Dee here with some candid talk about pain.
Do you know that as a male golfer, 53% of you will have back pain at some point during the season. And if you are a female, 48% of you will.
Sad thing about that is that those numbers are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to golf related injuries!
Yes, there are many variables that inevitably lead to pain or injury, but here are the five most common mechanisms that cause injury:
1. Poor body mechanics- These are the body mechanical issues that create compensation in your swing. These compensations show up as swing faults that every singe amatuer golfer has! Got body issues, then you will have swing issues…period!
2. Poor swing biomechanics- This one is easy…if you have swing faults, then your game will suck, and it’s this repetitive “suckiness” that will contribute to pain somewhere in your body!
3. Excessive practice (overuse)- Here’s a great piece of free info, STOP beating balls! Since when has the game of golf become sitting at a driving range hitting balls with the same club? You don’t do it during a round, so hitting 30-50 five irons certainly isn’t a very smart idea! As a player you should spend about 30% of your time on the driving range in “block” style practice, which is working on weaknesses in your game. The other 70% should be “random” practice where you are “visualizing shots” in your head and playing a course like you normally would, except you are at the driving range.
4. No regular exercise program- THIS ONE IS OUR BIGGEST GRIPE OF COURSE! Golf is one of the few sports where a majority of the players don’t have some sort of “physical foundation” upon which to use when they participate in their sport! A recent study still showed that most amatuer golfers don’t think golf is an athletic sport! HUH? ARE YOU CRAZY!? So when did swinging a weighted object around your body at over 90+ MPH not an athletic event? Get over it…golf is a highly athletic event, so stop making excuses as to why your so lazy and your game is so average! 
5. Poor nutrition- That’s right, you eat like crap, you’re going to perform and feel like crap! Like they always say, “You are what you eat.” If you’d like to be a big mac and fries, then go ahead…just don’t expect any great outcomes in life or in golf! If you need help with nutrition, contact us and we can put a cellular specific program together for you.
6. Improper club fitting- Try this- get your body right first, THEN go and spend a thousand dollars on clubs, cause at least you will be more properly fit than if you went in and gof fit while your body “was a wreck!”
Remember, today’s equipment cannot live up to their factory expectations when the body that is swinging it is swinging it improperly! Example- Charles Barkley or Tiger Woods swinging the same club…who’s going to get the most potential out of the technology…Hmmm, kind of a no brainer, eh?
So in the end, realize that pain is an indicator. It means you have physical issues that are creating it, now just find someone qualified to fix those issues and watch your game go to the next level!
Filed under Uncategorized by on Apr 17th, 2009. Comment. 
This picture courtesy of www.mytpi.com.
Defined-
Over the top is perhaps the most common swing fault among high handicap golfers. It usually occurs due to an overuse or over-dominance of the upper body on the downswing. As a result the club is thrown outside of the intended swing plane, with the club-head approaching the ball from the outside in. This creates a pull if the clubface is square or a slice if the clubface is open.
This fault can rob a golfer of power and limit their ability to control the ball flight as they add or decrease loft to the club and additional spin to the ball through impact. By changing the path, they will create a more solid strike and increase their distance and accuracy.
Causes-
1. The ability to disassociate the lower body from the upper body to lead the downswing. Limited pelvis to trunk separation is usually caused by reduced spinal and hip mobility.
2. Core stability to help maintain posture and trunk stability is essential. Any loss in posture (flat shoulder plane or reverse spinal angle) can force the torso and arms to fire first in transition to help re-position the body for rotation.
3. Good Balance on each leg, especially the lead leg, is paramount for proper weight shift. Limited weight shift toward the lead leg can reduce the lower body’s contribution to power generation in the swing. Therefore, players will try to produce excessive power in their upper body by chopping down or throwing the club-over-top.
This is probably the most common swing fault of all amatuer golfers! It is the cause of slices, shanks, loss of power and one of the reasons players get so many shoulder, elbow and wrist issues.
If you have any questions on how to get rid of this swing fault, let us know, we’d be happy to create a program just for you and your issues that will help you get rid of over the top forever!
Filed under Uncategorized by on Mar 30th, 2009. Comment.
Twice this week, high school students came back to my gym after working out on their own this winter. They both complained of hitting the ball worse this week than they did in the fall – which in the DC area was the first good golf weather week this year. They had hit plenty of golf balls to keep their swings sharp. They did hit off of mats and not grass, but why would a swing get progressively worse while working out? One was shanking the ball, the other was hitting lots of fat shots – but both of them were frustrated and confused.
I did my normal quarterly assessment to see what kind of physical changes had taken place and what we need to do to get the ready for summer tournaments. In both cases, I found a decreased amount of shoulder movement – specifically in external range of motion. I questioned each of them individually to find out what exercises they were doing the last couple months. Each of them confessed to working out with a friend – non golfers of course – who was trying to bulk up and did lots of chest exercises.
Yes, the chest is an important muscle group in the golf swing, but arbitrarily strengthening any one area – they way they did – is a bad idea. As a result, we are going to have to do some work to undo what was done and regain shoulder motion. A tight right shoulder for a right handed golfer can cause the club to release too soon (can cause contact problems – specifically fat shots) or cause the golfer to side bend too much to compensate for the shoulder (can cause shanks – a lot of shanks for better players).
If you are going to do isolation exercises, do glute exercises. Hip hikers and bridges are great isolation exercises that will actually help your golf swing – you can find links at www.mytpi.com.
I know that a big chest is cool in high school, but elite golfers just say no to the bench and so should you.
Filed under Uncategorized by on Feb 12th, 2009. Comment.