Is Your Oil Leaking On The Golf Course
Article by: Nick Urso, Purlife Personal Trainer
Growing up in the household of a PGA golf professional I was always surrounded by the game of golf. It became my passion to the point where I ended up playing at a Division 1 level in college. At a very young age, my father didn’t really focus too much on mechanics with me, he focused more on how far I was hitting it. He would always tell me “it’s hard to teach length when you’re older so learn it now”.
Whether you’re a child or adult, who doesn’t like to be the longest off the tee in your group? It keeps the fun in the game, and I can say with pride that I am consistently still one of the longest when I play.
Are you looking to increase your drive and/or just better your overall game? Follow the tips below and you’ll be ready to “Smash It!” like my father would tell me.
Flexibility!
Hips, shoulders, and thoracic spine are the keys! These mobile joints need the freedom to move to produce a powerful swing. If these joints aren’t working well, your golf game will surely regress. So when working out you want to stick to a consistent dynamic warm up that involves incorporating all three of these joints. Try an exercise like the Worlds Greatest Stretch along with strength training with light weight free weights, and resistance band exercises.
Core!
A strong foundation is always built from the ground up. Once you have the prerequisite flexibility in your hips, ankles, and shoulders, what also is very important is a strong core. Solid core strength helps you fire through the ball faster, generating more club head and ball speed. This is where most of your power is going to come from allowing you to really wind up and fire through impact. A couple basic exercises you can do for this are dead-bugs, bird-dogs, and plank variations.
Plank
Bird-Dog
Dead-Bug
Upper and Lower Body
For maximum performance, you need to have both a strong upper and lower body that is in sync. Yes, you can have a fast swing, but if your upper body and lower body are firing at two different speeds they’re not going to match up, leading to what I like to call an “oil leak”.
You need to be square at two different times during the actual swing. Your setup being #1 and your impact being #2. This is when your upper body squares up with the lower body – no oil leaks! Once again, stick to the basics – push-ups, pull-ups, along with a few different variations of supermans on your stomach to help build a strong back!
So give these few tips a try. Don’t allow an oil leak to ruin the fun and length. Stay consistent with it and the length will come. Stop by Purlife and I’ll be happy to help you…BOMBS AWAY!