The intelligent club

[Chieflongtee]

Check it out. Incredible new high tech device:
http://www.smartswinggolf.com/tic/index.html

[BC MIST]

Check it out. Incredible new high tech device:
http://www.smartswinggolf.com/tic/index.html

Think that I will buy the LS 300 at only $799 US plus shipping and handling. At least it's cheaper than the Lexus LS 300.

I often wondered that if a golfer had $1,000,000, bought all the latest gadgets and the best off the rack OEM's from a local retailer, how much his game would actually improve.
Zilch.

[Chieflongtee]

Think that I will buy the LS 300 at only $799 US plus shipping and handling. At least it's cheaper than the Lexus LS 300.

Zilch.

I am not going to buy one but if I were a professional club builder it would be a very handy fitting tool to have along with all our other gadgets such as NFs, frequency meter etc..

[BC MIST]

I am not going to buy one but if I were a professional club builder it would be a very handy fitting tool to have along with all our other gadgets such as NFs, frequency meter etc..

From our experience the NF's and FA help us to assemble better fitting golf clubs, but how will this device help us with clubfitting?

The training aid above may be of some help for those who are teaching, however, to compare the student's swing to an existing professional's or to a model swing, shows a basic lack of understanding golf swing mechanics. If it is a professional's, whom do we choose? Ben Hogan's "flat" swing, Scott Hoch's "upright swing," Lee Trevino's, Moe Norman's?? If a model swing, what model? The Golfing Machine? John Dunnigan's? David Leadbetter's?? Instructors cannot agree on and many don't have clue, as to what "plane" really is, and of its importance.

Lastly, as soon as I hear the term "muscle memory" used to market a product, I know that it is BS, as muscle memory does not exist.

[dbleber]

From our experience the NF's and FA help us to assemble better fitting golf clubs, but how will this device help us with clubfitting?

The training aid above may be of some help for those who are teaching, however, to compare the student's swing to an existing professional's or to a model swing, shows a basic lack of understanding golf swing mechanics. If it is a professional's, whom do we choose? Ben Hogan's "flat" swing, Scott Hoch's "upright swing," Lee Trevino's, Moe Norman's?? If a model swing, what model? The Golfing Machine? John Dunnigan's? David Leadbetter's?? Instructors cannot agree on and many don't have clue, as to what "plane" really is, and of its importance.

Lastly, as soon as I hear the term "muscle memory" used to market a product, I know that it is BS, as muscle memory does not exist.

Should do a little research before making a bold statement like that! Its a proven fact that muscle tissue has "memory". Just one article, there are many.
http://www.thinkmuscle.com/articles/...cle-memory.htm
Denny

[sensfan63]

Uh oh...I can feel one of BC MIST's world famous diatribes coming...

[Chieflongtee]

Sensfan63. I understand where you come from with BC. However I have met the man and exchanged ideas with him on numerous occasions and I can assure you he is not what you picture him to be. He is only expressing his opinions and whether you agree or disagree with him I can tell you that I learned a lot from the man. Hopefully he has learned a little from me. I still believe that the smart swing is a good tool to have for the pro clubmaker as it can be used as a swing analyser and can give some valuable insights for fitting different golfers.

[sensfan63]

No no...I like to read...that is why I encourage him to respond to dbleber's muscle memory comments!

[BC MIST]

Should do a little research before making a bold statement like that! Its a proven fact that muscle tissue has "memory". Just one article, there are many.
http://www.thinkmuscle.com/articles/...cle-memory.htm
Denny

An interesting statement above. If it is a proven fact then why did you put memory in quotations? If muscles have memory, does it mean that when I miss a shot that they forgot?

While it is quite heavy reading there are a number of books by neurophysiologists which explain how our brains function in order to carry out a physical action, like swinging a golf club, riding a bike or lifting weights.

In very simple terms, our conscious mind initially "tells" our muscles how to move, for example, in trying to keep the left arm straight on the backswing. Through continued conscious repetitions of the correct motion, keeping the left arm straight becomes a habit. Once this skill is in habit form, the subconscious mind keeps the left arm straight, not the conscious mind. Once the habit is subconscious, it is there forever. I have not ridden a bike for over 30 years, but give me one and I will ride it perfectly, the first time. My subconscious remembered the skill, not my muscles. Muscles may be conditioned, but they do not remember.

I understand what the author of your article meant about the increased speed at which a body builder was able to get back into peak condition. I experienced that after running 8 marathons and dozens of other long distance races, taking a long break because of injuries and women, and then getting back into racing shape again. It took less time. Perhaps when first training, the cell walls become stronger and do not revert to their pre-conditioning stage, or more mitochondria were formed, and when not training, the additional ones did not atrophy. Regardless, this is not muscle memory; it's muscle conditioning.

Should do a little research before making a bold statement like that!
Your statement is rather ironic because I have done some research on the subject and none of it supports or explains "muscle memory" as anything more than a simple way of expressing the subconscious mind performing the habit that was learned through repetition. If there is muscle memory, then I guess we also must have kidney memory, spleen memory, liver memory, lung memory, because these organs function properly without my thinking about it, particulary when I am asleep. Our brain controls and remembers everything. Our muscles just go along for the ride.

Here is a little interesting reading that may help prove the point that MM does not exist. These 4 in particular relate. ACTION PROGRAMMING, INSTRUCTION GENERATION, MOVEMENT EXECUTION, MOVEMENT MONITORING. I doubt that anyone will read except "Sensfan."

“Habits are skills that have been stored in memory. Memory is a function of the mind, not the muscles. Muscles are conditioned. They remember nothing. There is no such thing as muscle memory. The mind is in charge, not the muscles. Rule #4. The mind leads; the muscles follow. Dr. Carey Mumford.

“Of course, during the "drill-and-practice", your muscles aren't really memorizing anything (since all memories are stored in your brain). Instead, what you see with your eyes is interpreted by your brain in the form of nerve signals to your muscles to make your body move.

"For definition purposes I say learning, or muscle memory, occurs when a conscious effort to put the body in a particular position, or to move it in a certain way, is transformed from a conscious action to an automatic action requiring no thought. Many of you would call a learned motion muscle memory, and I do too, just for the sake of simplicity. For all intents and purposes, it's as if the muscles do have a mind of their own—they can perform amazingly complex motions without the person having to think about them.

For illustrative and descriptive purposes, I much prefer the term "muscle memory", even though it may be an inaccurate term. One irate reader severely reprimanded me for not using the term "motor memory". Frankly, to us lay people it doesn't make much difference whether it is called "muscle memory" or "motor memory"! The important thing to realize is that to learn a new movement you must practice that movement over a long enough period so that the movement becomes automatic."


MOTION

HOW THE BRAIN ESTABLISHES MOTION CIRCUITS

The brain performs ACTS with specific outcomes

The brain controls movement with two different groups of structures. One is for the motion and the other is for the emotion (FEAR). This section will cover how the brain sets up neuronal connections for the mechanical phase.


• The basal ganglia programs the timed sequences of contractions for the entire motion that is going to be performed.
• It sends signals to the thalamus (central relay station) and the red nucleus and midbrain nuclei.
• The thalamus sends signals to the premotor cortex.
• The premotor cortex sends signals:
o back to the basal ganglia,
o to the motor cortex,
o and the cerebellum.
• The motor cortex sends a signal to the muscle.
o The muscle contracts and sends a signal to the cerebellum
• The cerebellum coordinates the movement with the command from the premotor cortex and sends feedback to the thalamus to continue execution of future instructions. See. All brain activity.

Dr. Richard M. Restak, M.D., in his book "THE BRAIN", provides an explanation for how the brain and movement work together.
How is it that a person can perform the same act in a variety of different ways? If the brain is organized around muscles or movements, there should be only a limited number of ways to carry out a particular action.
What a group of neurophysiologists discovered was that it's not brain circuits of muscle or movement that are performed but circuits that represent actions with specific outcomes. This was a conceptual breakthrough!
"ACTS ARE REPRESENTED IN THE BRAIN"A neurophysiologist, Dr. H. Kornhuber, disco
ered, "In the act of moving a finger, at about eight tenths of a second before the finger movement, a bilateral potential (the readiness potential) is widespread over both hemispheres. This is followed by yet another premotion positive potential (PMP), is also present bilaterally at about ninety milliseconds prior to the finger movement. Finally, at only fifty milliseconds, a motor potential is recorded directly over the hand area of the opposite motor cortex. Psychobiologists are now convinced that during the readiness potential there develops a patterned impulse of neuronal discharges that spread widely throughout the brain."
The observation of the effectiveness of the different swing mechanics of the world's best golfers (Nicklaus, Snead, Hogan, Trevino, Nelson, Casper, Player, etc.) is explained by this discovery. There are numerous muscles and joints in the human body. The brain circuits of each player developed its own unique ACTS (circuits) to produce its SPECIFIC OUTCOME.
What does this mean for the golf stroke?
If you have no ACTS (circuits) established in the subconscious, YOU CAN'T PERFORM effectively!
THERE ARE NO CIRCUITS!
You can't effectively perform a mechanical motion that does not exist in your subconscious. When you take a lesson, it's very difficult to impossible to perform a high speed motion that you have never performed before. There are no ACTS (circuits) in the subconscious. It takes numerous repetitions performed correctly to acquire effective and reproducible ACTS (Circuits).
The old saying of "What you arrived with is what you play with" is scientifically true. It's virtually impossible to improve your golf stroke by making a change during a round. The person giving the advice may mean well but you'll always play worse during the round. To think about stroke mechanics requires the conscious mind, and the conscious mind only defaults the ACTS (circuits).
Once an ACTS (circuits) is established, it performs the ACTS perfectly every time unless it's interfered with by the FEAR CIRCUIT.

Statements from Rita Carter's book:
• We cannot remember things before the age of about three because until the hippocampus - the brain nucleus that lays down conscious long term memories - is not mature (pages 22&23).
• The putamen's (part of the basal ganglia) function is to look after automatic movements - those that have been learned by repetition (page 57).
• Memories form when a pattern is repeated frequently, or in circumstances that encourage it to be encoded. This is because each time a group of neurons fires together, the tendency to do so again is increased (page 159).
• This process is called long-term potentiation. If the neighbor cell is not stimulated again it will stay in this state of readiness for hours, maybe days (PAGE 159).
• Episodes that are destined for long-term memory are not lodged there straight away. The process of laying them down permanently takes up to TWO YEARS.. Until then they are quite fragile and may quite easily be wiped out (page 164).
• Experiences which are destined to be laid down as long-term memories are shunted down to the hippocampus where they are held in storage for 2-3 years. During this time the hippocampus replays the experiences back up to the cortex, and each rehearsal etches it deeper into the cortex. Eventually the memories are so firmly established in the cortex that the hippocampus is no longer needed for their retrieval (page 162).
• Much of the hippocampal replay is thought to happen during sleep. Dreams consist partly of a rerun of things that happened during the day, fired up to the cortex by the hippocampus (page 162).
• PROCEDURAL MEMORY the 'how to' sort of like riding a bike, are stored in the cerebellum and putamen (page 162).
• The brain has 100 trillion connections joining billions of neurons and each junction has the potential to be part of a memory. So the memory capacity of a human is effectively infinite, providing it is stored in the right way (page 175).
(KUYKENDALL STATEMENT
What these statements mean for the golf stroke is that you must perform the mechanical motions you want to execute a minimum of once a week for up to two years before they become automatic.

Two processes that interfere with the ACTS (circuits) are conscious control, thinking about stroke mechanics, and negative thoughts.
The conscious mind works at speeds too slow to control, or be aware of, exact muscular motions. It's important to have the conscious mind in a state such that it does not interfere with the subconscious program. Golf history has shown that it does not matter what your conscious swing thoughts are. Jack Nicklaus' mechanical swing thoughts were 100% opposite of what he actually did. It was his visualization of the correct outcome and leaving the ACTS (circuits) to perform, that made him one of, if not the, greatest golfer of all times. A clumsy performance can be guaranteed whenever you attempt to bring under conscious control something that is controlled by the subconscious.
Another process that causes poor shots is negative thoughts (images). The subconscious does not make moral judgments on an image. It only sees the image. Negative thoughts program the subconscious to the negative thought.
THE SUBCONSCIOUS DOES NOT RECOGNIZE NEGATIVES
Picture a woman NOT putting on mascara. What did you visualize in your mind? A woman putting on mascara.
Don't hook! What image did you visualize? A ball hooking.
Don't hit the ball in the water! What did you visualize? A ball landing in the water.
Don't hit it out of bounds left! What did you visualize? A ball curving out of bounds left.
The subconscious does not know the difference between what the conscious considers a negative or a positive. The subconscious only has an image. It's the image that the subconscious visualizes, that it will program, and try to reproduce. There is no such thing as imaging something NOT happening. Whatever you are imaging, is what's happening in your brain.
ALWAYS IMAGE OR VISUALIZE THE POSITIVE
• Hit the ball to a target.
• Hit the ball over the water.
• Hit the ball to the right side of the fairway.
Whenever you play a round of golf and someone keeps pointing out the problems on every hole,
STOP THEM.

When you hear the words, your brain sees the image. The next time you play in a scramble tournament, and you're at a par 3 over water, and the first player says, "what ever you do, don't hit it in the water", observe how many balls go in the water. The first player imaged the ball going into the water for the other three players as well as himself.
Memories are based on emotions. The brain stores memories based on emotions. The more emotional, the easier the recall. All emotions are made consciously. You consciously choose your reaction to a stimulus. As an example, for a dog, the smell of a fox will carry the recognition of food. For a rabbit, the smell of a fox will be represented by memories of a chase and fear of attack. You must stop emotionalizing bad shots! Get emotional over good shots! Acknowledge scientifically and unemotionally that the shot was not the desired result. Look at all shots that are not the desired results as only a result. Make an unemotional statement about what you think caused it and then replay the shot mentally and confirm the correct way.

How does the brain control movement? According to Stephen Kosslyn's and Oliver Koenig's book, WET MIND, the brain performs four actions to initiate and control movement. They are:
• ACTION PROGRAMMING,
• INSTRUCTION GENERATION,
• MOVEMENT EXECUTION
• MOVEMENT MONITORING
INSTRUCTION GENERATION receives the program from the
ACTION PROGRAM; storing and computing a sequence of instructions for a brief period before and while they are executed.
MOVEMENT EXECUTION activates and controls the muscles that produce the movements - executing, not planning.
MOVEMENT MONITORING engages in learning and trajectory computation. In the learning phase, it acquires a model of the joint angles, their angular velocities, and the corresponding motor commands. Movement monitoring determines the trajectory that requires the smallest changes in torque. A movement command is entered that corresponds to the one specifying the present position of the limb, and the estimated position of the limb compared to the desired target position. The deviation between the estimated position and the target position is then used to send a correction signal backwards. The proper movement commands are those discovered by movement monitoring in the course of computing the trajectories. The error-correction feedback led movement monitoring to minimize the torque and develop the smoothness performance index. Experiencing torque during a golf stroke is the signal that you are performing the stroke non-optimally.
Humans can inhibit movement rapidly. Only about 90 milliseconds is needed to inhibit a task (60 milliseconds from appearance, 30 milliseconds to inhibit). An easy example to identify is a checked swing in baseball. In the golf stroke, the feedback system is constantly verifying the position of each joint and muscular contraction and making adjustments during the stroke to allow the clubhead to reach the target, the ball.

The above explanation of how the brain functions explains why there are no secret moves in golf.
The brain programs millions of instructions and carries them out according to a set plan - ACTS (circuits).
No one movement can ever make a golf stroke effective. Brain circuits do not work that way.
NO SECRETS exist in the brain. Stop looking for a secret. There are none.
Even though no one movement can make a golf stroke effective, a single incorrect movement can make a golf stroke ineffective. This is why it takes so long to reach your coordination barrier. Every motion must be performed correctly enough times for the brain to have the correct ACTS (circuit) established.

If you get this far - a free trip to Augusta in April.

[dbleber]

BC Mist,
I don't know if your right but you win!!! Just to long of a post to read, I don't have enough muscle memory to scroll down that far.
Denny

[Chieflongtee]

.

Lastly, as soon as I hear the term "muscle memory" used to market a product, I know that it is BS, as muscle memory does not exist.

Of course muscles have memory. Ask Bobblehead.

http://forum.ottawagolf.com/showthre...8904#post38904

[BC MIST]

BC Mist,
I don't know if your right but you win!!! Just to long of a post to read, I don't have enough muscle memory to scroll down that far.
Denny

Most of the above was for sensfan as he likes my diatribes.

[dbleber]

I get what you saying BC Mist. To me you are against the literal term of "muscle memory" as how can muscle tissue themselves have memory, correct? Not that the body and mind as a whole cannot remember motions that are done over and over. Because if this is true than I agree totally that the muscle themselves do not have the memry on their own that the mind stimulate this memory.
On the same page, I think?
Denny