Golf training exercises are different from golf lessons in that they are intended to promote better retention and recall of golf skills, rather than the initial learning of stroke mechanics. When experiencing something for the first time, you'll need to learn it; if you want to use it later, you'll need to retain it; when you want to use that skill at a specific time, you'll need to recall it. Golf training exercises will promote the correct motor memory that will make your lessons more worthwhile.
Create Motor Memory
Your muscles don't have brains, so they can't remember anything. Swinging a club mindlessly for hours to achieve "muscle memory" in the hope that your muscles will "remember" what you're doing actually degrades sport movements. By tiring your central nervous system, you begin to swing with your weight back, make contact late, use compensatory (easier) muscle movements and otherwise imprint bad habits. Fewer quality repetitions is the key to learning, retention and recall of golf skills.
Block Practice
Swinging the same club over and over in the same way is called block practice. This is the best way to quickly learn or re-learn a new skill. However, it does not promote retention or recall of a skill. You don't get 99 practice swings on the golf course before you have to make that approach shot to the green, so why hit 100 balls on the practice range if your goal is to use that shot next weekend?
Variable Practice
Practicing the same skill in different ways helps promote the retention of the skill. If you are working on keeping your elbow in during your downswing, for example, instead of hitting 100 balls with the same club, change clubs and positions (hit from a tee and from the ground) every eight to 10 swings. This will make not only your muscles adjust, but your brain, as well, and will promote better skill retention.
Random Practice
According to researchers at Harvard and City University of New York, "When overlearned motor acts are mindfully considered while they are being performed, performance typically is severely disrupted."
A newly learned and retained skill should be practiced in the environment in which it will be eventually used (e.g., on the course) to promote recall of that skill on the course. After block and variable practice time, "play" a practice round on the driving range to get used to using the new skill in a match play environment. Take a course card and "play" the first hole. Even if you are working on chip shots, start with a driver off a tee, and hit your first shot. Depending on where your ball lands, pick the next club you would use if you were really playing the hole and hit it off the mat. Now it's time for your wedge. This type of practice promotes recall of golf skills.
Overlearning
Once a skill has been "figured out" or you "get it," many more consecutive repetitions will not improve the skill. Once a skill becomes easy to repeat, the number of attempts it took you to "get it" should be divided by two, and that is the number of repetitions you should take to finish working on that skill. So if it took you 40 swings to get to a point where you are now able to perform the skill correctly, hit 20 more balls to get the maximal benefit from continued block practice before moving on to variable practice, or from variable to random. This is called 50 percent overlearning.
References
- "Teaching Golf Lessons That Last"; Milano; 1998
- "Practice Like You Play"; Milano; 1998
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