Improve Golf Swing – Improve Golf Swing! Every Golfer’s Mantra!

Improve Golf Swing! – Improve Golf Swing!

This is every golfer’s mantra.  Every golfer seems to be looking for a way to improve golf swing performance.  Some golfer’s look to improve golf swing performance by investing money in golf swing aids, professional golf swing instruction and golf swing videos.  Each one of these methods are certainly a necessary and fantastic way to improve golf swing skill development but, is that truly all golf is – just a game of skill like chess or checkers?

To improve golf swing performance golfers need to recognize that golf is an athletic sport and like all sports it demands both skill development and physical conditioning.  In his book, The Golf Biomechanics Manual – “Whole in One Golf Conditioning”, Paul Chek, an internationally respected corrective high performance exercise kinesiologist, puts the physical demands of golf into perspective.  He presents some interesting facts:

• “The head of a golf club can travel over 100 mph, an effort comparable to pitching a baseball.”

• “Amateur golfers achieve 90% of their peak muscle activity when driving a golf ball…the same intensity as picking up a weight that can only be lifted four times before total fatigue.”

• “Golfers…strike the ball an average of 30-40 times a game with comparable intensity! This level of exertion and muscle activation equates with such sports as football, hockey and martial arts.”

Pretty amazing comparisons, but wait, it gets even better!

In the book Paul Chek points out that “the average golfer tends to take up the game at an age when he or she is no longer racing around a sports field, nor actively participating in other energetic, competitive or other physically demanding sports.”  Talk about impeccable timing…could there be a worse period or stage in our lives to pick up a club!

Chek goes on to say, and we all could agree, that the “common misperception” that golf is not an athletic event “all too often results in injury and/or premature performance plateaus.”  Does that sound like anyone you know?

Who has the time to travel on the road of performance plateaus and injuries during their relentless pursuit to find the answer to improve golf swing performance – hitting that little ball, better, farther and more accurate each time they swing.  So what is the answer?

All golfers must take a two pronged approach to improve golf swing performance – practice skill and improve physical conditioning.  Most golfer’s put much more time and effort into the former and very little thought to the latter.  But what exercises have the greatest carryover to improve golf swing performance?  Postural alignment exercises!

How do exercises to improve posture alignment translate into improved golf swings?  Posture is a key component to proper golf swing mechanics – bringing joints into balance, optimizing joint range of motion and improving rotational capacity.  The better ones postural alignment is:

• The greater rotational torque one can generate resulting in longer drives

• The tighter ones swing axis will be resulting in less power leakage and producing a more fluid swing expression

• The greater chance one will have the proper clubface angle at impact resulting in less slices and shanks at the tee and shave strokes off your short game around the green

This article is the first of a series we want post on this site to help optimize your posture to improve your golf swing.   Investing some time in postural alignment exercises could pay huge dividends, providing amazing returns to improve your golf swing, improve your golf game and improve your daily living!