Why no FATS are present

[Twitch127]

Mike,

After you posted up a finding showing no FATS being recorded from midway down the downswing, I stumbled across a possible answer for this. It turns out it's not possible!

There is no FATS being recorded because your right arm cannot add any force of significance in the downswing. The rotational motion of the body during the downswing creates a centripetal force towards the centre of the axis of rotation. This inturn creates a centrfugal reaction of the club, which is a pseudo force (it's there but it doesn't have an origin in the body or the club). All your arms and wrists feel is a torque that has been created by these two forces mentioned above. You can either hold the torque for a long period of time in a positive fashion or allow the torque to dissipate in a short period of time being a negative fashion. There your only two options, you cannot add force with the muscularture of the arms and wrists.
As you mentioned the forces recorded were present high up the club and closer to the axis of rotation of the body. This is due to the inward force created by the centripetal force. For angular acceleration to be present the force must be in the direction of that acceleration ie. the axis of rotation of the body.

In short your arms cannot add force during the downswing because the force cannot be tangential if the club is accelerating in a circular fashion. Under this law the force has to be directed towards the centre. Your coupling point idea would look to "ride this force" instead of distrupting it, which is what would happen if you try and take the hands too much towards the target.

Your definately onto something..

your thoughts Mike?

Twitch

[mgranato]

Twitch, can you say all that again but pretend like you're talking to a 5th grader? For my sake not Mike's.

[Twitch127]

Ok, how's this.

If your spnning a weight on the end of a piece of string attached to a spool, if you rotate the spool very fast the weight at the distal end has extremely fast angular velocity which creates a huge stress on the string. The string might well break because of the centripetal forces being created towards the spool. That tension on the string is the same as the tension your arms feel during the downswing. If the string breaks the weight flies off in a tangent instead of going around in a circle, thus dissipating the angular velocity. Same thing if you disrupt the correct hand path ie. directing hands to much forward out to an aim point.

Any better

[mgranato]

Strings and weights, I understand. Apologies to the rest of the class.

So... You're saying that you can't apply two different forces (centripetal and FATS) at the same time? You will either be artificially directing your hand path (towards an aim point), or they will be reacting "naturally" to the centripetal forces from the club head's velocity?

[Twitch127]

As far as I can make out with the resources I have any FATS are reactionary forces caused by rotational torque not created by the right arm itself. as for the hand path it can disrupt the angular speed of the club and obviously impact aligments of the club.

You will either be artificially directing your hand path (towards an aim point), or they will be reacting "naturally" to the centripetal forces from the club head's velocity?

This seems like a fair comment to me mgranato. You either harness the forces or disrupt them, this is what timing seems to be about.

[glcoach]

Why do bad golfers record force across the shaft then?

[mgranato]

Because they are most influenced by instruction (the not from around here kind).

[Michael Jacobs]

Mike,

After you posted up a finding showing no FATS being recorded from midway down the downswing, I stumbled across a possible answer for this. It turns out it's not possible!

There is no FATS being recorded because your right arm cannot add any force of significance in the downswing. The rotational motion of the body during the downswing creates a centripetal force towards the centre of the axis of rotation. This inturn creates a centrfugal reaction of the club, which is a pseudo force (it's there but it doesn't have an origin in the body or the club). All your arms and wrists feel is a torque that has been created by these two forces mentioned above. You can either hold the torque for a long period of time in a positive fashion or allow the torque to dissipate in a short period of time being a negative fashion. There your only two options, you cannot add force with the muscularture of the arms and wrists.
As you mentioned the forces recorded were present high up the club and closer to the axis of rotation of the body. This is due to the inward force created by the centripetal force. For angular acceleration to be present the force must be in the direction of that acceleration ie. the axis of rotation of the body.

In short your arms cannot add force during the downswing because the force cannot be tangential if the club is accelerating in a circular fashion. Under this law the force has to be directed towards the centre. Your coupling point idea would look to "ride this force" instead of distrupting it, which is what would happen if you try and take the hands too much towards the target.

Your definately onto something..

your thoughts Mike?

Twitch

Twitch,

Thanks for the post, I like what you have written... I believe that I am way more than 'on to something'

I am looking forward to publishing all of my findings, here is an important drawing that summarizes what you are talking about