The Practice Manual

alxmorgan · 30-10-2015 11:53am #1

Hey all,

Picked up this by Adam Young after hearing good things about it.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1507723172/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1507723172&linkCode=as2&tag=vela06-21&linkId=6G67NBOGXYJGFAAH

Hoping to use it to put in place a better practice regime for the winter months. Anyone got it ?

I'm about 100 pages in and so far he has covered ball flight laws and a lot about how we learn. All very interesting. Not hit the meat yet but will update this thread as I do for anyone interested.

benny79 · 30-10-2015 1:06pm

No haven't purchased it. But heard a lot about it. I'd say one thing he has a very good marketing team.

To be honest the only reason I haven't purchased it is because I have bought a tonne of books in the passed (have all the Bob Rotella ones + more) and not 1 has made a difference so said I'm not doing it any more.

But would be very interested on your taught's on this one and how you get on with it!
Cause it seems a good idea & very interesting but don't they all

newport2 · 30-10-2015 1:07pm

Hey

Let me know how it goes, I was looking at it there last week. I chose this one instead, have just started reading it.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Golf-Tough-Practice-Prepare-Progress/dp/1909125504/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=41TQfn6WtaL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR123%2C160_&refRID=0QZ1PBY9NAXB51W5PY7E

Focus is on getting the most out of practice time put in, which is something I don't think I do great.

Tom.D.BJJ · 30-10-2015 10:43pm

Does it only come on paper?

alxmorgan · 30-10-2015 10:48pm

Tom.D.BJJ wrote: »

Does it only come on paper?

Strangely it appears so

Quahog217 · 04-11-2015 7:56pm

alxmorgan wrote: »

Strangely it appears so

How are you getting on with this book? Im thinking of getting it, would you recommend it?

alxmorgan · 04-11-2015 9:29pm

Quahog217 wrote: »

How are you getting on with this book? Im thinking of getting it, would you recommend it?

Still working through it. Still very theoretical. Will probably be a while before I can make a call on it. Life getting in the way of my golf

benny79 · 05-11-2015 10:55am

Hurry up!

alxmorgan · 11-11-2015 5:29pm

Right so still working through it. Nearly to the actual practice bit....in my defence there are 255 pages to get through before that

So far I really like it. He touches on loads of topics and I find myself nodding along regularly as he explains things such as why you can't take it from the range to the course, why you fall apart when things are going great etc etc

So the scene is set.....unfortunately due to the imminent arrival of my 3rd child I'd be surprised if I'll have a chance to actually read up on practice and implement the stuff within the next couple of months.

But I'd be surprised if there is a practice book out there that is more detailed. So from what I have read so far I am positive about it - for what that's worth

spacecoyote · 11-11-2015 6:21pm

I'm subscribed to his mailing list & like a lot of what he says in his blogs.

I downloaded the free copy of "Golf Hacks", but haven't had a chance to go through it yet.

Maybe its worth a look for some people if they want to get a feel for his stuff:

http://www.adamyounggolf.com/golfhacks/

alxmorgan · 25-11-2015 12:52pm

Right so getting further into the book all the time.
Really like it I must say. Goes into great detail in the first 250 pages to explain the theories. This is important I think so that the reader buys into the ideas behind the practice routines as some are definitely different.

For example he makes a point that sometimes terrible performance during practice is not a bad thing and that we are actually learning loads at this time (potentially anyway). Of course most of us would give up when faced with poor performance levels.

He also says that practicing bad movements is a great learning tool. For example he says he worked on a slice to better understand his students and felt it really helped his game. It makes sense when you think about it. Say if you could hit a reliable slice....it means you have gained control over the club face and club path which is a great skill to have.

He talks about gamifying practice and also how to identify areas of weakness and using progression drills to help with these.

He makes great points about areas of focus and how these may mean bringing good form from range to course is difficult.
For example if focus when making a change is internal (say wrist position)
then when you go to course your focus naturally changes to target and you revert to old swing cause in lay mans terms you associate an area of focus with an action.
Wrist with new action and target with old action. Makes perfect sense to me given trouble I (and others) have when transferring changes made on range to course.

The gamifying aspect is also very good. For example say you pick two signs on the range and aim is to land between them. Go with 10 balls (full pre-shot) and then 3/10 means you go fail and 7/10 means you pass. You can make progressively harder by e.g. narrowing target, changing club/target each time and other more advanced ones such as changing ball position each time, change shape to get within range etc etc

Basically he likens it to weight training...you need to keep adding weight to keep testing your body. If weight stays the same then your body adjusts and gets "lazy". Also need to be careful that target is not too difficult or you will give up.

All in all I am very impressed. I haven't had much time to practice and won't for a while but simply put this has changed my perspective on practice time. No more rake and hit for me. For example recently I have been working on fades and draws. And now with the thought that poor performance is not necessarily a bad thing ( as long as your plan is solid) then I feel much better about it and has spurred me on to try harder and also given me ideas on how to gamify it to keep it fresh and testing.

If you do decide to treat yourself for Xmas then I recommend using parcel motel to get free UK delivery as it will only cost around 3.50 which helps

benny79 · 25-11-2015 3:16pm

Cheers Alxmorgan!

redzerdrog · 28-12-2015 1:31am

got this for Christmas thanks to this thread and just about to start it!

Any further updates alx? Has it benefited your practice or has that taken a backseat at the moment due to the holidays

I am looking forward to reading it and seeing if it changes things for me as currently I hate going to the range and only do so about 5 times a year

benny79 · 02-03-2016 11:25am

Hey Alx,
How you getting on now with the book have you noticed any improvements in your game??

alxmorgan · 02-03-2016 12:07pm

benny79 wrote: »

Hey Alx,
How you getting on now with the book have you noticed any improvements in your game??

I definitely feel that my practice time is more productive
I have played 9 holes in 4 months so hard to say anything definitive re my game but was striking the ball pretty well when I did play.

I had been spending a good bit of practice time trying to move my strike point around the face. Feel it is working well enough and that should translate to better ball striking.

Anyway book gets a big thumbs up from me.

benny79 · 02-03-2016 12:11pm

keep us updated when you get a few rounds in mate..If you dont mind..

alxmorgan · 02-03-2016 12:42pm

benny79 wrote: »

keep us updated when you get a few rounds in mate..If you dont mind..

I will do. Of course none of this stuff exists in a vacuum and correlation is not necessarily causation.
I would still recommend it regardless because it makes absolute sense to be doing what he describes. In fact I feel like I've wasted years of practice time doing what I had been doing.

Montgolfier · 12-04-2016 9:37pm

Just wondering how the book is going I'm thinking of buying one to improve my short game.

alxmorgan · 13-04-2016 2:38pm

Montgolfier wrote: »

Just wondering how the book is going I'm thinking of buying one to improve my short game.

Well I've had a handful of rounds since I started practicing with it and I've scored well despite not feeling that I played well.

I haven't had as much practice time or playing time as I would have liked but I can see no downside to getting the book.

It will help you organise your time better and I find that the drills he prescribes make sense and I definitely saw progress using them.

Montgolfier · 13-04-2016 3:36pm

alxmorgan wrote: »

Well I've had a handful of rounds since I started practicing with it and I've scored well despite not feeling that I played well.

I haven't had as much practice time or playing time as I would have liked but I can see no downside to getting the book.

It will help you organise your time better and I find that the drills he prescribes make sense and I definitely saw progress using them.

I ordered one last night, thanks to Willet and the masters. Looking forward to the read.

benny79 · 15-04-2016 11:39am

Why does Willet use it

galwaylad14 · 15-04-2016 1:07pm

Said I'd buy this as I often feel like I lack a bit of a focus when I'm practicing. Ordered online so just waiting for it to land now. Going to try to use it as my "bible" for practicing and see if a more focused practice routine will improve my game.

Montgolfier · 17-04-2016 2:26am

Review so far: Lets be honest lads. It's a bit like the 10th green at Augusta.

frink · 27-06-2016 12:10pm

Ordered this book yesterday. Hoping between this and Dr Bob it might help improve my game!

Jawgap · 27-06-2016 12:28pm

frink wrote: »

Ordered this book yesterday. Hoping between this and Dr Bob it might help improve my game!

I found it helped.

I certainly developed a better appreciation of what was going on when something went wrong - and that ability to 'diagnose' fed into my practice using drills (or variations of drills) suggested in the book.

alxmorgan · 20-07-2016 12:30pm

For anyone interested the same author has released a video series on strike...

http://www.adamyounggolf.com/the-strike-plan/

I got my hands on it as the is something I struggle with big time. Again will update on here once I have had a chance to go through it

alxmorgan · 20-07-2016 12:57pm

alxmorgan wrote: »

For anyone interested the same author has released a video series on strike...

http://www.adamyounggolf.com/the-strike-plan/

I got my hands on it as the is something I struggle with big time. Again will update on here once I have had a chance to go through it

He is running a comp to get a free version on twitter

cjfitz · 21-07-2016 7:19pm

alxmorgan wrote: »

For anyone interested the same author has released a video series on strike...

http://www.adamyounggolf.com/the-strike-plan/

I got my hands on it as the is something I struggle with big time. Again will update on here once I have had a chance to go through it

I'm enjoying these videos a lot. I'm also about 3/4 of the way through the book, found it a bit heavy in places, but it is a very useful book. I found his differential drills useful recently, made me much more aware (on the course) how/why I hit a undesired shape.

alxmorgan · 22-07-2016 3:46pm

About 3 modules into video set and very happy with it. Discusses the techniques and why things happen the way they do but the real gold, as he says himself, is in the skill drills.

It's gonna take some work but then nothing good ever happens without it

cjfitz · 22-07-2016 4:10pm

Ya the skill drills are super, worth the fee alone and a lot of them can be done at home.

alxmorgan · 22-07-2016 4:24pm

cjfitz wrote: »

Ya the skill drills are super, worth the fee alone and a lot of them can be done at home.

That bottle cap one looks damn hard...I love a challenge

redzerdrog · 22-07-2016 4:40pm

How does it work? once you have access to the videos can you download them so you can access them offline?

alxmorgan · 22-07-2016 5:07pm

redzerdrog wrote: »

How does it work? once you have access to the videos can you download them so you can access them offline?

Not that I can see no. Looks like a streaming only option

alxmorgan · 26-07-2016 2:45pm

Review here of new video series:

https://practical-golf.com/strike-plan-review-adam-young/

benny79 · 04-01-2018 3:58pm

Any recent updates on his book lads? as in has your handicap actually come down because of what you learn in the book? Still hav 2 golf books I haven't read at home but thing of just getting this :rolleyes:

frink · 04-01-2018 4:05pm

benny79 wrote: »

Any recent updates on his book lads? as in has your handicap actually come down because of what you learn in the book? Still hav 2 golf books I haven't read at home but thing of just getting this :rolleyes:

To be honest, I got the book over 18 months ago and I haven't put the time in yet to read it all. Having said that, I found some of the drills at the back on short game useful. Its on my to do list of this year to put the time in to read it.

I've read 2-3 Dr Bob Rotella books and found them brilliant. You can just read some extracts and take snippets to improve your concentration/focus on the course.

benny79 · 05-01-2018 10:20am

That's the thing everyone I've heard of that has bought the book hasn't read it all or put any of it to practise so its hard to gauge. I've read all the Bob Rotella books I currently have 2 new books at the moment well I say new but have them months and only pick them up the odd time :rolleyes: 1. The inner Game of Golf by W.Timothy Gallwey which is similar to Bob Rotella and a Tiger Woods instruction book which Rory Mcilroy say as a kid it was like his bible

its was written in late 90's

So now I thinking of buying the Practice manual but thinking its just going to gather dust like the rest!.. :pac:

redzerdrog · 09-01-2018 1:16am

I am just reading the practice manual for the second time. I read it first time two years ago. I don't get great use as I don't practice often but what I would say is she I do practice it is definitely more benificial now and I feel like I am.getting something from it.

At the minute I am just going back to basics regarding strike location on the clubface and contact with ground ect

I am wondering for those who bought the strike plan what did you think of it? Was the content original or was it just the same thing we have seen in 100s on instructional videos? Does it give you many drill and ideas to develop drills?

redzerdrog · 22-08-2020 7:51pm

Time to dig this out again and give it another read!

Although I have read it previously I have never been in a position to actually practice! I am hoping that changes this winter with about 7 weeks or so left of football before I hang up the boots for good and concentrate on golf!

Might also look at getting the strike plan and accuracy plan over the winter too!

Whiplash85 · 22-08-2020 8:30pm

redzerdrog wrote: »

Time to dig this out again and give it another read!

Although I have read it previously I have never been in a position to actually practice! I am hoping that changes this winter with about 7 weeks or so left of football before I hang up the boots for good and concentrate on golf!

Might also look at getting the strike plan and accuracy plan over the winter too!

You think you are giving up football for good but inevitably the call comes or there is a time of need when team is down a few players and it's a case of "I thought I was out but they pulled me back in". I always find after wintering well the body starts craving endorphins from training etc and you'd end up looking forward to going back.

redzerdrog · 22-08-2020 9:34pm

Whiplash85 wrote: »

You think you are giving up football for good but inevitably the call comes or there is a time of need when team is down a few players and it's a case of "I thought I was out but they pulled me back in". I always find after wintering well the body starts craving endorphins from training etc and you'd end up looking forward to going back.

Tell me about it! Think this is my 3rd retirement :-) I did actually give it up for few years before getting sucked back in but the body definitely isnt able any more so I will go away happy if I get to finish out this season.

The Practice Manual

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