What I meant was …

September 15th, 2008 at 06:14pm Mike DeDoncker

I’ll probably never get this “appearing on TV” thing down, but my attempt to illustrate a golf conditioning exercise during Monday night’s 5 o’clock news was particularly wretched.

So, if you were subjected to it, one, I apologize and, two, here is what I meant to say.

The golf swing, like any other sports performance, is a matter of balance, strength and flexibility. To break it down simply, it’s a shoulder rotation around a stable head.

Almost every muscle in the body plays some role in the golf swing, but the power comes mostly from the core muscles — rectus abdominis, transverse abdominis, and obliques.

One of my favorite golf conditioning exercises — and you’d never guess from Monday’s disaster that I actually have a certification as a golf conditioning specialist – is a simple ball toss to a wall.

To perform it, you hold a ball in front of you as if it were your golf club and take your normal golf stance. Stand at a 90-degree angle to a wall and imitate your full golf swing, from backswing to follow through, letting the ball go at the time in your swing that you would be striking a golf ball. The ball should hit the wall and bounce back to you.

Perform a set of about 10 to 12 repetitions and then turn around and do the exercise in reverse (if you’re a right-handed golfer, turn around and perform it as if you were a left-handed golfer).

If you’re not already a regular exerciser, you could start with a volleyball or a soccer ball (deflate it a little so it doesn’t come rebounding off the wall and smack you in the face, you just want it to bounce once or twice before you catch it). After you progress, you will want to use a small medicine ball — you shouldn’t need anything heavier than a four to six-pound ball.

Perform three to four sets of 10 to 12 repetitions in each direction two to three times a week in the off-season and you should see an improvement next year.

One more thing, make sure the wall is something strong like cement or brick unless you need another home repair project.

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