Your first six weeks at the start of the season is called Base Training Phase 1. The name itself might not be truly inspiring, but this is THE MOST IMPORTANT phase of your whole golfing year!
This is the time to dedicate taking care of the flexibility, balance, stability and core issues that you may have. Starting with the basics – even if you have trained many years – is important; compare it to building a foundations for your future house. All the future work (strength and power) you do is based on how well you have build your foundations and (do I even need to say this?) they need to be solid as a rock! Circuit training of 15 repetitions is a common format and your program should include lots of flexibility and stability exercises!
During this time you should also take care all of the technical issues of your golf game: swing, short game and putting. It’s now or never.. go and book session with your golf coach and go to work!!
Make some plans for your next season too: write down your goals and put all the important tournaments into your calendar (or if you don’t yet have the dates, make rough plans) that way you can plan and prepare when you would like to peak at your scoring game and it gives you a motivational boost to train when you see those goals and dates in your diary too over the long winter months!
Golf Performance Exercise of the Month – Horse Stance
One of the best exercises that combines balance, body and core control for your golf is called the “Horse Stance”.
Kneeling on all fours on the floor, keep the knees under the hips and the wrists under the shoulders. Keep the chin tucked and the elbows pointing backwards and slightly bent.
Place the dowel rod straight along the spine and if possible parallel to the ground (three points on your dowel rod should touch the base of the skull, shoulder blade area / the mid thoracic spine and the tail bone) and your hand should fit snugly between the pole and the lower back.
Activate your core and pull the belly button inwards and then slowly unload one hand and opposite knee up slightly (just about 0,5cm) from the floor – all this while keeping the dowel rod as still as possible!
Hold statically in this position 5 seconds at the time (adding one second each time you practise this exercise) before lowering and repeating on the other side. Keep going until you feel fatigued or reach your goal of 10 repetitions to each side (20 in total). However, remember that your form should be spot on – so if your three points fall apart you are not doing any favours to your motor program and you definitely should stop! Rest about 60 seconds, and try again with better form until you have done those repetitions.
The picture of me doing this on the Swiss Ball, is a VERY advanced version of this exercise so you need to do your homework on the floor before adding extra challenge – start lifting arm and knee to be parallel to the floor first. Please don’t go any further and also remember – without dropping that dowel rod!!!
Once you master everything on the floor, only then you can slowly add the unstable Swiss Ball to this exercise and try to truly master the exercise with good form!
Good luck with the balance training and start of your new season!!
Riikka
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