winner

How The Brain Learns The Golf Swing At Different Ages

NEUROMUSCULAR STRENGTH TRAINER

The Long Ball Trainer is a movement specific strength trainer designed to force you to use the exact muscles you should be using to hit the golf ball like a PGA touring pro. This swing trainer is the gold standard for golf training aids. This is a palpable, tactile and tangible feeling experience. You have to get on this trainer in order to understand what it can do for you. There are no words that can describe what this feeling is going to be for you. What you feel is not going to be exactly the same as what other golfers feel. That is not possible. But, when you use this trainer for the first time, everyone will FEEL a higher strength level after 45 seconds on this machine. As far as golf training equipment goes, there is no other equipment that can do what this trainer can do. That additional strength that you will feel after the first workout, will stay with you for a week.

Even though the long ball trainer uses weights for resistance, this is not a weightlifting machine. This is a neuromuscular strength training machine and you do not need to make your muscles larger for this machine to make you stronger. Weightlifting machines are designed for you to isolate one muscle and try to make it as large as possible. To enable that muscle to grow, the muscle must tear a little bit. If the muscle tears too much, then you have an injury. When you’re using the Long Ball Trainer, you were using dozens of muscles at one time. Because you’re using so many muscles at once, the resistance on the machine is distributed between all these muscles and not isolated to just one muscle. Because you’re using all these muscles, your chance of injury is practically zero unless you are not following instructions. This trainer will allow you to FEEL the muscles that you should be using in your downswing. This feeling can be given to you after 45 second on the trainer. When you can feel all the movement specific muscles in the downswing, then you can utilize good golf instruction.

RECRUITS GOLF-SPECIFIC MUSCLES

When you are working out on the trainer, your brain is recruiting all the golf-specific muscles that a PGA touring pro has been using all his life. The average US golfer is only using about 60% of the golf-specific muscles that a PGA touring pro uses. This is primarily because the average US golfer did not play enough golf as a child and their brain did not connect these small muscles, that are automatically wired up to the brain, just from playing enough golf. When you start to use the trainer correctly, this workout will create new neural connections called synapses. These connections are being made to the small muscles that you have NOT been using. Once you create the synapse, you can get electrical impulses to those small muscles and they start to take on some of the resistance, that was previously given to the large muscles only. The creation of these synapse also gives you the ability to FEEL these muscles being used. Now you will start to get feedback from these small muscles concerning whether they are being used. This is how your brain creates wiring or new synapse, that is necessary to make muscles function that have never been used in this manner before. By recruiting all the golf specific muscles in the pro type swing, now you will have the tools to create a pro like golf swing.

SEQUENCE TRAINER

This golf swing trainer is a golf swing sequence trainer, and it is the only swing trainer that forces the user to have a proper downswing sequence while training. Most amateur golfers are firing the wrong muscles, at the wrong time. If you are accustomed to starting the downswing with your hands and arms, the trainer is going to make this very difficult to do. At the top of the swing, the resistance is four times heavier than it is at the impact area. This forces you to use stronger muscles in the beginning of the downswing. These stronger muscles are your core muscles. As you pull the swing arm down toward the impact area the resistance gets four times easier. This is the only swing trainer that forces you to use the correct golf specific muscles at the correct time. The initial move downward from the top of your swing is called, by many instructors, the “magic move”.

PLANE TRAINER

The Long Ball Trainer can be used as a golf swing plane trainer. Once you set the trainer to a specific plane angle, it will keep your hands and the club, generally on the same plane. There is a lot of misinformation about the golf swing plane concerning what it is and where it is stored. Here is a scientific fact.

THERE IS NOT SUCH THING AS A SINGLE PLANE GOLF SWING. IT IS NOT POSSILE FOR YOUR HANDS, YOUR GOLF GRIP, THE GOLF SHAFT AND THE HEAD OF THE GOLF CLUB, TO STAY ON A SINGLE PLANE DURING THE TAKE A WAY OR THE DOWNSWING, EVER! That would defy the laws of physics.

MOTOR MEMORY TRAINER

When you are training on this machine, all the things that your brain is learning about the swing mechanics of a good swing, are being stored into your motor memory. All you need to do to retrieve this information, is to swing the club. Some golfers have the habit of going through a check list in their head, right before they perform the take a way. This process interferes with your ability to retrieve the motor memory information that is stored.

Most golfers that taken the game up later in life, are using the thinking part of the brain, to swing the club all the time. They believe that they need to try and think of everything they should be doing to have a good swing. When a pro golfer is playing, often they have to think about their swing, but this only happens if they have a bad lie or have to hit a particularly shaped shot that they do not normally hit. If the pro golfer hits a fade or a draw most of the time, the pro golfer is not thinking about swing mechanics when they are on the tee or on a level playing surface in the fairway.

When an amateur golfer is playing, they are not aware that the process of thinking is getting in the way of them making a good swing. Walking is the most used and consistent motor skill that we have and use. No one ever thinks about all the muscles that are used, or the sequence that they are used in, when they walk. Someone that knows you well can see you from a far distance and they can identify you, just from the way you walk. Even if you have a swing that does not have great form, if you stop thinking about the mechanics before you take the club back, your swing will be just as consistent as your walk.

Information about your hand position is not stored in motor memory. Motor memory is about things that are moving and the sequence that they are moving in and that is stored in a very specific part of the brain. Position memory is not about movement, and it is more about body component positions, and this is part of your brain’s system of proprioception. Proprioception is about your ability to know where different body parts are without looking at them. Proprioception is also tied into your balance. To use an analogy, proprioception is very much like the GPS on an automobile. A Global Positioning Satellite is keeping track of your car while proprioception is keeping track of your body parts moving. They are both designed for you to be able to keep track of something in space. Your hand position at address is part of position memory; your hand position at the top of your swing is part of position memory; the stance that you use with your feet is also part of position memory and your body posture is also part of position memory. The swing plane that you used during your swing is a general swing plane. That swing plane is generally on a specific angle determined by where your hands are at the top of your downswing. That angle, created by your hand position at the top of the swing, is stored in position memory.

For a more complete explanation of how the why this motor memory learning works differently for golfers at different ages, click on the link, HOW THE BRAIN LEARN THE GOLF SWING AT DIFFERENT AGES.

ELIMINATES COMING OVER THE TOP

If you did not play a lot of golf as a teenager, it is very likely that you are coming over the top and slicing the ball. If you are that person, the best instructor in the world cannot talk the inside out path into your body or motor memory. This is a feel issue, and no one can TALK feel into your brain and body especially when you are over 40. You cannot come over the top using this trainer, even a little bit. Coming over the top is when your shoulders rotate forward too soon during the downswing. If you start to use your core muscles first and allow your weight (your hips) to shift forward during the downswing, and then force your back shoulder down, you will be forcing your hands to create that inside out path that also recruits the lat on your back side. Ninety percent of all golfers are coming over the top. This also means that they are not using the same muscles that a 14-year-old golfer is using.

ELIMINATES CASTING

The handle design makes it impossible to cast even a little bit. At the top of the swing, you cannot cast the handle unless you move the whole machine. This also prevents your hands and grip from being too tight at the impact area, allowing you to have a grip pressure soft enough to hold a bird. This training forces your body to EMULATE the same level of resistance in the appropriate positions, that you would encounter when hitting a ball with the maximum muscle contraction rate.

CURE A HOOK OR SLICE IN 60 SECONDS

The trainer can be used to cure a hook or slice in one minute. The work out only uses a half swing at the bottom of the swing, and it is much easier to perform than a full swing. A hook or slice is caused by the club face being closed or opened at impact. Because the trainer changes what the brain knows about the swing, we can use it to change the angle of the club face at impact. After one set on the trainer, about 90% of all golfers will see an immediate improvement in hitting the ball straighter.

INCREASES FLEXIBILITY AND RANGE OF MOTION

Most golfers are not flexible enough to get the club back as far in their takeaway as they would like. As we get older, we lose range of motion and flexibility. The trainer will slowly pull the golfer’s hands back to this desired take away position on each repetition. This is a position that you may not be able to get to on your own. The trainer creates a stretch in the golf swing muscles before firing. Stretching a muscle before you fire it also helps to develop more strength. The effect of this stretching is immediate.

ELIMINATES GOLF RELATED INJURIES

Many golfers get injuries hitting balls and playing golf primarily because they end up using muscles, that are not conditioned, to perform the golf swing. The Long Ball Trainer is going to condition all these muscles to a level that is beyond where you will need to use them. The work out only takes about five minutes a day to complete. Because you are strength training so many of the exact muscles that you should be using the hit the ball, the load from the weight plates is being distributed over all these muscles at the same time. This distribution of the resistance to many muscles as opposed to just one, is what eliminates getting injured while using this trainer. You do not need to use heavy weight on this trainer, to see results. Working out with lighter weights, will eliminate injuries that you might get from doing a gym workout.

Not only is this going to prevent you from getting injured playing golf, but it will also prevent you from getting injured if you are doing some other kind of strength training. The trainer will make your muscles stronger without having to make them larger. This workout also strengthens the connective tissue to all the muscles used while using this trainer. Training on the Long Ball Trainer pre-habilitates all these body components in a manner that no other trainer has ever been able to do.

BUILDS A THOUGHTLESS AND CONSISTANT SWING

Most golf training tools are limited in what they can do for a golfer. When you are training on this machine, all the things that your brain is learning about the swing mechanics of a good swing, are being stored into your motor memory. All you need to do to retrieve this information, is to swing the club. Some golfers have the habit of going through a check list in their head, right before they perform the take a way. This process interferes with your ability to retrieve the motor memory information that is stored.

Most golfers that taken the game up later in life, are using the thinking part of the brain, to swing the club all the time. They believe that they need to try and think of everything they should be doing to have a good swing. When a pro golfer is playing, often they have to think about their swing, but this only happens if they have a bad lie or have to hit a particularly shaped shot that they do not normally hit. If the pro golfer hits a fade or a draw most of the time, the pro golfer is not thinking about swing mechanics when they are on the tee or on a level playing surface in the fairway.

When an amateur golfer is playing, they are not aware that the process of thinking is getting in the way of them making a good swing. Walking is the most used and consistent motor skill that we have and use. No one ever thinks about all the muscles that are used, or the sequence that they are used in, when they walk. Someone that knows you well can see you from a far distance and they can identify you, just from the way you walk. Even if you have a swing that does not have great form, if you stop thinking about the mechanics before you take the club back, your swing will be just as consistent as your walk.