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.