[PHOTO: courtneyk]
At the start of 2023, we introduced the Golf Digest Fitness Trainer Certification. It’s a one-of-a-kind online curriculum that offers a new way to look at golf fitness and how to train average players.
Among the modules in this certification is an in-depth lecture on posture from well known expert Brian Bradley of the Egoscue Method. Among many of the topics Bradley covers is how things such as activities of daily life impact your ability to swing a golf club correctly.
“The big thing for golfers to remember, especially older ones who might have had previous injuries or spend their whole day looking down at a phone, is that your body will start to adapt to those things,” Bradley says.
“For example, you might have had a knee injury, or a hernia operation or tore your labrum, and now your body doesn’t like to shift into your left side. That’s when adaptations and compensations happen. Your body will find a way to make a golf swing despite that limitation, and hence your performance suffers.”
For many golfers, dysfunction in the hips can lead to an upper-body dominant swing, and that’s typically a recipe for slicing and poor ball-striking. Instead of letting lower-body weight shift and hip rotation power the club into the ball, the golfer with postural issues will simply try to muscle the ball with the arm and shoulder muscles.
If you’re wondering how healthy your posture is, try this quick self-test, Bradley says. Stand in socks or barefoot with your heels against a flat wall (no moulding). Now close your eyes and start to sense where your whole body is in relation to the wall. Are your glutes touching? What about your shoulders? Is there bilateral balance? What about your head? Is it touching? Do you feel weight evenly between the feet?
If any of this feels off, your skeletal alignment could probably use a tune-up.
