Golf off-season. What are you doing?

Tags

conditioning, coordination, flexibility, golf, golf fitness, physical therapist, physical therapy, power, speed development, strength training, Sundog Rehab, Sundog Rehabilitation, swing faults, Titleist Performance Institute, TPI

This is a year around sport no matter what climate you live in.  And, it is no secret that golf fitness is here to stay.  Since Tiger Woods has proven to the amateur golf community  that general fitness can lead to golf fitness, many have hit the gym as often as they hit the links.

The “what” and “when” can make or break a golf fitness program, especially if you are starting deconditioned or injured.   Will your golf fitness elevate your golf handicap?  Maybe, if you have enough golf skill.  It will DEFINITELY increase your stamina and strength for reducing fatigue or injury during your golf season.

Titleist Performance Institute recommends that 7 fitness components are addressed in a golf fitness program:  posture, balance, mobility, stability (combination of strength and balance), power, coordination, and endurance.  As a certified Titliest Golf Fitness Instructor I have gone through 5 courses to perfect the evaluation techniques of the fitness components listed above.  With the proposed program below all of these components will be addressed.

Mike Romatowski who contributes to TPI and trains at  Core Fitness in Timonium, MD suggests 3 phases of training during the year (listed below).  Periodizing your training is especially important if you live in cold weather and are unable to consistently swing a club during the winter months.

1)  OFF-SEASON

WORK ON:  Rehab, Posture, Mobility, Stability, Balance

TIME FRAME:   3-4 months from Nov – Feb – IN OTHER WORDS, RIGHT NOW!

*Before you begin any fitness program, make sure you have addressed your injuries (Rehab)

Posture is actually the first step to changing and improving your ability to enhance your golf swing.  If you don’t have good body awareness or enough flexibility to achieve good posture, club head speed or trunk separation gains decline.  This can something that takes a lot of time to improve, especially if you have ignored it.  Once you have sufficient mobility and acceptable posture, maintain it with stability exercises.  If you have sufficient mobility and stability, you can address pure strength.  The better strength base you build during off-season, the more power you can build during pre-season.

HOW?:  Yoga, Pilates, dynamic and /or static stretching for posture, body weight functional exercises (with weight if ready) for strength and balance.  Doing abdominal exercises will not necessarily give you stability.  “Finding” your stability may require the assist of a healthcare or fitness professional.

2)  PRE-SEASON

WORK ON:  Power and Coordination

TIME FRAME:  1-2 months in March and April

Power = strength x speed.  If you were able to work through your injuries and mobility deficits so that you could build a strength base, you are ready for power training.   With this type of exercise we are adding speed to our strengthening exercises.  Golfers are often concerned with getting bulky and losing their swing mobility.  If you follow a power training workout with some coordination drills, the power carryover onto the golf course will improve.

HOW?:  Olympic weight lifting with low repetition and high resistance, plyometrics for power, speed drills for speed, agility drills for speed and coordination, TPI golf posture stability drills for coordination.

*Specifically:  Crossfit, Insanity, P90X for power…but be careful not to overdo it and get injured prior to golf season.  Many of these programs are too advanced for people who do not have a strength base.

3)  IN-SEASON

WORK ON:  Mobility and Endurance

TIME FRAME:  5-6  months May – Oct

During golf season you want to focus on not getting tight or fatigued.  Since you fixed your mobility deficits during preseason, use this time to maintain it.  Light cardio will maintain your endurance.   Remember that cardio is purely raising your heart rate.  If you continue with 1 or 2 sessions / week working on low load power exercises or interval training you will not only maintain your endurance, but also maintain power.   Using the interval training as cardio will also control any weight gain.

HOW?:  Yoga, Pilates, Moderate intensity cardio (running, cycling, rowing), interval training and Olympic lifting for maintenance only.

Sundog Rehab

Still feel lost?  Have injuries you are worried about aggravating with an aggressive program?  Get into the clinic!  Get evaluated with a physical exam, video analysis and personalized program.  See info here for contacting me to get started ASAP.  There are only 3 -4 months left before the season starts.  Apppointments are conveniently located at Sundog Rehab in Rapid City.

Resources

YOGA FOR GOLF:  http://ptsportswellness.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/back-pain-keeping-you-off-the-links/ GOLF EX FOR STIFF

PEOPLE:  http://ptsportswellness.wordpress.com/2010/05/28/are-you-a-stiff-golfer/

YEAR AROUND GOLF CONDITIONING:  http://www.ajga.org/media_center/coverstories/08_Stories/11-5-08.asp

First Move Well – Part I

Tags

cat and camel, childs pose, corrective exercises, foam roller, gary gray, Gray Cook, hip flexor, physical therapist, physical therapy, psoas, thoracic mobility

Blog I wrote from CPMC Sports Wellness Blog.  Check it out and all the great exercise videos.  The most important is here (hip flexor).

First Move Well – Part I

Brain Benefits of Exercise. Getting Back on My Soapbox.

Tags

brain chemistry and exercise, chronic pain, depression, exercise, fitness, pain, physical therapy

Repost from my blog Brain Benefits of Exercise.  I have been seeing a higher percentage of patients that just need to start moving.  At least half of the people coming in with pain are depressed, sedentary and lack motivation to begin making changes.  So, I am reposting this blog…just to get back on my soapbox.

It is official – we are no longer hunters and gatherers.  We spend most of our day sitting in front of a screen.  Because of this 65% of the United States adults are overweight or obese.  It is well known by now that we are killing our bodies due to inactivity – creating heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and increased cancer risks.  But what many don’t realize is that lack of exercise significantly affects our mood, intelligence, and motivation.  Exercise has recently been proven to be more successful and long lasting than many drugs in treating depression, anxiety and the non-brain related diseases listed above.

Learning and Memory – According to John Ratey, MD in Spark, exercise is “miracle grow for the brain.”  Learning requires Long Term Potentiation (LTP) or a strong affinity between neurons.  When the brain is called to take in new information and a chemical called glutamate is present in the synapses, the link is more likely to bond.  Exercise increases levels of glutamate  and a protein called Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) – both important for survival of and generation of new synaptic connections to learn new information and tasks.

Depression – In 2000 researches from Duke University made the New York Times with a study showing that exercise is better than Zoloft at treating depression.  In most psychiatric issues, stress causes the brain to get locked into a pattern of pessimism, fear, and retreat.  Stress is normal for people to feel and to recover from,  if the body is allowed to recover.  The problem with psychological stress is that because the brain is so good at creating synapses, the negative pattern is learned and repeated and we never get a chance to recover.  When we exercise, new patterns develop and new hormones are introduced  (serotonin and norepinephrine).  When we are done exercising, the body recovers.

Our brain does not distinguish between good and bad stress on the system, just the increased demand on our system.  How the brain reacts is purely based on how things are processed in the cortex.   Are there enough STRONG and ACTIVE connections and cortisol levels in our brain at the time of the stressor?  If there are too much cortisol levels for prolonged periods (no recovery) it becomes difficult to learn something new, but in short bursts (during exercise for example), our bodies can long term potentiate easier.  This is why it might be a good idea to have a good session of cardio exercise prior to cramming for a test.

The key point made above is that if we stress ourselves in short doses, physically, we can treat our depressive moods.  This is why you feel so euphoric after a High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) session. What does this all mean?  We need to exercise OFTEN and HARD to help offset the chance of chronic stress that results from overconsumption of social media, high work demands, learned pessimism, or general lack of movement. So what are you waiting for?  Get out there and move.  Your brain and body depend on it.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro05/web2/mmcgovern.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-derived_neurotrophic_factor

http://www.biopsychiatry.com/bdnf.htm