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.
Assessing Your Strength and Power
In the last article we began the process of developing an off-season golf fitness program. The goal of this program is to improve your golf swing for the upcoming season. The process began with setting goals and then we moved onto a physical assessment. Our first step in this process was to assess your flexibility. I wanted you to perform the Rotational Hamstring Stretch Exercise, and take some notes. The reason for this request was to pinpoint areas within the body that are "tight" and require flexibility training this off-season.
Take a moment to review your notes of the exercise. During the exercise if you found it difficult to extend your arms straight overhead this might be an indicator of "tightness" in the shoulder capsule. We can address such a situation with flexibility exercises for the shoulder region. Secondly, if it was difficult to extend the hands down towards the floor without bending your knees. I might suggest adding some flexibility exercises for your lower back and hamstrings. Finally, if you found it difficult to rotate during this exercise, this tells me we must improve your core rotational flexibility this off-season.
Outside of flexibility we need to assess both your muscular strength and power outputs. To assess your muscular strength levels I would like you to perform the Elbow Hold exercise covered in a previous article. Perform the exercise as described and time how long you can "hold" the position of the exercise, write this number down.
Once you have completed the elbow hold move onto assessing your muscular power. To assess your muscular power we are going to utilize the Seated Russian Twist exercise described in a previously article. Perform the exercise as describe in the article, except perform the rotation within the exercise as fast as you can back and forth in a controlled manner. Record the number of rotations back and forth you can complete before fatigue sets in.
In the next article we will review your strength and power assessments in addition to suggesting some flexibility exercises for your program.
Previous blog entries:
11/14/06 Developing Your Off-Season Golf Fitness Program
11/02/06 How to Physically Prevent Lower Back Injuries Part V
10/25/06 How to Physically Prevent Lower Back Injuries Part IV
10/18/06 How to Physically Prevent Lower Back Injuries Part III
10/11/06 How to Physically Prevent Lower Back Injuries Part II
10/04/06 How to Physically Prevent Lower Back Injuries Part I
09/28/06 Speed in Your Power Golf Exercises
08/15/06 Develop Strength the "Right Way" for Your Golf Swing
08/08/06 Want to Maintain the Angles in Your Golf Swing?
08/01/06 Utilize Strength Training to Maintain Your Spine Angle
07/24/06 Strength in Your Core to Drive the Golf Ball Farther
07/11/06 Use Progression to Keep Improving Your Golf Swing
07/04/06 Dynamic Balance Exercises
06/27/06 Two Types of Balance are Key to Your Golf Swing
06/20/06 Balance in Your Golf Swing Leads to More Power
06/13/06 Getting Yourself Ready for a Round of Golf
06/06/06 Joint Range of Motion and a Fluid Golf Swing
05/29/06 Flexibility Exercises to Help with Those Tight Muscles
05/23/06 Guidelines for Your Golf Flexibility Program
05/16/06 Assess Your Flexibility First
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
