Better Golf With Fitness

Body Awareness

I think one of the most underrated benefits of training is a better understanding of body awareness.  Two things that I always experience with new clients is the inability to activate certain muscles (usually the glutes and/or core muscles) and not being able to understand the relationship of mobility and stability, most notably with segmentation of upper body and lower body.

Why is the ability to activate certain muscles important?

Greg Rose and TPI have gone as far as saying that the glutes are the "King of the Golf Swing."  They not only help maintain lower body stability throughout the swing, they help maintain core stability.  Having good core stability is important for an efficient energy transfer from the hips to the shoulders.  

So the ability to activate these muscles starts with an awareness of where they are and an ability to "turn them on."

Why is the relationship of mobility and stability, most notably with segmentation of upper body and lower body, important?

Being able to keep one body part or segment stable while the other is mobile is a key to power.  Think of a sling shot.  

 

If you are holding the sling shot in your left hand, and pulling back in your right hand, there needs to be stability in the left arm and mobility in the right arm.  We can have all the mobility in the world, but with out stability, we will not be able to store as much tension between the two for efficient power release.  The same goes for the opposite.  If I don't have the ability to pull it back all the way (assuming we have the strength to do it as well), then the rock will go nowhere.

In the golf swing, you need to be able to separate upper body from lower body, then lower body from upper body.  Having a better body awareness can help. 

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Golf Drills Inside of Your Workout

Lately, I have been experimenting with some different things inside of my training sessions with my golf clients.  One of those things is to add golf drills as part of my tri or quad sets. 

First of all let me say that I am not talking about swinging dumbbells like they are a golf club.  That's for idiots.  If your trainer has you doing that, run away.

A quick review:
A tri-set is an upper body exercise paired with a lower body exercise and a dynamic stretch. 
A quad set is an upper body push, an upper body pull, a lower body exercise and a dynamic stretch.

In the past, I would always leave the golf drills up to the pros, mostly because that is their job and they know it better than I do.  But lately, I have been working closely with Paul Kenney from Scarsdale Golf Club in my studio.  I am able to watch him give lessons and see the drills/homework he gives to his students.  He has been teaching me the whys and hows of those drills and I have been taking them and putting them into my client's fitness routine.

Because we just started doing this, we only share one client, so it's still a work in progress.  Here is what I have been doing:

Paul gave my client Pete some homework do do.  Pete is supposed to practice swinging on the 6-inch foam rolls with the flat side up, the rolls perpendicular to his feet and on the balls of his feet.

Basically, he needs to maintain his balance while swinging.  In the gym, I have added this drill and a variation of it to our strength sets. 

So today, for the first strength circuit we did:

Quad Set A
Alternating Chest Press
Prisoner Squats
TRX Rows
3-D Hamstring Stretch
Golf Drill- Swings on the Foam Rolls

For Quad Set B, I did a variation of the Swings for the golf drill.  I wanted to work on balance with the Foam Rolls, but without replicating that pattern.  I chose to have him stand on the rolls while I threw some balls at him to catch.  He still has to maintain good balance while working a completely different pattern as well as some coordination.  I am hoping to enhance balance without him just trying to figure out the one pattern.  Hopefully this will help him conquer Paul's drill much faster.

Quad Set B
Cable Pulldowns
Single Leg Deadlifts
Pallof Press
Hip Stretch
Variation of Foam Roll Drill

One of the reasons I am doing this experiment is because I am able to work with Paul a lot more since he is in the facility with me.  That way I learn and see the drills first hand.  I think it's helpful to know why he is prescribing the drill also.
The other reason is because I listened to Physical Therapist Gray Cook talk about the importance of working a movement pattern after a stretch or soft tissue work.  He feels that you will not make progress with your stretching or tissue work unless you work that movement pattern dynamically to the ranges of motion we just achieved.  Otherwise, the tissue goes back to the length it was. 

It makes sense to me.  I am looking forward to working with Paul this winter to come up with a library of drills and variations.  I'll keep you posted.

Does Our Fitness Need to Be Golf-Specific?

 

I get asked this question one way or another a lot.  Lots of golfers are looking for a fitness program that can help their game.  They understand that fitness is part of the game now and that if they want to reduce their chance for injury and increase their chance to perform better, they need to add some kind of fitness to their golf improvement plan.

But the big questions remains: What kind of fitness program do you need?

 

Can you just do yoga or Pilates?  Is P90X good enough?  Do you need to lift weights?  Is stretching and light weights the best thing for golf?

The answer to these questions lies in the answer to another question: Is there such a thing as golf-specific fitness?

I say yes and here's why.

It's all about priorities.

With any "sport-specific" program, we need to evaluate the needs of the sport.  Once we establish these needs, we can then come up with priorities.  We can then work on those priorities and maximize our time in the gym.

Let's take five completely different sports and compare their needs. Say we have a power lifter, a bodybuilder, a marathon runner, a basketball player and a golfer all in the same gym.  Do their programs all look alike? Can they all do P90X and dominate their sports?  I don't think so. (I am not picking on P90X.  I think it's great that people are embracing fitness.  I am just using it as an example because it's very popular)

The goals and priorities for these sports are all different. 

A basketball player needs to be agile, jump high, be able to land without breaking an ankle and have unbelievable conditioning.
A Powerlifter needs to pick up a ton of weight.
A marathon runner needs the endurance to run 26.2 miles.
A bodybuilder needs to be muscular.
A golfer needs to be able to rotate through the hips and thoracic spine, have great flexibility but at the same time lots of stability, have strength to withstand incredible forces, be powerful for a greater swing speed, last for 18 holes and stay focused through the whole ordeal.

So in the very least, unless your program is addressing the needs specific to the game of golf, it is not the best program for you to be doing for your golf game. 

Is something better than nothing?  Yes, but it's not optimal.  Some golfers might say "But I am not going on the Tour, so what do I care?"  Don't you want to be the best you can be?  Of course you do.  You're lying if you say that you go out and don't care about your score.

Golf fitness is not only about getting better.  It's about decreasing your potential for injury. Many times, swing faults are caused by physical limitations.  If you have a physical limitation you will make a compensation in your swing.  That compensation will cause poor movement patterns and in turn lead to injury.  If your injured, you can't play!

The best thing you can do for your golf fitness program is to find a fitness professional that is working with a teaching professional.  This is why I drink from the Titleist Performance Institute Koolaid.  Dr. Greg Rose and Dave Phillips have set up an unbelievable system where fitness, teaching and medical professionals work as a team to help you improve your golf game.  This is the ultimate approach to getting better because if you do not have the ability to get into the positions that your teaching pro needs you to get in, then you will never maximize your potential.  That's where the fitness and medical pros come in.  It's a great system unlike anything else out there.

You can keep doing your Pilates and yoga and P90X.  Just make sure you go see a fitness or medical professional that understands the golf swing and can communicate with your teaching pro.  They can evaluate you and help you come up with a plan to attack any physical limitations, assymetries or weaknesses that can cause swing faults and lead to injury and crappy golf.  Have them talk to your teaching pro so they can decide what your priorities are and go from there.  You can add some of the corrective exercises they give you to your warm up or workout, you don't have to change your whole program if you like what you are doing.

Just remember, it's all about priorities.

If you live in the White Plains area and would like to come in to Five Iron Fitness for a free assessment to find out what your priorities should be, give me a call at 914 948 3549 or shoot me an email to Train at FiveIronFitness.com.  We have created a great team called The White Plains Golf Group and we can work together to help you get better.  Beisdes myself, the team consists of teaching pro Paul Kenney (Scarsdale CC and TPI certified), teaching pro Jim Fatsi (Director of Golf at Motion Golf) and Sleepy Hollow Physical Therapy (consisting of Rich Giordano and Matt Contino, two TPI certified physical therapists).

Hip Hinge Drill

Try this exercise to help you get a better feel for posture in address position.

The Hip Hinge Drill

Golf Fitness Summit

TITLEIST PERFORMANCE INSTITUTE TO HOST THIRD ANNUAL GOLF FITNESS SUMMIT

Carlsbad, CA (October 7, 2008) - The world’s top strength and conditioning experts for golf will gather from October 16-19, 2008 in Anaheim, Calif. at the 3rd Annual World Golf Fitness Summit, hosted by Titleist Performance Institute cofounders Dave Phillips and Greg Rose. Openings are still available for the three-day seminar that will focus on the growing discipline of golf specific fitness, and will include over 50 speakers from 10 different countries.

The assembled panel of world-renowned experts and TPI Advisory Board members from various fields will deliver presentations on topics such as understanding golf swing motor learning and biomechanics, testing and treatment for injuries and physical limitations that affect performance, nutritional considerations during golf, team building for player development, and exercise progressions for developing posture, stability, mobility and power.

The Summit is broken down into two distinct daily sessions. Each morning will include two to three keynote speakers covering a variety of topics in a general session for all attendees. Following lunch, the afternoon session will consist of four different tracks – Fitness, Golf, Health and Other – where guest speakers will share their expertise in smaller group breakouts. Fitness will cover the latest in exercise and conditioning techniques. Golf will highlight the latest teaching methods and advise how to incorporate fitness into lessons. Health will focus on injuries and injury prevention for players. Other will features the new emerging field of 3D-motion and capture, as well as nutrition and various other topics.

The Summit attracts several hundred attendees from a wide variety of disciplines including golf professionals and instructors, doctors, chiropractors and physical and personal trainers among others within and outside the golf industry who have an interest in taking their instruction skills and menu services to the next level.

The growing list of presenters includes Phil Cheetham, Gray Cook, Robert Duvall, Tom House, Peter Mackay, Denis McDade, Ramsay McMaster, Robert Mottram and Robert Yang among others. For a complete roster and biographies of presenters, seminar schedule and on-line registration, please visit http://www.mytpi.com/summit/register.asp?id=74.

The Summit will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center. The cost is $550 per person, or $495 for TPI Pro website members and certified professionals.

For more information, please contact Chamonie Vinci at the Titleist Performance Institute at 1.888.TPI.2004.

Hip Flexibility for Greater Distance!

Hip Flexibility for Greater Distance!
by Chris Ownbey

The importance of Sport-specific fitness has been well established.  Golf is no different.  Over the past decade the best players in the world have improved their performance by improving their bodies.  These guys have bought in to the notion that golf-specific fitness can help improve golf performance and most importantly prevent injury.

Golf swings come in many tempos, paths, planes and angles, but one of the biggest issues that robs us of power and distance is the lack of internal and external hip rotation. The key to distance in golf is generated by early hip rotation. 

How do your hips work in the golf swing? 
For a right handed golfer the right hip needs to be able to rotate properly from take away to the top of the back swing in order to make a proper weight shift to the right side and to get behind the ball.  Often times a golfer will compensate by lifting up during the backswing (loss of posture) and then chop down on the downswing.
At impact, and  to the follow through position of the golf swing the right handed golfer needs a proper amount of hip rotation in the left hip in order to post or finish properly, if rotation is limited we will often times see a “slide” toward the ball.  Both of these swing faults are the effect of the physical limitations which cause the inconsistent shots, and loss of distance. 

Interestingly, golfers are suffering from a greater risk of hip injury today.  With sitting for longer periods of time at work, old injuries, and just getting older comes a gradual loss of hip flexibility.

The following are examples of golf-specific exercises to improve hip flexibility, and add distance to your game.

Seated 90/90

Great stretch which for the hips, lower back, hamstrings, thighs--you'll find in doing this stretch that it will help wherever you are tightest.

Sit as pictured above with 90 degree angles to hips, knees, and feet, so back calf is parallel to front foot, and front calf is parallel to back thigh and foot (hence the name "90-90", right angles everywhere.) Two directions of stretch will be out over the front knee (hold for 10 seconds) and then to the side . Then switch to the other leg and repeat. Make sure, however, that instead of rounding over the knee or foot, you press your chest forward and buttocks away, to maximize the stretch for hips and legs rather than lower back.

The best and most consistent golfers have great rotation in their hips.  Golfers can add up to 20 yards to their drive by increasing their flexibility and advancing the timing of their hip rotation.   Golf fitness workouts are not any more rigorous and punishing than the game of golf is.  They are specifically designed to help create flexibility and strengthen the very muscles used in golf.  It’s time to take advantage of the upcoming months to incorporate a Golf Fitness program.

Healthy Body = Healthy Game!

Chris Ownbey is the Director of Golf Fitness for Golden Bear Golf Center in Carrollton Texas. He is a Certified Golf Fitness Instructor through the Titleist Performance Institute.

visit www.chrisownbeygolf.com    Or call 214-457-9684

New Strapless Heart Rate Monitor

I have been using this Strapless Heart Rate Monitor with my clients for about 2 weeks now and it has worked pretty well.  My clients like that they don't have to take their shirt off and wet the sensors like a traditional heart rate monitor. Check out this video for more info:

This is from the ePulse website:

The ePulse™ brings the benefits of heart rate monitoring to everyone with its ease of use and convenience. This is accomplishment via sophisticated integration of light-sensor and micro-chip technology (like that used in hospital heart rate monitors) that allows the ePulse to accurately read the pulse from the forearm. The ePulse is lightweight, incorporates an easily read day/night LED display and is powered by AAA batteries. It requires no programming to immediately display heart rate and with a simple input of personal data, it will also calculate calories burned and target exercise zones.

ePulse works equally well for both men and women. This innovative product addresses the prevailing issue other heart rate monitors struggle to overcome...the wearing of a chest strap! At best, chest straps are an annoyance, and at worst, are so uncomfortable that they alienate many people from utilizing this type of valuable training and fitness tool. In particular, women seem very sensitive to chest straps and many won't use heart rate monitors due to this physical requirement. Now, ePulse comfortably conveys heart rate (and other important data) allowing anyone to easily regulate their workout intensity and better attain specific fitness or weight management goals.

Video- Assisted Single Leg Squats

Developing single leg strength is one of the best things you can do not only for the game of golf but for the "game of life."  If you think about it, almost everything you do is on one leg.  Walking, running and going up the steps are really single leg activities.

Power in your golf swing starts from having strong legs and the best way to develop leg strength (and discover strength imbalances) is with a Single Leg Squat.  Part of the problem is that they are really hard! 

One way to learn how to do them and to develop strength in the bottom of the move is to use the TRX Suspension Trainer.  Check out this video below.

Check out the TRX Suspension Trainer Golf Bundle


Click here for more info

In Season Programming

Golfers always want to know what should they do about in-season programming, when, among other things, they are playing a lot.

This is tough to answer because it really depends on what else you are doing.  One thing is for sure, you have to listen to your body.

The reason why I am even writing this is because Craig, the Head Pro that I am working with has been super busy lately with tournaments that he is playing in as well as the ones he is running at the club.  He has not had a true day off for a month and he won't get one until Sept. 8!

I have already talked about Tournament Day Workouts but I still have to be careful even if he is not playing on a workout day. Why?

Because the biggest fear any strength coach has with an athlete is over-training.  It doesn't have to come just from workouts, it comes from stress in general and I have to take into account everything he is doing.

For example, Craig's schedule looked like this the last few days:

Fri-Sun- normal 10 hours Head Pro weekend craziness, lots of lessons, pro shop issues to deal with etc.
Mon-
8:00 scheduled tee time at the National Club Pro Championship Qualifying- Round 1
9:15- actual tee time due to fog
1:00- Rush over the Tappan Zee bridge to get to the club for a 1:30 and a 3:00 clinic
3:30 Get the tournament started. Work until 7:00
7:30- Home

Tues
Get to the club for 7:30 for a Ladies Member Guest
8:30- get the tournament started
1:30 tee time (good thing he played well yesterday and now has a late tee time)
7:00 Home satisfied because he qualified for the next year's National Club Pro Championship

Weds-
Workout with me at 6:15

So you can see that although he wasn't playing in a tournament Wednesday, I still had to watch what I did in the gym because of everything leading up to that workout.

On a day like this, I try to:

- Add extra foam roll (click here for a video demo)and Stick self massage work (click here for a video demo)
- Add more dynamic stretching
- Take a little more rest between sets and add a dynamic stretch to that time
- Stay away from Energy System work (cardio)
- End a little early and static stretch areas that might be tighter
- Make sure he gets some post-workout nutrition right after the workout
- Stay away from any exercise he normally doesn't like to do

Remember, you have to listen to your body and make sure that you include recovery days into your schedule.  You can't go hard all of the time.

If you live in the White Plains, NY area, stop by and see me at Five Iron Fitness.  Mention the blog and get a FREE golf fitness assessment.