Pilates & Fitness Training for the Golfer

A 55-minute Pilates and core workout designed specifically to improve your overall golf game. Each golfer's strengths and weaknesses will be assessed through a series of movements to test body mechanics. From there a personalized program will be designed and implemented. There is added attention to flexibility, rotation and hip and shoulder stabilization.

A 30-minute stretching session may be added to the end of the workout for $40.

Golf has quickly become one of the fastest growing recreational sports in our country and professional golfers are household names, like Tiger Woods, Annika Sorenstam, Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and Camilo Villegas. Pilates has become especially popular with the professional and amateur golfer alike, due to their surprising similarities.

Golf and Pilates are both about control, concentration, flexibility and stability. Golf demands the player to carefully move through a swing without stifling or losing control of their stance. As the lower body is routed into the ground the torso and upper body must move as one with great flexibility of the spine and shoulder girdle. This involves incredible core strength as it is from your core musculature that transfers power into a dynamic swing.

Joseph Pilates wanted his students to master an exercise before learning a new one. In golf you are repeating the same motion over and over again until you succeed. It is learning how to perform that movement with precision every time that goes hand-in-hand with Pilates. Also, a golfer favors one side of the body creating strength and muscle imbalances that can hinder their performance. Pilates will help you to strengthen each muscle equally eliminating injuries and improving your drive.

Pilates and Golf are also about precision and small, concentrated movements. A small improvement in a golfer's shoulder flexibility, for example, can be the difference between a drive from the tee veering into the rough or going straight onto the green.

Pilates exercises will help the golfer to synonymously stretch, strengthen and recondition the body and the mind. Tiger Woods, Rocco Mediate, Annicka Sorrenstam and Camilo Villagas have all incorporated Pilates into their golf training. Golf is highly athletic and a flexible, agile body is needed to become a successful player.

Here are a few Pilates for Golf Articles that you many find interesting:

How Does Pilates Practice Transfer to Golf

Pilates improves concentration; it requires a great amount of focus - and so does golf.

Pilates focuses on stability so that balance is improved. Poor balance in a golf swing results in poor performance.

Pilates teaches you to breathe correctly.

Pilates improves "muscle recruitment" – one of the most important – and most often overlooked – benefits of Pilates. Muscles work better in concert and synergy. With proper training, any motion becomes more efficient, from sitting to standing up, walking to swinging a golf club.

Pilates exercises produce improved quality and increased efficiency in movement by teaching your body to use the right muscles to do the job, and those muscles perform in the right order. Your body will use a stronger muscle –– whatever muscle is available to help –– while swinging the club if the one it is supposed to use is too weak, fatigued, or lacks balance. Although the "gentlemen's" game of Golf is the antithesis of CHEATING, if your core can't support you sufficiently during the golf swing, your body will cheat by using whatever muscle is available to help – even if it's the wrong one. That's the reason you begin to ache. Pilates exercises train the body to use the right muscles to do the job; to use no more than is needed to produce quality and efficient movement––as much as necessary, as little as possible.

• Pilates balances both sides of the body. There is nothing natural or symmetrical about the golf swing. Constantly moving in ways that unbalance the body leads to stresses, strains, and imbalances. Every sport has it's own particular physical liabilities; Pilates counteracts those liabilities and rebalances the body.

•Pilates retrains the body to overcome its natural tendencies and compensations, which may result in lower scores, longer and more consistent drives, and reduced risk of injuries.

Pilates focuses on strengthening abdominal, trunk, and pelvic muscles so they become the control center of the body from which all movement stems. It helps build a uniformly developed body with improved alignment and stability, increased strength, and flexibility. Using the core as the power center allows the body to move safely through flexibility, conditioning, and resistance activities. Core stability allows the golfer to move with economy, grace, and balance. Exercises related to the golf swing focus on stretching, strengthening, and proper warm-up.

As effective as Pilates is for retraining the body, no amount of Pilates or any other “workout” regimen can compensate for poor skill and technique during the golf swing. Practicing proper swing technique is essential, and working with a good teaching golf professional will be beneficial for improving your skill level. Augmenting the skill specific practice with Pilates will ultimately improve performance.

What in the World is Pilates for Golf?

By JAMES ACHENBACH Senior Writer ORLANDO, FLA.

In short, it’s a fitness program – including dozens of individual exercises that can be done without machines – in which the golfer lies mostly on his/her back, stomach or side. The body is then extended, spread out or stretched to concentrate on specific muscles and muscle groups. Increased flexibility is the major goal.

“The exercises are simple and easy,” Pilates teacher Sarah Christensen said, “and the benefits are huge.”

Added fitness instructor and stretching expert Roger Fredericks, of La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif.: “Pilates is more active than most forms of yoga. It’s more aggressive, if you will.”

On the eve of the 2008 PGA Merchandise Show at the Orange County Convention Center, Christensen was bending and gesturing and trying diligently to educate a group of golfers about Pilates.

When she invoked the name of PGA Tour player Camilo Villegas, a green-reading contortionist, her audience went from snooze to full alert.

Two years ago, Christensen’s task might have been impossible. Most golfers never had heard of Pilates. Now, at least, it has joined the mainstream golf vocabulary and even is starting to gain a foothold in contemporary golf.

Named after German fitness trainer Joseph Pilates (1880-1967), it is a series of body movements that focuses on deep and effective breathing, proper posture and strengthening of the core muscles. It began to boom mainstream in the 1990s.

A summary of personal objectives for golfers on Pilates: Learn to breathe deeply and evenly; use proper breathing to enhance clear thinking on the course; create better posture and concentrate on maintaining the correct spine angle throughout the golf swing; increase overall flexibility and balance; focus on range of motion in the hips and shoulders; and strengthen the abdominal and back muscles.

What does this mean for modern golfers?

Villegas, one of the longest hitters in pro golf, had an answer: “A lot of guys are getting in shape for golf these days by lifting weights,” he said via phone. “What they don’t realize is that you need both strength and flexibility. And, of the two, flexibility is more important for golf. I’m talking about maximum flexibility and core strength.”

Villegas started practicing Pilates while at the University of Florida and has aligned himself with Christensen in a venture called Hole In One Pilates. This is Pilates for ordinary golfers, although Christensen is quick to claim that the benefits go beyond golf.

“I never felt like I had good posture until I learned about Pilates,” said Christensen, who previously owned a company that manufactured laser devices. Then she turned over her life, so to speak, to Pilates.

Instructor Butch Harmon subscribes to the “benefits beyond golf” philosophy. And John O’Leary III, director of instruction at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club & Lodge in Orlando, also is a convert to Pilates. “It is beneficial for long-term health, both on and off the course,” O’Leary said. “I still do some strength training, but Pilates has helped me round out my personal program. Flexibility and greater range of motion can help all golfers, and I am starting to incorporate Pilates into some of my teaching.”

Here is the weekly program that Christensen recommends:

• An injury-prevention warmup every day, lasting about 10 minutes.

• Two or three times per week, a 45-minute workout that uses Pilates techniques, which can be done at home or in a gym that includes Pilates equipment.

La Costa, for example, has its own Pilates studio. There, the details of Pilates are taught to all, with the sessions coexisting with a popular big-muscle stretching program conducted by Fredericks.

“I actually use some Pilates in my training, because flexibility is essential for everything I teach,” Fredericks said.

Joseph Pilates was interned in England with other German nationals during World War I. He taught wrestling and self-defense, and he converted springs from hospital beds into exercise tools for his fitness agenda.

“If you train with (Pilates) machines, it is still a spring-based system,” Christensen said, “but the beauty of Pilates is that you don’t have to do it on the equipment. I show people how to do it on their own.”

“Golfers need precision in putting,” she said, “and that’s what Pilates is all about – smaller movements, control, good alignment, good posture.” Golf equipment manufacturer TaylorMade has become so interested in Pilates that TaylorMade Performance Labs has joined Christensen in a study involving everyday golfers. They are measured for flexibility and stability in the golf swing, then given a Pilates program to follow before being remeasured. So your back is strong, your spine is stable, your abdominals are rock hard and you have the flexibility of a snake. What else do you need? A golf swing, of course, but that’s a mission for another day.

 

Why Pro Golfers Are Using Pilates to Improve Their Game

By Kathi Casey, ERYT, CPI

Tiger Woods, Annika Sorenstam and Camilo Villegas all will tell you that Pilates has improved their golf game.

Here's why. Let's face it, most golfers don't train for their sport like runners, or soccer players. In addition, golf stresses one side of the body more than the other, so it's easy to injure your back or become so uncomfortable that the game isn't fun anymore. Conditioning with Pilates can prevent this from happening.

It's well known that Pilates improves posture and in the game of golf, maintaining proper posture during your swing and follow through, reduces the strain on your lower back and shoulders. Statistically, after the age of 30, golfers sustain an injury every three years. After age 50 the number climbs to one per year! Many golfers have learned that conditioning with Pilates improves their game, and significantly reduces their risk of injury.

The exercises that Joseph Pilates invented back in the 1920s are still the best formula for strengthening all the muscles in the body and using your "core" body for movement. The breathing and concentration that one learns with these exercises also helps your golf game. Golfers who have taken my Get Ready For Pilates program have knocked several stokes off their game, improved flexibility in their shoulders and hips and strengthened lower back and abdominal muscles. I'll be honest with you, the first few guys who came to my class originally came to keep their wives company, but they came back because they noticed a big difference in their body AND could drive the ball farther. When you learn how to move your body properly and use your core strength to drive the ball, the results speak for themselves. A quote attributed to Joseph Pilates "In 10 sessions you will feel the difference; in 20 you'll see the difference, and in 30, you'll have a whole new body." In relation to golf - after 10 sessions you'll notice the improvement in your game and after 20 sessions you'll be hooked on Pilates!

I recommend finding a Pilates instructor certified with one of the recognized certifying institutes (Stott, Physical Mind Institute, or Pilates Method Alliance). Check credentials before trusting your safety to an instructor. There are also "Golf Specific Pilates" instructors who specialize in improving your game. I believe that you will feel the same results in your over-all body conditioning with either option, however, your game will most likely improve quicker with a specialist.

Here's my quick tip on correcting Posture and Breathing:

Stand normally and look at your posture in a mirror. Now inhale deeply and slowly while concentrating on expanding your ribcage out to the sides. Avoid raising your shoulders up around your ears and especially don't suck in your abs and force your lower back out. I know this seems counter-intuitive because we all grew up thinking that we were supposed to suck our abs in, but it actually causes strain on your lower back. We're supposed to have the natural little curve in our lower backs! Exhale slowly and completely, then, try again. Keep practicing until you see your rib cage raising slightly and expanding out to the sides. When you feel comfortable enough, try to keep your spine aligned this way for several minutes as you breathe slowly and deeply 5 counts in and 6 counts out. Notice how much more comfortable this feels than when you were wearing your shoulders as earmuffs or sucking in your abs. Your back is in proper alignment and it's easier to breathe deeply - Enjoy that fresh oxygen. Practice this every day until you make better posture a habit.

Best of health to you all and enjoy the game!