Whenever amateur golfers are facing issues with contact or consistency in their swing, they almost always attribute the problem to a very small part of their golf swing rather than looking at the most obvious, and simple, solution.

A big problem for many golfers is getting their spine into proper positioning at set-up and maintaining that position throughout the swing.

The most common issue golfers have when it comes to posture is rounding their shoulders too much, trainer Kevin Duffy says. And when you think about it, it’s easy to see why.

Most of us are sitting at our desks in poor posture for at least eight hours a day, add that to the poor posture we maintain in the car and sleeping, and that’s another eight to 10 hours of us conditioning ourselves to stay in bad positioning.

“You can’t out-train the desk,” Duffy says Kevin Duffy, “but there are a couple of things players can do to improve their posture both in their swing and in their day-to-day lives.”

Duffy’s first recommendation is to avoid extended periods of time in postures that aren’t helpful toward your overall goal. One way to achieve better posture during your workday is to get a standing desk. Another way is to incorporate a couple of quick walks or stretching, like the ones below, into your daily routine.

 

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Duffy’s band exercises will combat the effects of prolonged sitting and help you maintain a better spine position throughout your swing.

Duffy recommends keeping a light band at home that you can use to do 10-12 reps a couple times a day.

He also says the key to nailing these easy exercises is completing them in a balanced position with a neutral spine. If you find that you’re swaying or rounding your shoulders, try using a lighter band or no band at all. The goal here, Duffy explains, is to open up your chest and get out of the rounded position so many of us find ourselves in throughout a majority of our day.

His next recommendation for improving golf posture, is to check that you’re hip hinging into your set-up.

Most golfers use their spine and round their shoulders when addressing the ball, but in reality they really need to be using their hips, Duffy says.

To practise getting into proper golf, stand straight with your knees slightly bent and think about hinging or sliding your hips back a few inches.

When practising this, it’s important to note that you want to keep your spine relatively straight. Too much tilt in your pelvis will create an exaggerated arch in the back which can be just as much of a problem when rotating as too much rounding in the shoulders.

“When you improve your position at address, you’ll improve your ability to rotate,” Duffy says.

Kevin Duffy

Learning to hip hinge will help you create a bigger turn in your backswing, improve your weight transfer and allow you to incorporate the larger muscles you need to create more power in your swing.

Duffy’s final recommendation is to learn diaphragmatic breathing.

“Chest breathing causes a shortening of the traps and can increase stress,” Duffy says.

This is bad for two reasons: not only will you have more tension in your trapezius muscles, but Duffy explains that the body stores stress in unique ways and that can wreak havoc on your posture and back health as well. Common stress stores for females are in the upper shoulder blades and trapezius muscles, while male stress stores are typically in the low back.

Duffy suggests using a simple box breathing technique to achieve proper belly breathing. Breathe in for four seconds, hold for four seconds, release for four seconds and hold again for four seconds before starting the cycle over again. Placing your hands on your stomach as you practise this can help you focus on breathing from your diaphragm as opposed to your chest.

Belly breathing is key because it reduces tension in players’ traps and back while also helping them regulate their nervous system when they’re under stress, Duffy says.

The post Having contact issues? It might be your posture — three keys for fixing it appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Your heart is in the right place. You want to be stronger, healthier and play better golf. But if you’re anything like the typical gym goers that Golf Digest chief fitness advisor Ben Shear sees, you might be going about it the wrong way.

Several popular exercises that many think are helping you can put you on the fast track to injuries and make it hard to swing a golf club properly. Shear has trained several players on the PGA Tour including major champions Jason Day and Webb Simpson and Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald. Here he has identified five exercises that you should stop doing right now and offers a better replacement for each.

1. Instead of seated lat pulldowns, do elbows-high rows

One of the most popular exercises in the gym can ruin your posture. When your pelvis is locked down during a lat pulldown, the back muscles being trained rotate and round your spine, which can lead to a steeper, armsy golf swing. If you switch from pulldowns to using a cable rowing machine (or bands), pull the cable into your chest with your elbows at shoulder height and your torso upright. This works several muscles groups in your back for better posture and golf-club control.

2. Instead of med-ball rotations, do T-spine twists

Rotational core exercises are great for golf — if done properly. Unfortunately, a heavy medicine ball promotes bad form by putting the spine in flexion (rounded forward) while making it hard to rotate the torso from the mid-back like you should. Also, it’s easy to cheat and simply move your arms and not your torso. If you switch to T-spine twists, you can focus on rotating from side to side with your mid-back (thoracic-spine region). Place a club across your chest, bend your knees, and tighten your abs as you rotate.

3. Instead of crunches, do push-back planks

If you think about the typical rounded, unathletic posture of an elderly golfer, and then look at a person doing crunches, you should see some similarities. Golfers need to protect their spines from rounding, but crunches promote it. Sooner or later, the combination of crunches and golf will cause some back issues. Instead, doing push-back planks, with your feet in slings on sliders or on a physio ball, keeps the spine in a neutral position while really working the key core muscles needed for power in the golf swing.

4. Instead of upright rows, do bottoms-up kettlebell presses

When you pull up to complete an upright row, the muscles and tendons of the rotator cuffs smash into the top of your shoulder blades, potentially causing tears and dysfunction in your golf swing. Instead, to improve shoulder strength, which is key to controlling a golf club at high speeds, hold a kettlebell upside down at shoulder height and push straight up, keeping your forearm, hand and bell as vertical as possible. Not only does this exercise do wonders for your shoulders, it improves forearm and grip strength, making those shots out of the rough easier.

5. Instead of leg extensions, do split squats

Average golfers typically have weak hamstrings — especially those with desk jobs — when compared to the quadriceps (front of thigh) muscles. When the hamstrings are weak, it’s a challenge to stay in posture when making golf swings, which leads to poor contact. Instead, split squats really focus on the hamstrings, allowing you to stay down through impact and blister the ball. Keep your torso upright and head back as you drop your trail knee to the ground. As this move becomes easier, you can make it more challenging by holding dumbbells.

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Findings compiled from 194 different exercise studies involving 30 million people reveal that if you get your heart rate up for only 11 minutes a day, you pick up some major health benefits, including a significant reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death.

That’s right. Eleven minutes on the bike, treadmill, doing push-ups, etc, and you’re good to go.

The 11-minute sweet spot

In total, you’re looking for about 75 minutes of moderate-to-high intensity exercise per week, the study reported. It was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

This is especially good news for golfers, if you look back at a study done in the early 2000s (Broman). If you walk during your rounds of golf, the high-intensity threshold for exercise is reached 30 per cent of the time in golfers 50 and older and 70 per cent in golfers 75 and older. For you younger players (under 30), you only reach that threshold for 6 per cent of the round. But do the maths. If the average round takes four hours, that means you hit the mark for 14 minutes! You’re done.

Obviously, no one is saying you shouldn’t exercise more. The World Health Organization recommends 150 minutes of vigorous activity a week. But if you get those 11 minutes in, you reduce your chance of premature death by 25 per cent and heart disease by 17 per cent. Not bad.

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A classic example of a good push/pull pairing are bench presses and bent-over rows. Both are great for golfers looking to pick up some clubhead speed, get their irons through thick rough and blast shots out of bunkers.

Bench press for golf? Yup. EMG (electromyography) data gathered by Centinela Hospital in Los Angeles on good golfers’ muscle activity shows that the pectorals (chest) are among the most active in the through-swing and are crucial to clubhead acceleration. And rows are great for strengthening the muscles of the upper back from a hip-hinged stance (similar to golf). Among their many roles, the upper-back muscles help stabilise your golf swing, which leads to better ball-striking.

OK, with that explanation out of the way, now comes the “you’re doing them wrong” part. If you play golf, you want to keep your spine neutral during the concentric phase of the press. If you arch your back as you push the dumbbell or barbell upward, you’re moving your spine into extension and forcing the vertabrae near your tailbone to compress on each other. That’s the last thing a golfer wants to do, as this sport already is cruel to your lower back. Arching your spine might seem intuitive to recruit more leverage in the lift, but it comes at the expense of your back health.

In the case of bench pressing, you’re much better off doing them in a neutral-spine position, Fleischer says. Even better, if you do them with most of your body off the bench, you can recruit your glutes and hip flexors to make the exercise multi-purpose.

The mistake most often made in bent-over rows is using the opposite arm for support on a bench or similar. Putting your wrists into extension to serve as a post while you row with the opposite arm is again putting undue stress on a body part that takes a beating during the golf swing. You’re much better off not using the opposite arm for support or keeping the wrist in a flat/neutral position if you do, Fleischer says.

The post Two exercises golfers do wrong (not you, other golfers) appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.