#strength&conditioning

Many of us last week will have seen pictures and video of Miguel Angel Jiminez performing what appears to be a rather eccentric pre-round warm up routine. However there are many of us who would benefit greatly from taking a leaf out of Miguel’s book. For a 53 year old, he still manages to get himself in some great positions, this is going to allow him to maximise his swing and stay relatively injury free.

 Why warm up?

 If you are going to give yourself the best chance to make good swings with a good shoulder turn, good weight transfer in your lower body then just turning up jumping out of the car and walking straight to the first tee isn’t going to cut it. A solid warm up should mobilise the joints that we need mobile, get the blood circulating around the body and stimulate the muscles that we need to generate power.

“I couldn’t get my glutes firing“

                                                                                                   Tiger Woods 2015

I can hear some of you now thinking that ‘wow, golf already takes 4 hours (if we’re lucky), and then there’s having a sociable couple of pints with the lads after you’ve played, the Mrs won’t be pleased if I have to get to the club an hour before my tee time to carry out this warm up’. The truth is a warm up doesn’t need to be long and arduous. I’m going to outline a few simple drills that will definitely help you hit the ground running (instead of finding your swing on the back 9) in your next comp. The beer will taste sweeter when you’ve taken the money off the lads and shot below par.

Strech the Lats, Pecs and Hips.

I’m sure that the educated have heard many conflicting arguments for the use or not of static stretching prior to exercise. The arguments against are that by stretching the muscle you are essentially sending signals to the nerve telling it to shut down thus reducing the muscles ability to contract and produce force. With this in mind I ask my athletes to stretch each muscle group for a maximum of 10 seconds before training or performing. This is just enough time to loosen up that particular muscle or joint, try to restore a somewhat neutral posture and as you’ll see later in the warm up we are actively going to try and activate the muscles.

 Knee to Wall

The ankle and foot are often overlooked in both training and practice, but as the body’s closest contact to the ground it is important that they are able to move, as they will affect the whole swing.  Poor mobility in the Ankles can affect your posture throughout the swing, it will also affect your ability to transfer weight and maximise power during the swing.

Kossack Squat

Kossack squats are used to help mobilise the hips in multiple planes. The golf swing requires more than just 1 plane of movement and these will aid the hips and allow you to make a full lower body turn that will help generate the power for the downswing.

Club Pull Down

Pull downs will help encourage extension in the t-spine (upper back), this is crucial to help achieve a neutral posture which will allow us to rotate the upper back and shoulders maximally. The pull down will also help to activate the musculature that surrounds the shoulder and upper back. This will help to stabilise the shoulder that will allow us to set the club in the correct position and reduce the risk of injury.

Half Kneeling T-Spine Rotations

Having improved our thoracic extension with the pull downs the half kneeling rotation will fix the hips and encourage rotation from the upper back only. This will allow you to separate between the upper and lower body, make a full shoulder turn increasing your X-Factor and X-Factor stretch and maximise club head speed.

Mini Band Glute Activation

The glutes are the powerhouse of the swing. The ability to load and apply force with the hips and glutes during the swing will maximise the distance that we can hit the ball. Sitting in the car, travelling to events and the golf club will cause the hip flexors to become short and tight, this in turn will cause the posture of the pelvis to be altered which will limit the function of the glutes (see Lower Crossed Syndrome).  The glutes will create a stable base that you can make a balanced, powerful swing from and generate power and club head speed by rotating the hips during the down swing. Glute activation can also help you avoid injury. In early Feb Tiger withdrew from the Farmers Insurance open citing his ‘glutes not firing’ as the cause of his lower back pain. As minor a problem as this may have sounded there is some logic to his claim. The glutes help to move and stabilise the pelvis. If they are not working properly the body may look to the lower back and erectors for rotation or support that can lead to back pain and spasms.

Many of us may have seen Rory McIlroy earlier in the week pictured completing hex bar deadlifts. These should be a staple in a good strength training programme. Rory talks about how improving his strength has helped take his golf game to another level, if its good enough for the worlds best, its something we should all be doing. 

Why the hex bar? 

Unlike conventional deadlifts, the weight of the hex bar is distributed around you during the lift, making the movement safer and more simple. The hex deadlifts are a real bang for your buck exercise. They train your lower body - by pushing the floor with your legs your glutes, hamstrings and quads are all engaged, as we’ve talked about in earlier articles, we’re looking for power from the ground up. They train the muscle of you trunk. In order to maintain a solid ‘core’ and maintain a neutral lumbar spine, the deep flexors, extensors and lateral flexors and extensors are all recruited during the movement. Strength in the abdominals and surrounding musculature is going to allow us to control our pelvic posture during the swing ensuring the club is on plane and maximum power is generated. Finally they help train the muscles of the upper back. This is going to help with posture at address and throughout the swing, enabling us to consistently get the club in the correct position with no ‘energy leaks’ - maximising power! 

Coaching Points.

I generally ask my athletes to carry out the exercise in bare feet, this allows them to shift the weight onto their heels creating a hamstring and glute bias.

Holding of the bar, take a deep breath an fill your belly with air.

Pull yourself down into your start position, keeping tension through your lats and upper back, with your chin tucked.

*Your hips should be lower than your shoulders.

From this bottom position, whilst maintaining a strong, flat back you should feel like you ‘push the floor away’, until you reach standing.

Hold for a second, push your hips back and lower to the start position, maintaining your posture throughout.

With Augusta and the Masters starting this week, many have tipped RoryMcIlroy, Bubba Watson and Dustin Johnson to don the green jacket. The three all have something in common: they hit the ball miles. How do they do this? Many golf professionals and experts refer to X-Factor and more recently X-Factor Stretch. Firstly, what is X-Factor?

In1992 Jim McLean wrote an article that was published in Golf Magazine. Hisarticle proposed a theory that would later be termed the golf X-Factor. McLeanreferred to the difference of the degree of shoulder turn in relation to hipsduring the backswing. The greater the degree of difference combined with the ability to realign the hips and shoulder at impact would generate greater clubhead speed and in turn greater distance.

In more recent times the increase in distance has not been attributed to X-Factor alone but the X-Factor Stretch.

What is X-Factor Stretch?

X-Factor Stretch is the angle created between the hips and shoulders, after the hips begin the downswing and before the shoulders begin their downswing. For example; You have an X-Factor of 400 (800 shoulder turn – 400 hip turn), your hips begin the downswing, turning from 400 to 360 before the shoulders begin their downswing. This would give you a new X-Factor of 440 with an X-Factor Stretch of 40 (New X-Factor 440 – Original X-Factor 400). It is in this number that the real distance is created.

How does this increase the distance that we hit the ball?

In the training world strength and conditioning coaches often refer to the term stretch shortening cycle (SSC). This is defined as the stretch in the muscle (eccentric contraction), followed by a rapid shortening of the muscle (concentric contraction). As the muscle is placed under stretch there is an increase in potential energy. As the muscle contracts and shortens the potential energy is released resulting in a rapid contraction. In the swing as your hips begin their downswing there is an increase in the stretch (stored energy) of the abdominals and lats. This is released as the shoulders begin their downswing and is expressed as greater club head speed, resulting in greater distance.

The ability to keep the hips rotating towards the target will maintain this stretch and increase the magnitude of the contraction in the affected muscles.

This along with the correct face angle, club path and club head all allow for maximum distance to be achieved.

The Exercises listed below will help you to create a greater X-Factor stretch and hit the ball greater distances.

Half Kneeling T-Spine Rotations

These are going to help you dissociate between your upper and lower body and will help to increase your thoracic rotation (upper back), this is going to allow you to achieve a greater shoulder turn and allow your hips time to begin the downswing.

Mini Band Series

Crab walks, monster walks and stomps are going to activate/‘wake up’ your glutes. This will provide you with the stable base to turn around (common in all the longest hitters) and will also allow you to rotate your hips back towards the target during the downswing.

Plate Discus Rotations

This is an exercise that I recently picked up from Tyler Parsons. I really like the way that it simulates loading the right hand side during the backswing and trains the ability to separate the hips from the shoulders during the downswing – increasing our X-Factor Stretch. You can see the hips start the movement and then the arms and shoulders follow.

With the golf season fast approaching the next few articles will focus on exercises that allow us to express our strength with speed = POWER! The first of these exercises will be the box jump. This movement is the culmination of rapid extension from the ankle, knee and hip. All integral to hitting the ball further.

Box jumps are a great addition to your programme. The low impact nature of the landings places considerably less stress on the joints compared to most plyometric exercise.

Coaching Points

Start with your feet under your hips, keeping your ankles, knees and hips in line.

Push your hips back and ‘cock’ your arms behind you. You should have a little flex in your knees but don't treat the movement as a squat, we are looking to hinge at the hip.

From this position with the weight on the balls of your feet (not your toes), drive your arms and hips forward and jump to the box (or bench if you don't have a box).

Keep your chest up with your chin tucked.

As you land absorb the impact with your hips, glutes and hamstrings. Don't allow your knees to shoot forward.

Pause for a second then step off the box (jumping off the box will place unnecessary stress on your achilles and not worth the risk).  

Make sure you get full hip extension when performing your jumps and ensure that you land with proper mechanics. Its not necessarily about the height you can achieve but the speed you can get onto the box.

Probably the first thing that pops in your head when I say 'aim small miss small', is 'Enemy at the Gate' or the latest blockbuster 'American Sniper'. Not only is this effective for historical figures of pure sniper accuracy but can be implemented into daily life for the aspiring academic. 

Now when I say this, I don’t literally mean aim small in your ambitions, though some would disagree that our generation (Gen Y) has been feed the notion of being too optimistic with our thought processes. What I am referring to, is task breakdown, or chunking as it is described in ‘How to Manage Your Mammoth’. 

Original I wanted to start a blog to get my thoughts down on paper, I wanted improve my story telling ability through writing, I wanted to explore the areas of research which I am interested in but had limited time to implement it without seeing benefits away from academic accolades.

To give you a little background information on myself, I am a 4th year Sport and Exercise uni student, I thought that up until recently, I was going to kill life, I was going to grab it by the balls and receive all the scholarships, rewards and career opportunities that I had worked somewhat hard for. Well 4 months ago that was the plan anyway. I had a great internship with an international premiership winning team as part of their Strength and Conditioning (S&C) team, and I was just about to complete my 4th year of undergraduate studies (my honours year (for those of you from different educational parts of the world, honours in Australia is a voluntary 4th year where you solely conduct a research project which takes one year, I know that for instances in the UK being awarded honours purely means graduating your undergrad with a distinction average…..We do things up-side-down, in the land down under)) From there, I was going to receive a 3 year scholarship to complete my PhD studies to help support my family (my wife and I) and go on to boss everything that I touched….Well that fell through….A little bit. 

Since then I wanted to make this blog an information hub for young and aspiring academics or S&C professionals like myself. I have made a lot of mistakes along my adventure so far, from procrastination (more on that later), poor time management, not knowing where to start or how to start on research or assignments, stemming from that being either to afraid or proud/arrogant (whatever you want to call it) to reach out to others who may be able to help out with what was my current situation. 

Many of us will have attempted and may include the front plank in our programmes, but what are we really trying to achieve?

Resist Extension of the Lumbar Spine

Maintain Neutral Chin, T-Spine, Pelvis

Engage the Muscles of the Trunk.

This will help stabilise the lumbar spine allowing you to make a full turn in your thoracic spine. This will allow you to generate the largest possible ‘X-Factor’ angle and transfer stored energy 'X-Factor Stretch', generating more club head speed. By Strengthening the muscles that support the lumbar spine you will also go someway to preventing injury of the lower back.

Front Plank from Tom Bullough on Vimeo.

Coaching Points

Tuck your Chin In

Push your Chest Out

Keep Your Elbows Under Your Shoulders

Squeeze your Glutes