Do This, Not That

Avoid these errors for your best golf workout.

1.    DO Free Weights vs. NOT Machines


Skip over those fancy new machines and head straight over to the dumbbell and barbell rack. Machines isolate individual muscles while allowing you to sit and relax your stabilizing muscles. When do you use only 1 muscle during a golf swing? NEVER!

Free weights, on the other hand, engage the stabilizing muscles—including core. The golf swing is a complicated cascade of muscle activation. You need to teach those muscles to work together. Free weights are the tool to achieve just that.

2.   DO Reverse Crunches vs. NOT Crunches

Crunches can be pain in the neck. Literally.

Although core training is incredibly important to improving your golf swing, you can stay away from the good ol’ crunch. The average person wrenches his or her neck with a standard crunch, creating more problems than solutions.

Instead, try a reverse crunch! The reverse crunch maintains your upper spine stability, activates more core fibers, and strengthens the lower back as well. All benefits you want/need as a golfer.

 

  3.   DO Dynamic Stretching vs. NOT Static Stretching


Stop those middle school stretching routines now!  The classic “hold a pose for 15-20s” stretching is hur ting your game. Pre-round static stretching has been shown to decrease club-head speed, effectively limiting your distance.

Improve you performance by incorporating dynamic movements such as hip swings in their place.  Dynamic stretching is an effective warm-up for strength and flexibility and can easily be done on the first tee.

Grant Pettegrew is a Centennial-based strength and conditioning specialist (golfconditioningnow.com) and an avid golfer out of Centennial, CO 303-522-9001

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