In the world of golf the swing is often practiced by many spending hours grinding it out on the practice range, hoping that more practice will give the desired outcome. Often lessons are tailored around ‘good golf posture’.
Let’s pause and look at what makes good golf posture. Let’s talk movement templates for a minute.
Your brain is remarkably efficient and has no intention of repeating an investment of energy on what is essentially donkey work. So, once you have performed a movement, the cerebellum, located towards the back of your skull, creates a loop between itself and the pre-frontal cortex located at the front of your brain, and this forms a template of how to perform the movement next time around. Every time you line up to perform the same task, it activates that template, but what is most amazing about this is that it has completed the process before you have even started the movement.
Every time you set yourself up to address the ball, your brain has already completed the job just as it did for the shot preceding it, so any likelihood of change is slim.
However, it’s not all bad news. When we line up to the ball and pause to alter our focus, the game has already changed. Get the attention of our brain, it will sit up a bit and wonders what is going to happen next. It becomes open to the possibility of change.
So what are some of the things that may need addressing:
Get your brain on board!
Soften tenson through your body which allows your feet to make better contact with the ground. Also the body does not want rigidity in golf as it wastes energy and reduces our ability to feel what we are doing. So no rigid / clawing feet!
Dynamic balance - is the ability for good balance and sense of where you are in space to be maintained during real life movement such as in golf. This needs to be enabled in order for the feet to make good ground contact – so get those feet listening to the surfaces under them to get them grounded!
Mobility - particularly rotation is needed - from the foot all the way through the spine and shoulders. However if there is tension in the body and the dynamic balance is poor then movement fluency and co-ordination is impeded.
So far I’ve not talked about strength …all too often you see people using their strength to make up for lack of technique. So when I talk about strength what I mean is support. A golfer needs a good firm but flexible Central Longitudinal Axis, (CLA) - a conceptual line passing through the centre of the body. This axis with spine in a neutral position gives support to trunk rotation and indeed whole body rotation and also supports good hip stabilisers (such as the glutes ) in the pelvis. Rotation around the CLA will make the golf swing more consistent, accurate, more powerful and more efficient.
Soft breath – all too often people will take a big breath from the upper chest and hold it in before a swing. All this does is to create rigidity and disconnect the chest, neck and shoulders from the rest of the body. So spend a little time letting the air out and practicing breathing normally through the swing. All this does is to create rigidity. Stop breath holding!
The will to change and cue into the feeling brain - The key point is that change starts with your attitude and approach to the ball. “I’m going to hit it better this time”, “I’m going to really go for it”, “I’m going to really control it this time” are all common but completely unhelpful. There’s no new content there for the brain to do anything with. If you just keep running the same old riff in your head, there’s no reason for your body to do anything differently. The same programme keeps running every time you approach the ball.
However, if you can interrupt that script with a new piece of sensory information, for example allowing yourself to breath out before starting the movement, or to soften your body a little in order to feel your feet, you can shift your old automatic programme. New information is coming in before the movement begins. The brain pays attention and makes an adjustment.
So next time you go to the range, take a little neuroscience with you to open the window of opportunity to find something new and possibly exciting in your swing!
I admit I’ve thrown a lot of new information and some unusual words at you in this blog, however give me a call and we can go through your queries!
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