What is Golf Fitness? If you are a golfer who sees a golf pro to improve your swing and lower your handicap, you would try to do what the pro is teaching you. But what if your body won’t allow certain movement patterns because of restrictions in some areas and weakness in others? What if you are losing distance on your shots because of power leaks in your swing that come from deficits and compensations?
Dr. Kurtz is a Certified Level 3 Medical Professional trained by the Titleist Performance Institute. The Medical Pro is part of the team that includes the golf pro and perhaps a trainer. While the golf pro specializes in the swing and getting your technique refined, it is the job of the med pro to find faults in your swing and through a thorough specialized exam, what physical deficits are hampering your ability to produce the swing technique the golf pro wants you to learn.
For example, there is something called a “reverse spine angle” where at the top of the backswing the player leans toward the target instead of rotating around an axis and shifting his weight on the back foot.
This is the leading cause of back pain in golfers. A couple things that can create this is a tight rotator cuff in the lead arm and an unstable core. With less flexibility, the body compensates and leans in order to get the full backswing. It also results in a pretty nasty slice as the weight shift goes more front to back instead of through the ball.
It is already April and the preseason is upon us. Now is a great time to get an evaluation to find the restrictions and weakness patterns that are sabotaging your swing!
What is the evaluation? First there is a swing evaluation. If you have a video of a few of your golf swings from the back in the “down the line” view and a head on view such as in the picture above, I will look at your swing and find some of the faults that may be troubling your game.
Next is the physical screen: a full evaluation of your body’s flexibility, stability, range of motion, mobility, and movement patterns that coincide with the swing. If there is pain somewhere, it will be identified as a problem and further evaluation of the painful condition will follow. There are several tests that will show your weak and tight spots that lead to some of the specific swing faults.
With the information from the videos and the physical screen, I will then create a program with specific exercises to address some of the issues found on the screen and we will work together to insure proper form to maximize effectiveness. I will work with your golf pro, and together we can get your body to create the swing that is best for your game. There are thousands of ways to swing a club effectively and we can fine tune your body in order to gain the mobility and stability needed for a powerful and consistent swing that won’t injure you.
