How Stretching The Wrong Way Can Ruin Your Golf Swing:

One of the biggest problems in most golfers is their inability to rotate. The limiting factor in most of the cases is a stiff upper back. The mistake that most golfers make is to try to stretch their upper back muscles when in actuality they need to stretch their chest. Therefore, it is very important to understand which muscles need to be stretched to target your golf stretching program appropriately.

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Core Strength vs. Core Stabilization

They are not one in the same. Stabilization must come before strength. Building strength without the matching stability is like having a Ferrari engine in a Volkswagen frame. You will be fine going straight ahead but you will have major problems when making turns. And life is all about navigating the turns.

Ab Training 101

Performing more than 15 reps per set on your abdominal exercises will most likely reduce the effectiveness of the exercises here is why:
The muscle fibers are composed of primary fast twitch fibers so the abdominal muscles are classified as phasic not tonic.

Taken from the book The Poliquin Principles: Successful Methods for Strength and Mass Development

How To Stretch Before & After Playing Golf:

 
Before your round of golf it is important that you perform stretches in a way that excites the nervous system to prepare the body for the stressful mechanics of the golf swing.

After playing golf it is important to perform stretches with a longer hold time to correct any imbalances caused by the golf swing.

Cause of Low Back Pain

Most low back pain originates in the soft tissues.It makes sense to begin with the least risky, least invasive treatment available, then escalate if necessary. And that treatment is medical massage therapy. If it isn’t effective, the other treatments are still available. But if it is effective, a lot of time and pain and risk and money have been saved. Low back pain caused by soft-tissue problems is likely to originate in one (or more) of three different locations:

1) Quadratus lumborum and its neighbors. Quadratus lumborum is the muscle between the bottom rib and the top of the pelvis; it is a key muscle in coordinating upper and lower body movements. It is a deep muscle, and is situated underneath (deep to) the lumbar paraspinal muscles. If there are problems in quadratus lumborum, there are also likely to be problems in those thick muscles near the surface on either side of the spine. In addition, muscle problems are invariably accompanied by connective tissue problems. This area, unprotected as it is by any skeletal structures, is thick with connective tissue: the thoracolumbar fascia, the gluteal aponeurosis, and other tough connective tissue cover and surround these muscles.

2) The buttock muscles. These include the three gluteal muscles (gluteus maximus, medius and minimus), and the deep lateral rotators of the hip, especially piriformis.

3) Iliopsoas. This is the primary hip flexor (its chief assistant being rectus femoris), running down through the abdominal cavity and the groin to the lesser trochanter. But its origins, meaning in this case its anchor points, are the inner surface of the ilium (iliacus muscle) and the transverse processes of the lumbar vertebrae — which means that every lifting of the leg pulls on the pelvis and the lumbar spine.

Certainly other muscles can and do get into the low back pain act, but these three muscle groups, all very heavily involved in the day-to-day demands we make on our bodies, are the chief sources. Careful examination by a skilled and knowledgeable clinical massage therapist can find the trouble spots, and appropriate treatment can yield relief that many people had despaired of finding.

Green Light Reflex vs. Red Light Reflex

The Red Light reflex is a response to distressful events. It is a protective response to negative events that threaten us, from vague apprehensions to gnawing anxieties, to overt dangers.

The Green Light reflex is the opposite of the Red Light reflex, as both a muscular activity and an adaptation function. The Red Light reflex contracts the anterior flexor muscles, curling the body forward; the Green Light reflex contracts the posterior extensor muscles, lifting and arching the back in the opposite direction.

Somatics: Reawakening the Mind’s Control of Movement, Flexibility, and Health by Thomas Hanna

Body Mechanics in Health, Fitness and Performance

 

The body has a very sensitive survival mechanism any threat to survival creates a stress response. Including poor posture and poor body mechanics. Poor body mechanics can mean training with incorrect technique, sitting in the wrong chair, driving in the wrong car, wearing the wrong shoes or using your body in any way that promotes poor mechanics.

Improving posture and body mechanics can be a very powerful step in reducing your bodies stress response and allowing your body to use energy that would otherwise be used to fight stress. Your body’s energy can instead be used towards more important things such as improving health, energy levels, weight loss and body transformation.

 

Sport Nutrition Tip:

Over training raises cortisol and cortisol creates chronic blood sugar imbalances. A fluctuation in blood sugar depletes your nutritional reserve, causing you to crave the wrong types of food such as sugar. You have two choices you can learn how to manage your training, lifestyle and diet or you can try to chase symptoms with supplements, medication and quick fixes. One choice will lead to long time success in your training and the other choice will lead to long term frustration.

Strength Coaches are still crunching the numbers

Crunches greatly hinder athletic performance and should be low on the priority list in a sports specific core-conditioning program. Most injuries occur in the frontal and transverse planes and with the spine behind the midline, therefore an effective core-conditioning program should be designed accordingly. Training the abdominal wall with the spine behind the midline is one of the key training variables that will reduce abdominal wall strains in athletes. ###

In Season vs. Off Season

An athlete’s diet in season and off season can vary just as much as the conditions of their sports vary from in season to off season. The athlete must be aware of their nutritional needs when changing environments, time zones, weather situations and any other stresses that could possibly increase demand in terms of nutritional reserve. By taking a holistic approach to sports performance, athletes will put themselves in the best position to maintain peak performance throughout the entire season and throughout their career.

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