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What’s a Golf Fitness Screening?

What’s a Golf Fitness Screening?

Written By: Paul Kochoa, PT, DPT, OCS, CGFI

Once upon a time, golf was just about three things: basic instruction, equipment, and mental conditioning. After the mid 1990’s, things changed. The basic three things were expanded to include: shot making skills, course management, and physical conditioning.

Physical conditioning was the biggest addition. No longer were players just grabbing their clubs and hitting balls, working on their swings, they also started paying attention to aspects of their body that affected their performance. They found that if they exercised correctly and focused on core stability and distal mobility, they could play more effectively with less pain and injury.

Previously, I’ve touch on the proper kinematic sequence and the proper way to accelerate and decelerate body segments for the golf swing. Now, let me tell you a story.

There once was a casual golfer, he played about once a month and went to the driving range about twice a month. He said he didn’t go out and play golf more often because he easily got frustrated at his lack of skill and didn’t know how to fix anything. He read magazine and online articles, watched videos, and even tried completely changing his swing using the “Stack and Tilt” method. Despite all that he could do, he remained inconsistent with his play and was on the verge of giving up the game. When I met this golfer, he told me about his problems. I suggested a golf fitness screen. We performed the screen on him and found out why he was having swing problems (along with an impromptu video analysis of his golf swing at the driving range to confirm our findings). He lacked sufficient torso rotation and compensated with too much arm and shoulder movement. The next weekend, he went out and shot a personal best low-score round.

The golf fitness screen, developed by the Titleist Performance Institute, is an 11-part movement screen that examines and breaks down the golf swing to its base parts. Primarily looking at the a player’s posture, mobility, and stability; the screen can develop a hypothesis on what swing faults a player has without directly looking at their actually golf swing.

Fixing a swing can be as simple as addressing the physical limitations found in the screen, or it may require further analysis of the swing itself by a golf teaching professional; but strictly from a physical standpoint, the golf fitness screen can be a great tool by itself.

The golf fitness screen can help with recovering from an injury, reducing pain, or preventing pain. A physical therapist can thoroughly evaluate you to determine what’s causing your pain with everyday life and use the screen to determine how that pain is related to your golf game.

Have pain with your golf swing? Want to feel better, move better, and play better? Let a physical therapist at Professional Physical Therapy and Training show you how.

 

Next up: Lower Crossed Syndrome or “I sit at a desk all day” Syndrome II

*For more information on the “Stack and Tilt” Method, click HERE.

 

If you would like more information, please call Professional Physical Therapy and Training at 973-270-7417.  Our offices our located within the YMCA locations in Madison and Summit, NJ.  You do not need to be a member of the YMCA to visit with us.

Image courtesy of nokhoog_buchachon / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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