As a new Golf Fitness Expert, I have a lot to learn about the golf swing, and how our fitness programs are designed to help our golfers and clients improve their swing as well as lower their handicap. A Golf Pro will break your swing down a hundred different ways, and I am confident that I can provide a hundred different exercises that will help you become stronger and improve your mobility, stability and flexibility. However, in my first few months with FitGolf, it has become increasingly clear that golfers tend to get caught up in the many training techniques, swing drills, and workouts laid out before them. It can be so overwhelming that a weekend round of golf becomes a tale worthy of the next episode of Game of Thrones. Golfers spend more time overanalyzing and trying to do everything they were taught, instead of focusing on PLAYING golf.
As a fellow athlete and competitor, here is a simple tip: Practice is the time to practice. It is the time to train, and to improve your fitness and mechanics. Competition is the time to “Let your body do what you trained it to do”. As long as you are doing the work off the golf course and consistently preparing for your practice rounds and tournaments, you should be able to execute. If you do not execute, then make sure you are recording your results from start to finish. It follows the same concept of “Think Box/Play Box”. When it is time to play… focus on playing. Record all the data, and analyze AFTER you are done playing.
In Steven Kolter’s book, The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance, the author examines the concept of “Flow” and “Flow State.” Adventure athletes, such as mountain climbers, surfers, and X Games competitors/athletes tend to find Flow easily. In order to achieve great feats such as scaling cliffs with no harness, riding 40+ foot waves in Australia, and snowboarding down the Alps in Switzerland, an adventure athlete needs to shut the part of the brain that does the “thinking.” Any hesitation may mean life or death.
Although golf may not be life or death (although it may be for some of you), the concept is the same. You train and practice so that when you play, the body already knows what to do. If you go through your warm up routine, address the weak or tight muscles, and practice your shots on the driving range, then all that remains is to play. There is definitely a strategy in golf; how to set up your round, how to play specific holes, and what clubs to use. However, the body’s only job is to swing the club, and swing well.
As Golf Fitness Experts, we can help you by listening to all the details of your round. Instead of telling us about all the bad shots you took, tell us when your body and swing started to break down. Tell us how you felt at the beginning of the round physically. Did you go through your pre-round warm ups? What muscles were tight or weak? When your body began to break down what changed in your swing? Did you lose distance? Did you push or pull the ball? Once we know the details we can focus on “fixing the body” during your session so that we can prevent that from happening. We can give you the exercises that will make you stronger, more mobile, more stable, and more flexible. Your job is to do these exercises and do the homework assigned to you so that when you step on to the golf course again, you are confident in all the work you have accomplished. You can trust that the exercises are the correct exercises, and all that is left to do is to swing. It’s what we do!
Looking forward to working with all of you! Questions related to golf fitness, training programs, nutrition, and your mental game email me at [email protected].