PHASE ONE: DO WHAT IS RIGHT, NOT WHAT IS EASY

A golfer who wants to perfect his swing before addressing any physical shortcomings he may have that inhibit his ability to do so, might as well be trying to become a virtuoso trumpet player while still suffering from chronic asthma.

The only way your golfing dream can come true, is if you wake up. If you are like the majority of golfers, you probably need to wake up to the fact that golf is a sport and any sport is played by athletes. All athletes who want to improve their performance must be prepared to work on both their sport-specific fitness and their technique.

The best, if not the only, way to go about achieving real game-improvement with a carefully-planned, sequential programme of (i) physical conditioning (ii) technical skills coaching (iii) effective practice.

“Most swing flaws are actually owing to stiffness or weakness in some part(s) of the body. Improvement can be achieved simply by getting stronger and/or more flexible.” – Dr Bob Rotella.

The European Tour Performance Institute recognises the importance of the above and screens promising young golfers to assess their physical fitness for golf and then provides them with a personalised conditioning programme based on the results obtained.

It is equally important that you too understand the current status of your golf specific fitness and then work to strengthen any areas of weakness and eradicate any areas of inflexibility.

Accordingly, it is vital that you first evaluate the current status of your golf fitness by undertaking a properly designed screening programme that will pinpoint any areas of insufficient flexibility and/or strength.

Then you need to make a conscious decision and commitment to act on the data you obtain.

However, it is not enough to understand what needs to be done, you must also understand how to go about achieving it. This is where, as you will see, Fitter Golfers comes into the equation.

You should download our free self-assessments for the upper and lower body, which come with a comprehensive set of norms against which you can measure your results. Having pinpointed any areas for improvement, you can then select the appropriate conditioning modules to effect the necessary physical changes.

The Fitter Golfers conditioning modules are carefully designed to improve both mobility and flexibility in the ankles, knees, hips, spine, shoulders, arms/wrists and neck, along with further modules to improve balance and posture, enabling you to select only the modules that are relevant to your needs.

So that you appreciate the relevance of each exercise, we explain how each individual shortfall will potentially impact on the swing and the swing benefits to be obtained from improving physical capacity in that area.

Our overall aim is to ensure that when you take lessons, you will be much better able to perform the positions and techniques recommended to you and reap full benefit from your instruction, thus getting a better return on the time and money that you invest.

In my next post I will talk about how best to go about complementing your conditioning work by planning your technical skills coaching with a teaching professional via a programme of lessons.