The Key Goal of Working Out
One of the things that makes golf so difficult is that it requires you to use your entire body to perform a very precise task. It’s something like trying to write your name on the ground with a pencil held in your belly button. Although the swing obviously involves many muscles, exactly which ones play what part has been a matter of debate in the past. As expected, they learned that the golf swing requires the highly coordinated activation of almost every major muscle group in the body, and that many of the logical suspects play a big part—the legs, hips, back and abdominal. What surprised some was how big a role the pecs of the trailing side played, how much the lats dominated throughout the swing. Instead, the rotators cuff muscles inside the shoulder have a much bigger part in the swing.
The truth is that these “golf muscles” are crucial to the swing, but no more crucial than any of the other muscles are. It’s just that those particular muscles are less frequently used and often underdeveloped, so they offer an easy and obvious target for anyone trying to sell a golf workout program. Certainly, those muscles do need to be developed and I have some specific methods to do that, but so do almost all the rest of the muscles in your body. The ultimate goal should be muscle balance, a key to enhanced performance and reduced injuries in almost any athletic endeavor. For instance, if you work at a desk typing all day, you’re forced into a position where your shoulders roll forward. Over a long period of time this causes the chest muscles attached to the front of the shoulders to cramp and shorten because they are always forced into that position. Meanwhile, the muscles of your upper back, which are attached to the back of your shoulder, stretch and lengthen.
As a result, eventually you will assume a posture with your shoulders rolled forward even when you’re not at the desk typing. This posture can lead to a number of conditions, from impingement syndrome to bursitis, especially when you’re putting your shoulder through the extreme range of motion required for a golf swing. It’s all because you have lost your muscle balance. The solution is to design a workout that will stretch the muscles of your chest that are attached to the front of your shoulders and strengthen and contract the muscles of your upper back, thereby restoring proper body alignment and putting your muscles back into balance.