Strength & Conditioning (or Athletic Development)

Since the mid 1990 there has been a surge in interest in strength and power development in the golf swing. It is rare to find a young tour player who has not had some exposure to training for golf. Tiger Woods was not the first leading player to advocate the need for physical preparation, though his impact has been profound - two other notable examples were Greg Norman and Gary Player. The challenge for all golfers is to access sound advice regarding their physical preparation.

The Golf Athlete philosophy which is defined and explored in our education seminars and through our daily advice to our stakeholders, is that all good prescription begins with good assessment. If you don't know where you are to start with you cannot know the direction that you need to go. Too many golfers, that our staff and our group of TGA trained health and PGA professionals see on a day to day basis, are doing inappropriate and non-golf specific exercise. We would like to see all average and elite players assessed for their physical abilities as early as possible in their golfing career. This assessment should involve a thorough physiotherapy assessment of body structure, static & golf posture, gait (how they walk), flexibility and static/dynamic control. In many cases limitations here will deny the budding "golf athlete" (be they 8 or 80) the opportunity to see optimal technical improvement. More importantly, they will be limited in there ability to complete physical training exercise correctly.

Strength and conditioning is a term that in many cases "frightens" the average player. Golfers, particularly many of our females, fear the concept of bulking up and putting on weight. This is a very real problem in our experience. Strength and Conditioning did indeed have its roots originally in the "pointy end" of athete development and thus involved a predominance of resistance training exercises. Watered down resistance or weight training is not what the 90% plus of our average players should have in their programmes.

For many years now the concept of Long Term Player or Athlete Development has been known. Embodied in this theory is the concept that all athletes from 8 to 80 years can be placed somewhere along a physical continuum of development in at least 20 physical attributes: squatting, single leg squatting, lunging, pushing, pulling, weight transference, vertical stability, horizontal stability, torso rotation etc. With this understanding in many cases there should be no or very little resistance added to a myriad of physical movements. This process we would like to call Athletic Development.

Thus after the initial physiotherapy screening a comprehensive physical competence assessment by your athletic development or athletic performance specialist should follow.

It is the TGA experience that our athletes have found this process of physical development rewarding and challenging while meeting the stated goals for technical development of our PGA Professionals and players. A number of articles will explore some of the theory and application of this philosophy. The TGA staff would suggest if you want more in depth information in this area for all athletic development that your follow this link - www.movementdynamics.com or contact Kelvin Giles our Athletic Development Consultant.

Over the coming months this section will introduce a number of initiatives regarding the physical competence asessment and physiotherapy screening of golfers. This information will provide both subjective (questionnaire) and objective assessment (physical tests) strategies for the Athletic Development Specialist, therapist, PGA Professional and the player. Please let us know if there is direction or suggestion that you would like to add to this initiative - Contact the TGA Athletic Development Consultant

Please provide us with your feedback about what information and advice you would like to access when you come to this section - Contact the TGA Athletic Development Consultant