Sunday, January 3, 2016

Should We Consider Golfers Athletes?

Is the Golfer an Athlete? Short Answer = Hell Yes!

It's time to respect what the competitive golfer has to do physically to hit a tiny ball into a tiny hole that's hundreds of yards away.
Dr. Greg Wells, the Director of Sport Science for the Royal Canadian Golf Association says, "Golf is a physically demanding game that requires Power, but at the same time, incredible precision and complexity". 

Golf demands that the body has joint mobility, muscular flexibility, muscular stability and endurance, strength and power.  This is for golfers across the board- the weekend hackers and the ones playing for paychecks.  If you lack a physical requirement for an efficient swing, your body compensates.  You have a swing fault, deficiency, or body compensation.  The PROs just hide their deficiencies better and make the game look easier.  Another key is that now it's so common for the professional guys to be using fitness specialist to locate physical deficiencies and fix them with proper exercise. 

Dr. Wells also says, "During the swing the average male recruits 30 LBs of muscle and uses nearly every single joint in the body to produce 2,000 LBs of Force in less than half a second".
This is definitely an athletic movement from your feet to your fingers. 
Paul Chek says, "Amateur Golfers achieve approximately 90% of their Peak Muscle Activity when driving a golf ball".  He goes on to explain this type of swing with the driver is also replicated with the irons as well, some 40 plus times a round.  This type of muscle recruitment is like going in the gym and lifting a heavy weight that you could only lift 4 times until you fail (your 4 rep max) 40 plus times!
Golf is physically demanding on the body, for the PROs, and for the weekenders riding around in carts between each shot.  Even the most efficient swing on tour is demanding to the body.
Physical conditioning will prepare the body for these physical demands and sports performance.  Swing faults or body compensations demands even more from the body and eventually lead to breakdowns and injury.
Train a golfer with a scientific approach that is specific to the individual golfer's needs - not all bodies are alike.
Build strength with functional movement patterns that will transfer over to the biomechanical nature of the golf swing.  A physically-able and prepared body is harder to injure.