Golf Fitness and Pilates

Just About Everything!

Here is another great article all about using Pilates to help improve your golf game.

If you've been a golfer for any time at all I'm sure you're aware of all the toys, gadgets and gizmos available out there that promise to enhance your golf game with little to no extra effort?

What a lot of these gadgets miss is that better golf is all about your inner game as well as your fitness. Why not improve your psychological and physical golf fitness by using the Pilates method? The principles learned in Pilates offer you a profound and long term route to playing your best golf.

Golf, like Pilates, is a contemporary, anatomically-based approach to the mind-body exercise regime. Read on below for a few great tips and tricks to help enhance your golf fitness in this detailed article from Titleist Performance Institute.

Titleist Performance Institute

Here is a classic Pilates exercise that will improve your breathing, strengthen your core, increase spinal flexibility, focus your mind, and stabilize your torso.

While Pilates exercise has been around since the First World War, it has only recently become popular in the golfing world. One reason why the Pilates method is so perfectly suited to golf fitness has to do with the theoretical principles behind the exercises.

In the same way that Dr. Greg Rose has categorized golf fitness training into 7 physical performance factors, Joseph Pilates categorized 6 movement principles that are crucial to physical fitness and athletic performance. As you will see, the Pilates principles are directly related to the Golfer’s performance factors.

Pilates Principle #1--Breathing (mobility, core stability/rotation & dynamic posture, cardiovascular fitness)

As in golf, each Pilates movement “rides” on the breath. When we hold our breath our muscles tighten, and tight muscles will slow down your swing speed. By learning to inhale and exhale fully as you practice Pilates, you will facilitate breathing during play, pre-shot routines, and perhaps your swing. The better you breathe the more oxygen gets pumped around in your bloodstream and the easier it is to engage in cardiovascular activities.

Try this when you are at the driving range--Inhale back and exhale down and through. As you breathe deeply you stretch and strengthen the muscles between the ribs, the obliques wrapping around your ribs, the transversus abdominus “corset” around your whole midsection, your diaphragm & pelvic floor, and the small multifidus muscles that connect your vertebrae and stabilize your lower back. These muscles are responsible for your ability to keep your pelvis quiet as your shoulders turn in back swing to follow through, thus preventing back injury.

Pilates Principle #2--Centering (stability, balance/static posture, power, mobility/flexibility)

The center core (proximal) activates before the movement (distal) of the arms or legs. Proximal stability must occur before distal activation. This means that the golf swing is initiated from the center of your body, three to four fingers below your navel. When you swing through the ball from your core or center the arms, wrists and club follow effortlessly.

In each Pilates exercise you are aware of the primacy of this center core and it becomes ever easier to engage these muscles. Eventually every shot or putt initiates from that same center core. This is where you find the consistent and repeatable swing. All of your movement is generated from the same place, every time, and in every stroke.

Pilates Principle #3--Concentration (focus, power, coordination)

By performing Pilates movements with concentration and focus, you train your attention. You train in the Zone while doing Pilates so that when you need the Zone in golf it is familiar territory. In Pilates we are mindful of the quality of movement rather than the quantity. This idea is the mind-body connection at work. The hierarchy of movement is: attention, intention, breath, and movement initiation.

Pilates Principle #4--Control (balance, core stability, posture, power)

In Pilates we use control to mean both muscle (body) and mental (mind) control. Control is a learned skill. You cannot force control with effort, but rather consistent attention and practice (just like golf). Control of the body equals control of both the swing and club simultaneously. Does your body respond the way you want it to while exercising or playing golf? Practicing control of any coordinated movement will translate to your game. In essence, when performing Pilates exercises with control you are practicing golf swings with control. They are both movements of the whole body that start from the ground up and spiral in rotation to finish. Control allows you to produce your best swing to send the ball where you want it to go.

Pilates Principle #5--Fluidity (flexibility/mobility, rotation, dynamic posture, coordination)

Each Pilates exercise is coordinated with breath, rhythm, and tempo. Each exercise has a flow and sequence using only as much energy as necessary and as little as possible to produce the maximum or minimum energy or force. This is efficienct, flowing, rhythmic movement that will transfer to your golf swing.

Pilates Principle #6--Alignment

As there is specific body alignment in golf, there is a specific body alignment for each Pilates exercise. Correct alignment in the body during Pilates or Golf allows for efficient movement, placing minimal stress on joints, ligaments and muscle tissue to help avoid injury, conserve energy, and produce your best swing.

Perfect alignment in golf is two-fold. There must be external alignment to the target and alignment on the green, and there also must be physical alignments such as of the hip, knee and ankle to avoid sways and slides.

These Pilates principles offer precise movement skills which when performed repeatedly and consistently with rhythm and tempo controlled via the breath and will of the mind will lead to greater strength, stability, and flexibility--all the components of a great repeatable and consistent golf swing.

Here is a classic Pilates exercise that will improve your breathing, strengthen your core, increase spinal flexibility, focus your mind, and stabilize your torso.

The Pilates 100

Lie face up with knees folded into chest to chair position (90º angle at hips & knees), legs together and arms by your sides with palms down.

Curl head and shoulders up to look at your knees. Reach straight arms by your sides with arms hovering 5 inches from floor. If this is easy for your abs you may lengthen your legs towards the ceiling. For greater core emphasis you lower your legs to 45 degrees.

Keeping arms active and reaching, pulse arms up and down in time with your breath--5 pulses to inhale and 5 to exhale, maintaining body position and neutral Pelvis. Keep arms connected to your sides and back (tricep-lat connection). Breathe wide into your back. Breathe 10 times (100 counts total).

You can do this exercise daily to improve your golf fitness!

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