Chris has recently qualified as a TPI Certified Level 3 Golf Professional Fitness Coach.
Currently there are 4 such TPI Coaches in Europe.
LEFT PHOTOGRAPH - Chris with Dr Greg Rose and Dave Phillips (Level 3 Training in Oceanside California Sept 2008) www.mytpi.com
RIGHT PHOTOGRAPH - Chris with Robert Yang (Nutritionist - Level 3 Training in Oceanside California Sept 2008) www.robertyang.net
Golf Fitness
Tiger Woods sits on top the World Golf Rankings for many reasons. Equal to his extraordinary skill levels he has the build of an athlete that would encompass any top class sporting event.
For the young player, athleticism in competitive golf is essential if you are going to compete. There are a number of reasons for this: -
- Muscular efficiency increases power.
- Muscular efficiency allows the player to engage muscular interaction at the correct time to establish the most effective kinetic sequence (timing).
- Muscular endurance increases the ability to practice your skills for longer periods with out loosing control or form
- Muscular balance allows the golfer to maintain accuracy in movement at high speed.
- Muscular balance allows full control over the club even at slow speeds
- Muscular flexibility allows the player to complete movement range with out injury
- Maintaining joint range allows freedom of movement
- In general GOLF FITNESS allows the player to maintain mobility and stability with in the limited range of the golf stance.
Junior Players
Controlling the body movements is not easy for young golfers, as during the schooling few children have the opportunity to develop their centre body control (core). Playing the Playstation or Wii are now well embedded hobbies of the young, however there is great enjoyment to be had on the golf course (see Benefits of Playing) along with the athletic development that golf can bring.
Simple core stability and balance skills are ideal for all ages which will enhance the young a person’s ability to learn not just golf but a host of other activities.
For the older enthusiastic junior, fitness, thanks to Tiger, is a priority. Body balance is essential for your gym work to enhance your golf. Golf specific training is crucial to maintain muscle length and joint range for increased power and control while maintaining technique.
Adults
With the hectic life most adults lead, leisure and fitness play a hugely important role in maintaining healthy living. Golf and golf fitness fit beautifully into any well-being program that will not only improve your golf skills and performance, but will enhance your daily life style.
Office and vehicle bound occupations continually promote poor body posture which, inevitably follows into your golf action. Realigning your skeletal position takes a body mechanical advantage allowing easier movement and coordination.
Efficient rotational sequencing relies on a correctly structured posture. Common postural problems caused by weak abdominals, tight hamstrings and tight quads (among a number of others) can be quickly corrected with some determined training. Dynamic arm leverage again relies on a correct posture combined with an equally important muscular stability-mobility combination across your back and chest.
“If you want to play at your best you must place your body in a position to take a mechanical advantage, if you don’t do this your competitors probably will”
Transition Sports
Exploring the Relationship Between Striking a Golf Ball and other Sporting Activities
Tennis to Golf
On the face of it transferring to golf from tennis should be a simple process. Both rely on a complete body engagement and ballistic rotation of the body centre to generate power in to a held lever. Hand and arm strength are required to support the strike and both are explosive through impact. Both sports require lead foot to ‘ground’ in preparation for the power side to unleash to compress the ball. This is all the perfect combination for delivering power; however, there is an important difference that is noticeable at impact, especially with high quality hard hitting tennis players.
Having coached a number of these tennis players it’s noticeable how they ‘brace at impact’ when striking a golf ball. This is due to a built an instinctive process that has been trained over many years of returning tennis balls. It wasn’t until I played tennis with two of these guys that I realised this mechanism that had been educated. The intensity in the body to deal with a 100mph tennis ball was incredible and made perfect sense with my observation as they try to use this same action to support the body when impacting a golf ball. Unfortunately, the result was a loss of power as the club ‘stalls’ reducing impact speed and compression on the ball.
What was even more significant was when they increased the effort level and associated ‘impact strength’ with ‘impact speed’ further reduced golf ball distance. The process used to succeed in tennis actually reduced the golf performance. A more relaxed technique must be learnt to develop ‘deep internal rotational’ allowing fast twitch muscle fibres to fire to maintain the synchronisation and ‘feed’ the club with power into and through impact. This is a motor skill that can be learnt like any other and only requires diligent practise and an understanding of the process to create power into the golf ball.
Articles coming soon....
Functional Warm Up for your Joints
Functional Performance Training
Functional Hand Strength and Power
Developing Arm Speed
Developing Dynamic Strength
Developing Ballistic Rotation
Developing Dynamic Balance
Developing Dynamic Stability
Learngolfuk is a progressional site with lots more information to come.