Fitness
You are only as good as your weakest link. If left undiagnosed and untreated, you have already (or are likely to) develop motor patterns around this weak link, and, in the process, acquire poor habits and mechanics.
Through 3D motion analysis, Pure Balance evaluation, and specifically designed golf fitness screens, we can determine what the weak link is likely to be.
Most golf injuries can be divided into three categories: cumulative injury cycles, repetitive strain conditions, and over use syndromes. Moreover, there are three basic developmental conditions that underlie most of these golf injuries: 1) scapula-thoracic instability; 2) spinal-extension-rotation weaknesses; and 3) core and joint stability problems.
There can also be several musculoskeletal problem areas: posture, stability, mobility, your learned motor pattern, soft tissue injuries, and body imbalances/ asymmetries.
The most important consideration is that we find the most significant limitation that is fitness related. If it is a more serious condition, we can refer you to our medical partners, Victor Advanced Chiropractic. In fact, if you are serious about your health and golf game, both for injury prevention as well as rehabilitation, we would suggest an in-depth fitness evaluation from Victor Advanced Chiropractic, and perhaps Advanced Release Therapy (ART).
To determine the most significant limitation, we will undertake a specific golf physical screening designed by the advisory staff of Titleist Performance Institute. From these results, we then proceed to design a workout program with specific exercise progressions for you. A guiding philosophy at this point is the idea that the exercises should help you improve your mobility and/or stability and allow you to break a bad movement pattern rather than exercising a specific muscle group.
Power Groove™
Crucial to our approach to fitness is that you train for golf in a specific neuro-muscular fashion using the revolutionary Power Groove™ training machine.
The Power Groove training system is premised on the foundation that an efficient golf swing is dependent on two things:
- the need for proper golf musculature and
- the programming of a correct muscle firing sequence.
Training with the Power Groove will help you attain both of these requirements.
Because the golf swing occurs so quickly, it is very difficult for our conscious
mind to attend to the event, especially on the downswing. Even Tour players will comment that they do not “see” the ball on the downswing. So it is left to our mind/body’s automatic reflexes and subcortical muscle programming to perform the action. So, in many instances, the golf swing’s muscle firing sequence will be based on familiar movement patterns. Some of these movements may be an “overhand throw”, an “upward lifting” action, or a pulling motion, either across or downward. Such actions, however familiar, do not help us in the golf swing, which is probably why golf feels so awkward, counter-intuitive, and unnatural when first done correctly.
This is also why so many people “fallback” or resort to old, familiar habits and movements. They simply do not trust in their mind the information being sent by the body.
It may only take several hundred swings to engrain a bad habit, while it may require thousands to undo it. An inefficient golf ‘program’ in the brain is very difficult to change by just swinging, repeatedly, a golf club on the range. Because a golf club is relatively light (today’s drivers may weigh less than 300 grams), there is not enough resistance for a golfer’s musculature to grow or reprogram its firing sequence. In addition, the swing unfolds so quickly that the golfer falls victim to his or her own automatic self-defense reflexes and compensatory actions. An example of such a compensatory action would be impact where the joints undergo tremendous pressure and strain which, consequently, may trigger an unconscious, automatic self-defensive reaction of pulling back, bending the elbow, slowing down, or having your muscles go soft. In essence, you are trying to protect yourself from injury in a subconscious sense as the body ‘knows’ its physical limits. The golfer may even experience a mixture of all these defensive moves. What then occurs is that the mind/body will try to avoid these strenuous biomechanical geometries and kinesthetically fire compensatory muscular actions. A host of problems may then ensue: loss of posture, change of swing plane, altered sequencing, etc.
The Power Groove helps you train in a manner that is efficient in the sense that the proper musculature is being trained. It also assists us in training the segments of the body or the kinetic link. It helps us train from the ground to the feet, legs, pelvis, hips, torso, arms, hands, and club.
In other words, the Power Groove helps the golfer reprogram their “neuromuscular pattern” and “feel”. Instead of using contradictory and harmful “swing thoughts” and “tips” you are using a targeted neuromuscular system that is quite different from traditional teaching. It is not only the mind in the body, but the body in the mind.
Comparative Resistance Chart
Constant Resistance is weight stack fitness machines that are gravity dependant. Progressive Resistance are elastic type such as rubber bands, metal springs. Exponential Resistance is the PowerGroove System.
In these charts above it can be clearly seen that Exponential Resistance most closely simulates the Inertial Resistance produced by an Accelerating Clubhead. (Information for PowerGroove™ is used by permission from Kellion Sports.)
Pure Balance™ System
“Pure Balance™ is the single most useful training tool since the development of
video 20 years ago”
- Dr. Jim Suttie, 2000 PGA Teacher of the Year
It is estimated that as many as 99% of all golfers have never had their balance and weight transfer measured, nor seen the center of gravity (COG) for their swing. The Pure Balance™ machine is a precise training tool that allows us to monitor your center of gravity while providing immediate visual feedback. In this way, you can learn and reinforce a proper address posture, as well as the “feel” of balance and weight shift during your swing.
Pure Balance™ assessment is included with every initial evaluation. If the weakest part of your kinetic link starts at the ground, WE WILL KNOW IT!
Acceleration
Vertical Forces
Center of Gravity
Weight Distribution
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