Can exercising your core help you gain more distance? Analysts often bring up core strength during tournament commentary, but they never actually mention what muscles comprise the core. As a golfer, it’s important to know what muscles need to be strengthened to get the extra distance you desire. In this post we will explore the biomechanics behind longer drives and I’m going share a drill in the video below that exercises the crucial core muscles while you’re swinging a golf club.
First thing’s first. How do core muscles increase distance? Core muscles stabilize the spine, which is attached to the shoulders, which are attached to the arms. When the spine is stable, the shoulders can rotate around the spine, allowing the arms to swing much faster. I often treat golfers for back problems. From what I’ve seen, this is caused by two basic reasons. First, the spine is changing posture too much during the swing and gets into a bad position while the body is rotating in the downswing. The second is that the core muscles are not strong enough to stabilize the spine.
The drill that you will see in the video will do several things. First, it will strengthen the core muscles. We have already reviewed the many benefits of core strength, including stabilizing the back, preventing back injuries, and allowing the arms to swing faster, gaining more clubhead speed.
This drill will also increase flexibility, allowing your shoulders to turn more, hopefully to 90 degrees or more. Many people make the mistake of trying to get shoulder turn by either turning their hips too much or lifting the right shoulder and coming out of their posture (which I call fake turn). On the sides of the body there are external obliques that will turn the shoulders without turning the hips. The left external oblique pulls you from the left side and make you turn clockwise (the backswing). The right external oblique pulls the right side counterclockwise around to the left side (the forward swing). When the hips turn too much, the right hip goes too far behind you. Then, it is forced to go beneath the body and to the right. This causes a loss of spine angle through impact and will cause back problems. It also results in lousy shots! Golfers must turn their shoulders more than their hips to prevent the right hip from slipping behind them. This will be covered in greater detail in a future post.
There is a third benefit to this drill. It will activate and strengthen the fast twitch fibers in the arms. In a recent study of mini-tour professional golfers, the golfers were given a heavy club to swing on the first day when they were warming up on the practice tee. During the round, all the golfers thought that their real club felt much lighter. The next day, they were given just a grip to swing (the club was cut off just below the grip). After swinging the grip, they all thought that their real club felt heavier. The real takeaway from the study was this: on the day they swung the grip, their ball speed was approximately 10 miles an hour faster than when they swung the heavy club. The heavy club recruited the slow twitch fibers in their arms, causing slower swing speeds. The grip recruited the fast twitch fibers in their arms, causing higher swing speeds.
Many golfers never reach their highest potential swing speed because they haven’t taken the time to properly strengthen their core. When the core is not exercised properly, it cannot support the arms swinging faster, preventing the activation of the fast twitch arm fibers. Use the knee drill to correct both of these problems and reach your maximum potential distance.
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