Taking the Baseball Swing from the Batter’s Box to the Tee Box to Develop the Zone-Like Focus
Most baseball players can perform flawlessly under pressure, with thousands of spectators watching under the bright lights of the ball park. They contribute their performance to being IN THE ZONE, a great self-coaching technique that an athlete can develop. This same self-coaching technique can provide the golfer with an ability to be IN THE ZONE under course conditions. Being IN THE ZONE is a totally subconscious function, where the golfer’s muscle memory and primary motor skills are located.
Muscle memory isn’t memory that is found in the fiber of the muscles, but a sequential, instinctive muscle response to properly move in order to avoid injury or to perform a particular task. This can be compared to a weightlifter who uses proper lifting techniques to avoid damaging or injuring their back and body. The weightlifter wants their body in a certain position to lift. In golf, muscle memory is a specific sequence and routine, or ergonomics, of how the golfer wants to engage certain key muscles to Sync/Preset their wrists and elbows with their shoulders.
How the Golfer Can Develop an IN THE ZONE Routine and a Sequential Golf Swing
Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, states that it takes 10,000 hours of practice, or the WHAT (a conscious function), and performance of HOW (a subconscious function) to obtain professional or expert status. Achieving this objective takes effort to train, condition, and develop the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind composes about 90 percent of an athlete’s ability. The subconscious mind is so powerful that it can actually change your perception of reality.
To test this, put on an I-Phone virtual headset and view a program, then see how much of your world changes. Or, just go to a theater where a highly action- packed movie is being shown, and you will experience an elevated pulse rate and heart rate, as if you are right in the action.
IN THE ZONE perception technique is very effective in sports, especially the sport of golf. This technique is called Apperception, or APP for short. This gives the athlete the ability to use existing motor skills and muscle memory in one sport to apply them to another sport to perform at a high level, without having to develop a new skill set. This is a tremendous advantage for the golfer to use who is trying to put in the man-hours needed just to achieve a single-digit handicap status.
From the research I conducted for a paper, I interviewed golfers who had a single-digit handicap and found that it took them approximately between 5,800 to 6,200 man-hours of practice and play to reach their single-digit status, which is equivalent to 6.8 years. These golfers started playing around the age of 10 to 12 years old.
In this research paper that I did for a Kinesiology course, I also compared the baseball swing to that of the golf swing. The college had thousands of feet of videotape of both swings in their archives. I was able to use time-lapse photography to view the two swings side-by-side, particularly the wrist action. What I found out even surprised me about how the wrist action is more similar then different in the two swings. One of these time-lapse comparisons is featured below. I circled the wrist action in both photos to highlight the similarities.
For those golfers aspirating to achieve a single-digit handicap status, or just to improve their golf game, the Apperception, or The ESPY Golf Swing APP Technique is effective. The ESPY Golf Swing APP Technique, could significantly reduce their time and cost by approximately 40 percent to achieve their objective in one of the most effective training methods, Self-coaching Training Procedure (STP).
Even if you are just now picking up the game of golf after your 20’s, you can still fill the gap of not having the fine motor skills for your golf swing with techniques you have already developed. Like most kids, we picked up a baseball bat long before we did a golf club. You can use this to your advantage with ESPY Golf Swing APP (Apperception).
Two of the main advantages of Apperception are that these are permanent, fine motor skills that are developed usually at a young age, before the age of eight (8). The other advantage is that the muscle memory, or routine muscle movement, is well- established with confidence. There’s no substitute for confidence on the golf course. The golfer’s only obstacle is just convincing their subconscious mind to utilize these skills.
For more information on the: QATR-202- IN THE ZONE Baseball-Type Golf Swing, please download the following Self-Coaching Training Procedure, only $25.00 for a training session that you can read and refer to in the future along with all my other STP Locker Room Sessions:
