The Check Swing: Get Your Club Now
A Functional Training exercise that involves deliberately braking with the club and not completing a full swinging motion - to create unification throughout the body that develops better control of the body, ultimately leading to better power in athletic performance
Read Video Text Below:
Hi, David Weck here and I want to talk to you about the power of the Check Swing. We'll be using the RMT® Club, which has a shifting load inside that makes it the perfect training vehicle to harness the power of the check swing. Why you want to learn the check swing is because it's a great total body unifier. You will increase your total body unity and power; that will help you be a better hitter, better thrower, better puncher, etc. when you unify.
Let me tell you a story real quick: when I was a kid playing little league baseball, I was an arm swinger at first and I couldn't put any distance on the ball. My father took me up to the baseball field, he said "Son, do not swing the bat, I just want you to check swing". He pitched the balls, BANG! All the sudden, without swinging the bat, just check swinging, the ball started to create distance, going far into the outfield, [and I’m] not even swinging through. The next game I played, next at bat, BOOM! Towering home run because my body had unified and I increased my power.
So, first caution on this is you go nice and easy, nice and slow because it is a powerful move and your soft tissue, your connective tissue, your tendon, fascia, all that stuff, we don't want to create an injury with that because it takes a long time heal. But if we go slow and we build it, now your connective tissue is going to get much stronger in addition to that body unification. I like to create a split grip on this to give me extra stability and really emphasize that stopping/braking action and as I, just nice and simple, Boom! You want to rotate the whole body so its just boom! with the backsides and hip, and so you start to feel rhythm, timing, balance, flow, and its the rhythm/timing that unites everything. You can take a guy who can lift a ton of weight, but if he can't time it up, he can't use it athletically.
So, of course, because we're training WeckMethod™ and Non-Dominant Side Training is important: We have to do both sides. And so you borrow what you did on the dominant side and Boom! And that club head, when you stop, it doesn't stop. It's going to take just a moment to *chh*. Let that weight chamber the club head, its almost like you're bending the club head off. That's what makes this thing so resilient is that flexibility and its that perfect feedback mechanism.
Now here's how you're going to take it and make it even more precise. We're going to use something we call targeting. I'm not going to hit the bag, but I'm going to use it as a target so that, when I come here, I want to come very close and precise, but without hitting it so it'll give me feedback as to the precision of it. So I'm here, here, here, boom! And then the other side. To the extent so that you make mistakes and tap the bag or miss it, that mistake is a learning opportunity, gives you the feedback to now improve it. If I just do it only here, still a fantastic exercise, but I might not be as precise and I won't know the difference.
Now, next thing is you don't need to just stay on that plane of motion. You can it at any plane of motion and it really requires that you pressurize with breath, that you brace through the core. You get a big power pulse through the shoulders, the biceps, the forearm. Everything learns how to float like that butterfly and boom! sting like that bee.
And now, after you've done that, and you can do it any time, this is the kind of stuff that I do in my office; you don't need to be at the gym and create a whole workout. You get up and you get the blood flowing, make your body feel unified, your day will be better by doing this. And now, if you're going to apply this, you have unification now. If you play softball or baseball or just play on the weekend, now, since you have the power of the check swing, now when you come here, BOOM! You just let it ride and you know that you have the base of power which gives you tremendous confidence, you can just focus on hitting the ball and swing all the way through and hit the ball farther. But even if you don't play baseball, don't swing racket sports or anything like that, you now have a body that's capable of snapping into powerful action on both sides.
So, that's the power of the check swing. Like I said, you can do it anywhere, anytime. [The] RMT® Club [is] very convenient, easy to carry. When I show that to guys and girls, they just like it and I gotta say: Go Slow. Don't hurt yourself, build it slowly, get the timing, combine it with other exercises. Amazing athletic enhancement and feel-good movement. So try it out, ask questions, we're going to dial it in for you, get you up to your best self. Follow us @weckmethod and get your RMT® Club. I'll be seeing you again soon my friends. Train hard, train smart, in balance and strength.
