Inverted Breathing Pattern and Golf Posture.

Try this for me, take a deep breath in, what happened? Did your belly button move in or move out? If it moved in then you are a golfer that has an inverted breathing pattern, this prevents the spine from being pumped nauturally with cerebral spinal fluid, lubricating each individual spinal segment. 

Try this at home lie in a supine position, on your back in what I call the animalistic position, when on the horizontal plane the brain shuts down and is much quieter, hence why sleep is activated in this position, with a bottle of water filled one third of the way, resting it on the belly button area, breath in through the nose allowing the bottle to raise towards the sky and out through the nose allowing the bottle to lower, the supine position allows gravity to work against the bottle thus making this a weight bearing exercise. 

This exercises allows for a deeper more diaphragmatic breath, mobilising the rib cage, lengthening the spine and aiding a more aligned posture which is only a good thing for the golf swing.

Happy Practicing.

Breaking Through with Socrates

Once a young man asked Socrates how he could gain wisdom, Socrates took the young man on a walk to a nearby lake, once there Socrates got the young man to walk into the lake until it was up to about knee height, unexpectedly Socrates grabbed the head of the young man and forced his head under the water holding it there. The young man at first thought it was a test and did not retaliate, but time was ticking and he was under the water for a long time, to a point where survival instinct crept in and made him frantic as he fought desperately to free himself from the lack of oxygen, causing a burning sensation in his lungs. Socrates, once letting him go, said "When you desire wisdom with the same intensity that you desire to breathe, then nothing will stop you from getting it." If you want it you will get it, providing the intensity is there, unfortunately in most golfers this is not the case. 

Neutral Spine Theory

Golf Posture with Neutral Spine Theory in mind.

Most take neutral spine to extreme limits mummifying the body through exercises such as planks and similar exercises, this creates rigidity.

Neutral Spine ranges must be determined on a personal basis and is utilised on ones own available range of motion.

Neutral is deemed as somewhere between two ranges of motion, and thus utilised in the golf swing as the operating zone between extreme anterior and posterior pelvic tilt.

Training golfers with neutral spine is key to ensuring this becomes a part and parcel of our static posture and golfs dynamic posture during the swing.

Do not for one minute fall into the illusion that you will maintain a neutral spine throughout you golf swing naturally, because your body will always move towards a position of strength and away from weakness hence why we see the C posture occurring in the golf motion as the body moves from neutral towards the feral position a very safe place we all know from birth, this is hardwired through, every day sitting syndrome and poor core conditioning techniques such as crunching from the floor.

Correct exercises must be employed allowing one to build strength in the neutral operating zone thus allowing the golfer enough strength to maintain this position through the whole swing. Correct stretching routines targeting tonic muscle groups and correct core training procedures are a must.

Power Accumulation and Swing Patterns

Power Accumulation and Swing Patterns

These terms coined by Homer Kelly serve us well to explain how out of line conditions seeking a straight line can release stored energy to enable us to vary power out put, what we have to understand also is that as individuals it becomes apparent that we all swing the club differently and thus some people tap into one particular power accumulator more readily that others (finding one more natural), thus giving us different looking patterns to our golf swings.

So how does this work, well first of all there are 4 accumulators:

#1(Muscle Power) is a bending right arm, which is always striving for a straight line condition, this is controlled via the right triceps muscle always pushing away from the glenohumeral joint of the right shoulder, the left arm prevents the right arm from achieving this in the backswing, thus the right arm folds during backswing right arm external rotation and abduction (away from the midline).
#2 (Velocity power) is the cocking and unlocking of the left wrist, remember that radial and ulnar deviation is a small motion, controlled by the forearms.
#3 (Transfer Power) is the turning and rolling of the forearms, pronation and supination.
#4 (Radius Power) this is the angle of the left arm and left shoulder, at address the angle would be close to 80/90 degree angle, that angle decreasing during the backswing and vice versa on the downswing.

So a flat shaft plane in the backswing at P3 would be an over utilisation of the #3 Power Accumulator thus overriding the #2 power Accumulator which creates the up in the backswing, so simply reverse engineer this applying a anti clockwise rolling action in the backswing, this will cause the #3 accumulator to become less active thus stimulating the use of the #2 accumulator allowing a steeper more on plane backswing.

No Mind

How many of you reading this are truly present? In the moment? In the now? Having an experience and not just thinking about one. You see thoughts are like clouds that float across the blue sky they arrive and then they go again but most, see a cloud/thought and attach themselves to this idea and it is pritty save to say they are not truly present, you may have felt this in a golf lesson where for some unknown reason you feel like the coach does not really care, I have had this told to me by many pupils who come seeking my advice explaining to me that their old coach had switched off after only 5 mins into the lesson, that's because they are locked into mind, thinking about the dinner they are having that evening or relationship problems, your coach should be with you completely from start to finish, make sure they are.

So remember this you cannot cure something with the same thing that created it, you cannot cure mind with mind (psychologists take note), we have to learn to escape this illusion, we are not talking of an empty mind we are looking at it like an empty container, it is a mind that is fully present, aware and free. When was the last time you played your best golf? Did you have an experience that was like you had left your brain behind in the locker room? Free you mind, free your golf, do not get attached.

Here is a Japanese Koan for you: So you put a baby goose into a bottle and feed it, when the goose has grown to full adult size, you then want to get the goose out of the bottle without hurting the goose or breaking the bottle, how do you get it out? 

Extensor Action.

Extensor action simply means to straighten the right arm and this is done through a conscious muscular effort via the tricep muscle of the right arm.

The right arm needs a feeling of always pushing out to seek the maximum radius of ones elliptical arc, this gives substance/structure to the left arm allowing downward pressure/mass to be applied to the golf ball, think of the left arm as a cable on a suspension bridge, should the right arm always be extending the left arm will naturally be straight with a hidden stored potential energy just like that of the cable, if one was to cut this the cable would pull violently apart.

So how does one apply this within their own swing?

It's all in the right arm and concentric (shortening muscle) application of the right tricep, in ones own body it would feel as if the right tricep is always active in an isometric (static) hold but in reality in the backswing the right arm is folding and in the downswing it is straightening. The right arm is always seeking a straight condition though not succeeding until a good foot or so past impact, impact interval and separation, this area is called the followthrough whereby both arms are straight, (the only time this happens in the golf swing).

The many benefits of extensor action include:

full extension of the left arm;

full extension of the right arm at follow through (p7.5);

the correct rate of clubface closure.

Motor Patterns - Learn Through Feel.

Motor Patterns are first used as an infant, otherwise known as infant development patterns, such as rolling, sitting, crawling and eventually walking. It is pretty safe to say that infants learn to walk long before verbal communication and visual skills to mimic complex tasks. Learning to walk is learned through feel, not verbal communication or observation, (though these certainly do have there place in a coaches arsenal), but most coaching techniques used today are words and demonstration biased, body awareness is key. Having lessons? Then have the coach put you in the positions needed to improve, create feelings, go back to basics just like when you learning to walk, learn golf movement through moving.