Written by Brandon Havas, Athlete Academy – Featured in Eastern Shore Golf Magazine

Golfers are athletes. Your body needs to work like an athlete’s in order to produce consistently good shots on the golf course, simple enough. Unfortunately many of our bodies do not work functionally the way they are supposed to, leading to crappy shots, miss-hits, and inconsistent ball striking. Agreed? Now I may have your attention, seeing as I probably just identified your game in one short sentence.

I will keep this pretty short and simple. The basic principle here is this: your body works in a series of mobile and stable joints from head to toe. If you one part of this kinetic chain is not working correctly, your movement pattern is all messed up and you are now looking at having to make compensations to get your body and club head in the correct position. Doing this the wrong way, compensating, can lead to not only inconsistency, but pain on and off of the golf course. Even worse, over a period of time, this can lead to injury.

To break this down, I’ll give you a rundown of what joints do to what in the body…

  • Ankle – mobile
  • Knee – stable
  • Hips – mobile
  • Low back / L spine – stable
  • Mid back / T spine – mobile
  • Upper back / C spine – stable
  • Shoulders – mobile
  • Elbows – stable
  • Wrists – mobile

This gives you an idea of how the body should be working.

However, we all seem to have physical limitations or ‘dysfunctional’ body parts, and that’s what leads to compensation and injury. What’s the most common one I see in amateur golfers? What’s the most common one I see in amateur golfers? Immobile hips (they should be mobile) that lead to a necessary mobile lower back and knees (which should be stable) to complete a golf swing. This is why you not only lose power, and a ton of it, but also create a lot of unnecessary stress on the body.

Quick fix? Fitness.

The easiest way to correct these issues is to go to a golf fitness professional (someone like me – or preferably me) who can take you through a functional movement assessment aimed at discovering your physical limitations. This will enable us to link them to your golf swing. From there, we will assign corrective exercises and training to get you on your way to better, more efficient, pain-free golf.

Havas Athlete Academy is a sport specific training facility located in Salisbury, MD that specialized in golf performance. HAA is located at 404 E. Main Street, Salisbury, MD. Get in touch with Brandon Havas at 980-254-0101 or email Brandon@Havasathleteacademy.com.