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.
Assess Your Flexibility First
The Byron Nelson was the event of the week in Irving, Texas. Named after one of golf's greats, Byron Nelson, this tournament is in a special category. I know many of the players enjoyed visiting with Byron, who was in attendance the entire week.
Over the past few weeks, we have discussed the basic components of the body and their relationship to the golf swing. We have talked about flexibility, balance strength, endurance, power and specific training principles. All components of information needed in the "foundation" of a golf fitness program.
Once we understand these principles and the connection between the body and the golf swing, it is time to develop a golf fitness program to improve your golf swing.
The first step in developing a golf fitness program is an assessment. An assessment provides information about the strengths and weaknesses in your swing and your body. It allows you to develop goals and determine what areas of your game and body require attention.
I like to assess both the golf swing and the body for the mere fact they are intertwined in the development of your golf game.
On the "body" side of the equation, I like to begin the assessment in the area of flexibility. We are all aware golf is a rotational sport. We've learned the golf swing requires you to rotate around a fixed spine angle, transfer weight in a linear motion, maintain the club on the proper path and develop clubhead speed. This requires the muscles and joints of your body to be flexible. It they are not, compensations in your swing from an inflexible body will result.
Knowing the importance of flexibility in relation to the swing and the compensations that result from poor flexibility, it is a good idea to determine what areas of the body may be "tight" causing problems in your golf swing. We can do this through a flexibility assessment.
There are a couple of ways we can go about a flexibility assessment. One way is through observation and research on the golf swing. Certain muscles become "tight" from the golf swing, causing restrictions in your body. They are commonly the hip flexors, hamstrings, lower back and shoulders. This form of assessment could be used in the development of a very general flexibility program for golf.
These types of assessments provide a general idea of what muscles are "tight" and need flexibility training, but keep in mind this is a general assessment and each one of us is different. We are individuals with different bodies, and different muscles that are "tight." This reason alone should "light the bulb" in our heads and tell us we need to individually assess our bodies for which muscles are "tight." This will give us a good amount of information to develop an individualized flexibility program. This can easily be accomplished with an individualized flexibility assessment, telling us what muscles are "tight" in the body. Once we know what muscles need attention it is a simple process of adding flexibility exercises to your current golf fitness program to address these muscles.
Previous blog entries:
05/09/06 Better Golf Exercises to Improve Your Swing
05/02/06 Developing a Repeatable Golf Swing and Your Body
04/26/06 Increasing the Clubhead Speed in Your Golf Swing
04/18/06 How To Prepare for Your Round
04/17/06 Swing Faults are Not Really Swing Faults
03/27/06 You can improve balance in your swing
03/24/06 Improve Your Flexibility and See Results in Your Swing
03/20/06 Your Body is the Foundation of Improving Your Golf Swing
