World Golf Fitness Summit 2010 – Day 2 Review

Peter Kostis – If you want a revolution, the only solution, evolve
I was excited to hear from Peter’s team and their concept of the evolution of the golf swing and boy did they deliver.  Peter points out that the golf swing has evolved over the last hundred years for three reasons
1.     Equipment changes – including clothing
2.     Golf course design
3.     Conditioning
Tweed Man - Peter took us chronologically through the evolution of the ideal swings starting with an ambiguous 1890’s golfer referred to as “tweed man” who played with hickory shafts and restrictive clothing.  This golfer had a lot of hip turn and a fair amount of elbow bend to accommodate the syrupy transitions required to load that type of shaft.
Bobby Jones – less restrictive clothing than “tweed man” allowed for the longer swings that we picture when we think of hickory shaft golfers.  Kostis pointed out how Bobby Jones retired young as a result of the change in equipment.  I had never heard that explanation of why Jones stopped playing when he did, but it made a lot of sense.  Apparently, Bobby Jones experimented with steel shafts but didn’t want to put in the hours it would have required to change his game.  Too bad he didn’t have a Nike sponsorship back then, it would have been nice to see what he could have done if he had chose golf.
Hogan/Sam Snead – Golf’s first athletes and the prototypes of the modern golf swing built for the requirements of steel shaft.  I have to apologize for combining these two and not having notes for Hogan.  Unfortunately, on our thumb drive we didn’t get a copy of this presentation and I goofed on the note taking.  Back to Snead.  Kostis mentioned that Snead was the first golfer to use fitness to his advantage.  In an interview, Snead mentioned that he had some at home equipment for working on his upper body and we all know the stories about him kicking the top of a door jam at age 80.
Jack Nicklaus – The era of the spinney balata ball.  This era was dominated by the slide in an attempt to get the ball to launch really low.  If you were to put a “modern” swing with a balata golf ball, they would lose 50 yards at least.  Golf courses started to become softer and have less run up options on approach shots to greens.  There was no going back to the links style golf with lots of shots played low on the ground.  Sorry tweed man, you need to be able to land a ball with a butterfly with sore feet if you want to play this game, and the Jack style swing could certainly accomplish that feat.
Tiger Woods – Restrict those hips and get your x-factor working in a swing that is more geared at high launch and low spin.  This is the new model and it is a combination of the change in golf ball and the increased athleticism in golfers.
Additional comments
Peter left us with a few key thoughts.

• Most golf pro’s these days think that studying the golf swing began with the video camera in the 80’s.  He reminds us that there was 100 years of golfers playing some pretty remarkable golf without all of this technology.
• “As we get old, we must turn” – he cautions people from trying to turn the average golfer into Tiger Woods.  Maybe Sam Snead or even tweed man would work better for your average golfer with restricted movement and weak stabilizers.  He would rather see an older golfer turn those hips than try to mimic the modern swing.
• “I would rather give someone too little to work on than too much” – Peter believes in changing the swing slowly.  He uses the diet analogy of losing 1-2 pounds instead of going on a crash diet if you want the weight loss to last.

My last Peter Kostis point reflects a neat metaphor – and I won’t do it justice without video.  He took the stance of a teacher erasing a blackboard, with his back to the audience and arm holding the imaginary eraser up against the board.  He points out that as the teacher erases more vigorously, his butt will move more.  He cautions that just trying to move your butt, can you picture Peter Kostis up there just shanking his groove thang?, won’t make the eraser move any faster.  This is the perfect real world example of the beauty of kinetic linking.  Get that energy moving from the ground to the hand and the butt will be doing the right thing.

Dr. James Andrews – why it can hurt to play golf
Dr. Andrews is the most important person in sports that you may have never heard of.  Dr. Andrews is has performed surgeries on some of the greatest athletes in the major sports including: Troy Aikman, Charles Barkley, Roger Clemens, Allen Iverson, Bo Jackson, Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, Emmitt Smith, John Smoltz and Doug Williams.  His speech was detailed with usable information relating to injury in the world of golf.  Here are just some of his fun facts to know and share:

• 62% of amateur golfers will sustain an injury during their career
• 85% of pro golfers will sustain an injury

o   Higher incidence in professionals occur in the low back and shoulder
o   Other common injuries include wrist/hand, elbow, and knee

• Ball impact has highest incidence of golf injuries.
• Males have a higher incidence of left shoulder injuries
• Females have a higher incidence of left wrist injuries
• At impact – a well struck golf ball will impart a force of approximately25% of bodyweight to the lead shoulder while a poorly hit shot with a deep divot can be greater than 100% body weight
• Swing changes that relieve lower back pain include

o   No hip sliding
o   Rotate on top of spine
o   Avoid excessive lumbar rotation
o   Avoid side bending position
o   Limit bending over at address
o   Flex at knees
o   Play with longer clubs

• Lastly, he presented a study indicating that turning your left foot out can decrease the amount of force going into the left knee significantly.

The study on the turning of the left foot will really stick with me as a quick and easy way for your students to take some stress off of their back.  You do not have to set up with the toes square to play good golf.

Mike Bender and Scott Shepard – This team thing must really work
Unfortunately we did not get the slides for Mike Bender’s and Scott Shepards presentation so I’m missing a lot here.  The presentation was a summary of Mike Bender’s teaching method and how Scott Shepard has designed exercises and drills to support Bender’s system.  This is really the key message that I took from the presentation and it is a critical one.   As the fitness leg of the team, it is critical that you understand what the golf pro is trying to do with the player, the worst thing you can do is suggest a drill that contradicts what the pro is working on.  A classic example would be a player learning a single pivot swing, like the stack and tilt method, and you start doing lateral bounding and explain how it helps build the feeling of loading up into the right side.

A second point that I want to mention is a comment that I did write on my note sheet where bender talked about training aids being only as good as the coach that uses them.  This echoed a comment by Dennis McDade earlier in the week who stated that he didn’t really like the use of most training aids.  If you refer back to Richard Schmidt’s speech about random practice and the detrimental effect the use of a model can cause you will understand why training aids should be used at minimum.  I know that a lot of golfers like them, but it is our job as the coach to explain why they like them, and why the increased proficiency during practice is detrimental in the long run.

Bender made one critical comment that created a bit of a shockwave through the audience.  He mentioned that Zack Johnson has gotten a lot stronger over the last 4 years but in the process has lost distance.  He issued a caution that working out was the way to get more power in the golf swing.  While it’s true that simply adding strength will in no way guarantee a faster clubhead speed, this audience knows that if you are working on the right things, you can absolutely gain distance from working out.  It was an interesting comment to make in this arena, and I’m sure he meant nothing by it, but the way it was received was controversial to say the least.

Brain Bradley – What is normal should not be confused with what is healthy
Brian Bradley is the vice president of therapy protocol with Egoscue.  His presentation at the last WGFS was one of my favorites.  He has a strong presence and knows his stuff as it relates to the body.  This speech was an expansion off the presentation that he gave two years ago.  The basics of it are simple – if you don’t breath properly then don’t worry about any of the other stuff.  Why can he make this claim?  It’s simple really.  Poor breathing leads to decreased spine stability and a decrease in the movement of the organs, which can cause many issues that lead to reflexive core inhibition.   Both of these tendencies would make an explosive rotational movement, like the golf swing, very difficult to perform safely.  Further complications from a poor breathing pattern can be C-posture related faults characterized by.

• Upper trapezius ¨
• Levator Scapulae ¨
• Internally rotated and Hinged Humerus ¨
• Shortening of Pectoralis
• Compression of SC and AC joints

Brian then left us with a great way to practice breathing.  Place your thumbs just below the back side of your rib cage – if you do this correctly you will stick your chest out a bit and your elbows will flare out wide.  It looks a bit like a pose Mick Jagger might make, but stay with it.  With your thumbs placed at the base of your ribcage, take a breath.  If you are using your diaphram correctly, your will feel movement back into your thumbs as well as feel the ribcage moving laterally.  This is a more accurate description than the typical “belly breath”, where the belly distends forward and the drag it exerts can actually inhibit diaphragmatic breathing.  Brian refers to this concept of how to train breathing as “East West Breathing” and can do more for your core than thousands of planks.

Janet Alexander – If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail
For those of you who haven’t had the privilege to listen to Janet, let me say that she is without a doubt one of the smartest people in the world of health and wellness that I have had the pleasure of listening to.  Her presentation this year was all about designing yearlong periodization schedules for golfers.  The bottom line here is that you can throw out all the standard periodization plans that work in other sports.  Or rather, you need to adapt them for each individual golfer.  The reason they don’t work, is because golfers don’t really have a long enough off season to both recover from the season and to build muscle, they require peak performance multiple times a year, and when they are not peaking they don’t have enough down time to build muscle properly.  The goal of a year long plan is to grow muscle during the off season and then here and there when you can string a few off weeks together.  The goal for the rest of the year is to maintain that which you have gained so that you can build on it at your next opportunity.  One of the key messages was that if you don’t work out at least once in 2 weeks, you would lose the training effects of what you have built previously.  So make sure your golfers get in at least a few workouts each month so that they don’t take that dreaded step backward physically.

This presentation really targets those working with touring professionals, but the take home for those of us working with the average golfers and the weekend warriors is the importance of planning and showing them the plan.  Get a white board and use it to inform your golfers so that they understand why they are doing this now.  It will help with compliance when the going gets tough.

Two Days down and one to go.  It’s fun relieving all of the wonderful information that was presented but it’s taking a bit longer than I hoped.  My goal when I get set up for it is to transition over to more videos/monologues.  But not until I finish day 3 – which includes the presentation with Ben Crane, Dr. Greg Rose, and James Sieckmann.  It could be a toss up in terms of my favorite presentation between this and Richard Schmidts.  Can’t wait to write it after I enjoy some turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving golfers.