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So your golf lesson is going well but you are half wondering.. I have actually heard this same story before – haven’t I? “Get that weight more to your right, full shoulder turn, stay more quiet with those legs on your backswing, hit through the ball, your rhythm is slightly off and boy your hips are not really firing at all”… sounds familiar?

“The very same words, as last time I had the lesson…” you are thinking.

In fact this is one of the reasons why I do what I do helping golfers with their fitness, posture, niggles and pains. I was teaching golf a year and a half in western Finland at Nordcenter Golf and Country Club.

I loved my job, couldn’t wait to get going every morning, but more I was teaching, more I started wonder – for about 75% of the people I could have easily just recorded the first lesson and replayed that very lesson all over again at the next one.

I was absolutely sure, 100% that I had made a correct valuation of the fault and that I had given the right drills for my clients to get better, even if they did practise and did those drills I gave them as a home work, their made little or no progress what so ever.

I’m one of those rear people who really truly care about my clients and take lot of pride on what I do and what kind of results I get with my clients ever since those early days of my coaching career.

I started to realized that they body just weren’t able to do stuff I was asking them to do – their body was limited, not co-operating and all those compensations were there because of the limitations in various parts of their body: not flexible enough, stability or strength issues or variation of all above.

“It’s not your fault, it’s your body’s fault!” is often heard in conversation with me, and many find it calming and reassuring to know – they just need to start doing the right stuff. As a matter of fact lot of people already know they have certain issues or there’s areas that they are stiff or weak, but very few know how to get better.

Good training programs should address and correct the posture, balance and flexibility issues before building on strength and power. If you build strength or power on top of the unstable body all you do is run into the same problem over, over, over and over again and driving that faulty movement pattern into your brain even deeper, if you are lucky not to injure yourself in a progress.

You will need to do an assessment what is going on: what muscles needs more attention for the flexibility, stability and strength. Often you need someone to help you with that since you can’t really see how good you move and let’s be honest – we all think we move and swing like Rory, don’t we? Then you will need a training program that will target those specific areas in your body and go to work!

After couple of months (or even weeks!) will find out that all that hard work will pay off on your golf game: you feel much more stronger and you notice a difference in your ability to rotate (for example)… AND the best part is – it all feels very natural to hit a golf ball when you are able to move freely!

Fall is great time to start “all over” and prepare for the following season, good luck!

Riikka