NOT FOUND: off season1.jpgWith daylight savings time coming to an end and the winter weather starts to put a hold on your improvement you've worked hard to attain, think about a plan to enhance what you accomplished this year. The best thing to do is come up with a conditioning, exercise, and mental strength program. Golf is a sport that requires the muscles of the body to work in a way to produce highly skilled and complex movements. Golfers must be able to effectively transfer energy from the ground up through the legs, hips, torso, arms, and ultimately the club to attain the best result. To do so, you must be able to load the muscles during the backswing and unload them in a sequential way to generate maximum clubhead speed at impact. By doing a regular conditioning program that incorporates strength, flexibility, and power training, you can optimize your swing to produce effective results. There are four areas to work on that will improve your performance, 1) dynamic
warm-up, 2) resistance training, 3) cardiovascular training, and 4) flexibility.
The purpose of the dynamic warm-up is to raise your core temperature, improve your range of motion, and prepare the body for more rigorous activity. A general warm-up consists of activities such as jogging, cycling, or rowing. after the warm-up, do a specific drill to enhance to improve your core for example, using a medicine ball to swing with or place a golf club across your lower back holding it in place with your forearms to improve your rotary action.
The goal of resistance training is to reduce possible injury by strengthening the vulnerable areas associated with the golf swing. Resistance can be thought of as weight training as you strengthen the knees, hips, lower back, ankles by doing repetitions with small weights. If you prefer not to work with weights, just doing simple routines like push-ups, squats, and crunches will improve your strength.
Cardiovascular training helps increase your endurance. Over an eighteen round of golf which can be anywhere from four to five hours, fatigue can cause your body to break down and not allow you to execute your golf swing at its best. Try to do thirty minutes of vigorous activity each day, for example, walking on a treadmill or just do a walk at a rigorous pace or run. If you usually take a golf cart golfing, commit to start walking the course.
NOT FOUND: off season2.jpgFlexibility increases your range of motion, reduces the likelihood of injury, and will maximize your power, clubhead speed, and control of your golf swing. Slow stretches at the end of a vigorous training session allows for more flexibility. In order to receive the benefit from stretching, each exercise should be performed 2-3 times and maintained to the point of slight discomfort for about 30 seconds.
Participating in a well designed fitness and conditioning program will improve your performance and enjoyment on the golf course, and reduce possible injury. Becoming a complete golfer and getting the most out of the activity revolves around fitness and have a positive mental approach not only to golf , but in everything you do. Improving your mental approach is another important component of the complete golfer. Just doing the conditioning program will enhance your mental state just because you will feel better. Anytime you catch yourself making a negative statement, try turning it around to be more positive. This is especially true when you play golf. You just can't afford to have any negative thoughts so program your mind to think more positively and your game will improve.