Welcome to Blue Collar
Mondays. Every other Monday, Troy Anderson of The Blue Collar Golfer, will add
his insight to the Better
Golf with Fitness Blog. His articles have appeared on GolfFitnessProducts.net
as well as magazines all over the Southwest, and he has been a part of all of The
Virtual Roundtable. Troy has a
different approach than most golf fitness experts, one he is very successful
with training golfers in Arizona.
Two Quick and Simple Strategies to Help You Unwind
Recently I have been doing a lot of work with a young golfer, who is fairly accomplished and intends to try his hand in the local mini-tours. After a recent attempt at qualifying for the FBR Open, followed by a subsequent meeting with his swing coach, he ended up back in the facility with me. We did an assessment and worked on some drills to fix a couple flaws. As he was explaining what he was working on with his swing coach, I had an “ah ha” moment. I realized what they were trying to work on was a result of having very poor movement and muscular activation in the hips and surrounding musculature. These two problems were wreaking havoc on his swing, especially around the point of impact.
Since I have been working with him for a good bit of time, I
know that it's not the muscles that are tight. Instead of taking
“typical” actions (stretching the muscles of the “tight” areas), I
chose to teach how to reduce the neural tension in the areas that were
problematic along with teaching proper movement patterns for the hips an and low back.
With
just a couple of sessions we are now making progress with his movement
and he is better able to make the corrections to his swing that his
swing coach wants.
What does this mean to you? Well, a couple of things:
1. Odds are it’s not the muscle(s) that are tight or inflexible.
2.
It’s more likely that you are carrying around a lot of neural
inhibition that has been caused from faulty movement patterns and/or
injuries throughout the course of your life.
End result: You
move poorly, have to create a crap load of compensations just be able
to swing a golf club, and ultimately create big flaws in you swing.
The most common faulty movement pattern is what Mr. Middle Management and about 80% of the rest of America spends the majority of the daily work time doing.
As you can see here Mr. Middle Management is hunched forward, palms on keyboard, and protracted neck. These patterns result in the individual carrying too much tension in the upper back, shoulder and neck and along with that they tend to become what we call “chest breathers.”
So what do you when you have a pattern you don’t want?
That’s right, do the opposite.
So here are my two simple tips to help take some neural tension out of your golf game and life for that matter.
1. Practice Deep Breathing – to do this sit up straight and tall, place the palm of one of your hands over you belly button. Now taken in deep breaths imagine filling your lunges with as much air as possible, this will cause your hand to move away from your body, hold the air in for a second, then take a full exhale. Repeat process. In order for this drill to be truly effective you need to focus upon the breath and only the breathing if your mind begins to wonder you need to stop and reset.
2. Practice Opening Up Shoulders and Hands – I call this “being supinate” , basically all you need to do is sit upright with good posture, let you arms hang down from you side, palms facing forward, with you thumbs facing away from your body. You do not need to sit cross legged like the picture sitting upright in a chair would be fine.
At the point at which you no longer need to queue yourself during
deep breathing, you can combine both activities. However, until then I
recommend performing them separately.
I recommend performing 3-5 sessions of each drill for approximately 2 minutes per session daily.
You’ll be amazed at how much these two drills not only improve you
ability to relax and move on the golf course, but how this type of
unwinding can be beneficial to your daily activities.
Until next week, keep it simple.
Troy M Anderson
bluecollargolfer.com
Troy@bluecollargolfer.com
Troy is a golf conditioning expert, located
in Tempe, AZ.
To download your FREE copy of his special report "8 MUST-KNOW
Tips for Starting a Successful Golf Conditioning Program”, go to www.bluecollargolfer.com
Its very hard to correct your posture but can be done. I didnt even notice until today though that I am a chest breather. Feels much better breathing from the diaphram (is that how you spell that?)?
Nolan M
www.nolanmatthias.com
Posted by: Nolan Matthias | February 20, 2007 at 08:48 PM
Nolan, I check all of my clients for "chest breathing" and they all do it! A good way to practice "belly breathing" is to lie face down, hands together in front of your forehead with your forehead lying on your hands. As you breath, try to push your belly into the floor. It helps to have the floor as feedback. In Pilates classes, they tell you to "get fat" as you are breathing, pushing your stomach out on the inhale. Hope this helps, good luck with your book. Anthony
Posted by: Anthony | February 21, 2007 at 01:19 AM