We are pleased to announce that Sean Cochran, a nationally renowned golf fitness instructor and the personal golf fitness trainer to 2005 PGA Champion Phil Mickelson, has joined PGA.com as a fitness advisor. Cochran, who also has served as strength and conditioning coach for the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres major league baseball teams, will write a weekly fitness blog that will appear exclusively on PGA.com. He'll update it a couple of times a week, telling you about how to achieve better fitness, life on the road -- and in the gym -- with Lefty, plus answer your questions about fitness and how it can help you play better golf. More of Cochran's articles and his acclaimed fitness aids are available at his web site, www.bioforcegolf.com.
Your Body is the Foundation of Improving Your Golf Swing
The golf swing is undoubtedly one of the most difficult athletic actions to perform in sports today. It requires you to draw the golf club on a specific swing path, the body working in sequential order, and with the correct timing. Any error in path, order, or timing creates compensations in your golf swing leading to inconsistencies and frustrations on and off the course.
Compensations in the golf swing are often categorized as ?swing faults?, indicating that an error exists in the actual mechanics of the golf swing. The normal approach to correcting ?swing faults? is through instruction from a qualified teaching professional and practice.
Proper instruction and practice is absolutely necessary if the amateur wants to improve their golf swing. At times this may not be all that is required of the amateur. The amateur often times is unaware the role in which their body plays upon the execution of the golf swing.
The golf swing requires high levels of flexibility, balance, strength, endurance, and power within the body to perform correctly. If a golfer is lacking in any one of these physical parameters required of the golf swing, compensations will occur within the golf swing. Not from the actual biomechanics of the swing, but rather from the body.
For example, if you are lacking the proper levels of flexibility to perform a full shoulder turn. Compensations will occur in the golf swing directly related to the lack of flexibility in your body. Often the amateur fails to realize the compensation is a result of their body and fails to ever ?fix? or improve their golf swing as a result.
Bottom line, the body has a direct effect on the outcome of your golf swing. The golf swing requires you to have high levels of flexibility, balance, strength, endurance, and power to execute correctly. If the amateur desire to improve their golf game some attention must be focused upon developing these parameters within the body.
