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MUSCLES:
HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR PERSONAL DISTANCE
MUSCULAR CONDITIONING
With the exception of Sam Snead, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, and a few others, golfers traditionally have not been perceived as well-conditioned athletes.
Subscribers to that theory argue that since golf doesn't call for running, jumping, or moving heavy loads, there is little need for strength enhancement programs. "These perceptions," says Dr. Frank Jobe, the director of the Centinela Hospital's Fitness Institute, "are now changing, reflecting a growing awareness by amateurs and pros alike, that a specific program of stretching and strengthening exercises will not only lower the risk of injury, but will improve performance at every level."
THE RESEARCH: STRENGTH AND DISTANCE
As early as 1968, a team of British scientists found that the muscles work very hard during the golf swing, generating as much as four horsepower, and the larger the muscle involved, the more power it produced. In a subsequent study, Dr. Gary Wiren showed that as long as flexibility was maintained, muscular strength was highly related to distance. And most recently, Matthew Pinter at Mississippi State University, found that a golf specific weight-training program produced a small increase in swing speed and a major increase in the ball striking accuracy of his research subjects. Pinter, the director of the PGA Golf Management program, says, "The more accurate you are, the higher your confidence and the more you can freewheel it, using to the fullest the muscular strength you have built through weightlifting."
Perhaps the most extensive and influential research has been conducted by the Centinela Hospital sports medicine center where Dr. Jobe and his colleagues, using electromyography, identified the most active muscles during the golf swing. The findings are summarized below:
1) Your golf swing is two-sided, so you should equally strengthen the golf muscles on both sides.
2) Since your hips supply the major source of power on the downswing, concentrate on developing your thigh and hip muscles.
3) Your ability to rotate around the fixed axis of your spine is critical to generating coil during your swing. Stretching exercises will preserve your rotational flexibility, and exercising your back muscles will give you the stability you need to coil.
4) The rotator cuff muscles in your shoulders require special exercises because they are the most active of all your upper body golf muscles.
It is the opinion of almost every expert interviewed for this article that within the next decade, most serious golfers will be on a golf-specific exercise program. This advice has been heeded already by a number of golf professionals, both men and women. It is estimated that 50 percent of the players work out and the number is steadily growing. On the Champions Tour, players like Morris Hatalsky, Dana Quigly and, of course, Gary Player, show the sleekness and longevity attributable to a regular exercise program.
Women are also using weight .....
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