Today I want to talk a little bit about how you can actually improve physically for golf. There is a lot of talk in the last few years about “golf fitness” and working on our bodies to improve our game. You certainly hear about it all over the place on the PGA and PGL Tour, college levels, high school levels, and down the ranks we go. I still don’t think locally in this area, and maybe even nationally, that we have a good understanding of what the term “golf fitness” actually means. Some people think it means improving your cardiovascular conditioning by walking or running on a treadmill. Some people think it means lifting 300 pounds twice (benching or squatting, those sort of things for example). So there might be a little bit of confusion about it and I want to lay it out in terms of how you can actually go about golf fitness and what the experts and tour pros are doing. Specifically, how you can go about doing this locally, nationally, or even online here with us.

IDENTIFICATION PHASE OF GOLF FITNESS

The first thing we want to make sure that we identify in the process is where are you at. Not overly sexy, but the identification process of what your goals are, where you are currently at, and what the gap is. So if you are having pain that is preventing you from playing 7 times a week, there is probably a gap we have to minimize. If you want to hit the ball 300 yards and you are currently only at 40, there is a gap we have to try and minimize. Likewise, if you are really really inconsistent with your swing and not making repeatable and consistent contact, for rough numbers, that could be the equivalent of say 7 blow-up holes a round. We want to minimize that realistically to maybe 1 or none. That is the first step in the process and we do that very very consistently regardless if it is pain, distance, strength, physical mobility, consistency, mental preparation, nutrition, or hydration. 

At Motus Rx Physical Therapy we do this through the Body Swing Connection Evaluation. This is as robust as you want to get with it, but we will complete a physical screen, put you through power and speed testing, 2D video analysis, and 3D swing analysis on the K-vest. We incorporate all of these elements to get a full picture of your swing. If there is a situation where somebody is not able to be with us physically and not able to do a 3D analysis or all the bells and whistles, that is 100% okay, we can get a lot done online with a physical screen and some performance testing. We can still gain enough information from the physical screen, as well as having an honest and open conversation about where you are at and where you want to go. 

So that is the first step of the process: Identification. It is figuring out where you are currently at relative to where you want to go. Once again, we use our Body Swing Connection Analysis in that situation and a good old fashioned conversation to make that happen. If you have more questions or want to inquire a little bit more about what the Body Swing Connection Evaluation entails and how we go about that, feel free to get us a call or fill out this INQUIRE NOW form.

INTERVENTION PHASE OF GOLF FITNESS

Once we identify  where the individual needs to go, then we hone in on the physical aspects of what the golfer needs. At the end of the day, for the physical aspects of the golf swing, there’s 3 main things that could be limiting you:

1. The first, and probably most commonly talked about, is mobility. This includes but is not limited to tightness, stiffness, not being able to get a good turn, tight hips, neck stiffness, or not being able to get your shoulders and hands in a good position at the top of transition. Those are all probably a combination of things, but at the end of the day would be in the mobility realm.mobility We like to simplify it, and I’ve written a whole book about this in terms of the 4 key zones of mobility for golfers, but we need to have mobility in our neck, mid-back, hips, and ankles. We also need mobility in our shoulders, but I kind of put the shoulders and mid-back together. If you do not have good mobility in the neck, mid-back and shoulders, hips, and ankles, then you could have some swing characteristics that may not be helping your desired outcomes 

2. The second thing, physically, that we are looking at in the intervention phase is strength. This is the most underrated, often misunderstood, and not intervened upon enough aspect. If we think about the golf swing, there is a relative significant amount of strength that is required to develop some force. The importance of strength is going to be the physical demands that are placed on the body, joints, ligaments, and muscles during the golf swing. These demands are intense and significant. The demands are usually underestimated but we have to have the relative amount of strength to handle that and build the “biggest cup.”  When we say “build the biggest cup” we are referring to our  strength capacity.  Basically we are building this big big cup (which is our strength capacity) for us to handle the demands of the golf swing and club head speed that we want time after time again and day after day so that our bodies physically do not break down and we don’t have an over-exertion or a repetitive use-type injury. Strength becomes very important for that.

3. The third element of intervention is speed and power. For speed and power, you have to have strength first. Strength is a prerequisite to being fast and powerful. What we talk about with our athletes is the rate of force development. Usually the most powerful athletes have the best club head speed and the most rotational speed. This comes from how quickly the muscles can actually develop force. It’s one thing to be strong, and it’s another thing to be able to be powerful and produce force rapidly.