THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOLF FITNESS TRAINING 4 Steps To Developing A Golf Exercise Program That Really Works! BY MARK TOLLE

©The Ultimate Guide To Golf Fitness Training All rights reserved, 2012 www.chicagogolftrainer.com is a division of FIT-TO-PERFORM, LLC

C OPYRIGHT © 2012 FIT-TO-PERFORM, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

Neither the publisher nor the authors are engaged in rendering professional advice or services to the individual reader. The ideas, procedures, and suggestions contained in this report are not intended as a substitute for consulting with your physician. All matters regarding your health require medical supervision. Neither the authors nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss or damage allegedly arising from any information or suggestion in this book. For more information contact Mark Tolle, MS, ATC, CSCS Chicagogolftrainer.com [email protected]

©The Ultimate Guide To Golf Fitness Training All rights reserved, 2012 www.chicagogolftrainer.com is a division of FIT-TO-PERFORM, LLC

WELCOME Do you want to hit the golf ball farther and have lower score? Then this report is for you! As a golfer for more than 40 years I believe there is a beauty to the game that only a player can understand. That beauty is inherent to the challenges, the environment, and the internal competitive nature that makes up the complete game of golf. The bottom line here is that we all strive to either enhance our abilities on the golf course, or improve our overall experience and joy of playing this great game. The number one way to enhance your performance on the course, as well as prevent injuries, is by utilizing golf instruction and commit to practicing on a regular basis. You simply need assistance in learning and developing your swing, as well as improving the way you play. An additional factor to enhance your performance, which is clearly popular today, is physical training. Exercise and sport specific training is used in all sports, and it continues to evolve and improve for golfers at all levels. Many Athletic Trainers, Physical Therapists and Personal Trainers are specializing in the training of golfers. Additionally many exercise professionals are involved in researching ways to help prevent injuries and develop new training techniques. With the help of Golf Professionals, new team approaches and training methods have evolved, thus resulting in a much higher level of athleticism in golfers. Today most competitive and non-competitive golfers understand the importance of physical training. It has been shown that fitness training can result in hitting the golf ball farther and improve confidence & consistency. However, often times they are unfamiliar with what it actually takes to succeed with a golf fitness training program.

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This report was written to specifically identify and discuss the 4 important steps that need to be taken to develop a golf fitness program that will get you the results you desire…hitting the ball farther and lower scores! Best of luck with your golfing endeavors,

Mark Tolle GOLF FITNESS Chicago Building And Rebuilding The Athletic Golfer

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Step One Where Do You Start When Developing Your Golf Exercise Program? Not knowing where to begin can be a big problem and certainly a confusing factor when starting a golf fitness program. That’s why I always say, if you fail to plan then you most definitely plan to fail. So make a plan! The first step then in starting a golf exercise program, or any type of project for that matter, is to establish a plan and to focus on a destination. It is often stated that you need to begin with the end in mind, and that is certainly true in this case. When it comes to fitness, there is an immense volume of information at our finger tips, and often times it is confusing or unproven. Therefore, having assistance from a Golf Fitness Professional to help get you moving in the right direction is the sole purpose of this report. I look at it this way. I know that starting an effective fitness program is often times not an easy task. That’s why I encourage you to develop some type of help. If you are sick, you go to the doctor, if you have a toothache, you call the dentist. Your health & fitness is no different, so I encourage you to invest in yourself by speaking with a qualified fitness professional to educate you, help set your goals, and get you started on the right path. This will be much clearer when I discuss the golf fitness assessment. There’s nothing better than having someone you trust, guide you and make you accountable for your actions. Setting Your Goals For many golfers the process of setting goals is the best way to improve your game. We have golf performance goals and swing goals, so fitness goals are no different. There has been a lot written on goal setting so I won’t go into much detail here other than pointing you in the direction and give you greater clarity of focus. One way to look at your golf game is to keep precise statistics such as fairways hit, number of shots it takes to get to the green, number of putts etc. It is practical to ©The Ultimate Guide To Golf Fitness Training All rights reserved, 2012 www.chicagogolftrainer.com is a division of FIT-TO-PERFORM, LLC

determine what areas need improvement and what realistic goals to create. Your golf teaching professional can help you with this. The next logical area to look at when setting goals is your golf swing. Again this is where it’s important to have input from your golf professional. Golf professionals can help you identify what are called, swing faults. It is normal to have some type of problem in your swing because in the end we all would like to have a better swing. Swing faults are essentially errors in body position or body movement during the swing. You may have heard descriptions such as; coming over the top, loss of posture, reverse spine angle and many more. Often times these faults are directly correlated to physical limitations in your body. These physical limitations could be anything from decreased hip mobility or flexibility to poor posture, and decreased spine or hip stability. When it comes to your fitness the same principles apply as to setting performance goals. First you should have a pretty good idea as to what kind of physical shape you are in. Do you need to lose weight and how much. Do you need to increase your flexibility or improve your posture? Do you have a chronic injury or pain that needs to be eliminated? After you think about it you need to prioritize your needs. So please take the time to truly assess your own physical needs and then set goals. To summarize this first step take the time right now to establish your priorities and create specific goals for your golf game and your fitness. Review the list below for additional help and spend whatever amount of time you need on developing your goals and plan. This part can’t be overlooked.     

Clearly identify what you want and where you want to go Establish a specific date to accomplish these goals List all obstacles to overcome Identify what you need to know or learn Identify people or groups that will help you reach your goals

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Step Two Where Are Your Specific Physical Restrictions In Your Body? The Golf Specific Assessment I now want to go into more detail as it pertains to your body; after all, this is a fitness book. The heart of developing a golf fitness program is to go deeper into finding specific golf related restrictions in your body. As I mentioned earlier about having an idea of your current level of fitness, it is even more beneficial to figure out the specifics. By specifics I mean your current level of flexibility/mobility and strength, as well as, the quality of your functional movement patterns and posture. Ideally your golf assessment should include both a fundamental movement screen as well as, a golf specific screen. These can be performed by a Golf Fitness Specialist and is helpful in connecting your physical restrictions to specific swing faults. Every professional golfer utilizes custom made clubs AND they participate in a custom developed golf exercise program. They don’t just choose any random exercise thinking it’s going to help their game! They work on problem areas of their body and then perform exercises specific to their swing. That’s what a golf specific screen does. Amateur golfers are no different and now have access to experts when it comes to custom made exercise programs. No generic exercises here! When you are looking for a Golf Fitness Professional make sure they are familiar with the golf swing as well as, fundamental movement patterns, and know how to screen for these patterns. Fundamental or what is often called functional movement patterns, are essentially the patterns we developed and learned as we progressed from infancy to adolescents. I am talking about things like head control, rolling, crawling, squatting, walking, lunging, climbing and running. All of these movements needed the organization ©The Ultimate Guide To Golf Fitness Training All rights reserved, 2012 www.chicagogolftrainer.com is a division of FIT-TO-PERFORM, LLC

and development of the nervous system and stabilizing system (core control) of our bodies so that they developed appropriately. As we age we tend to lose some of these movement patterns and/or develop compensations. The key point here is that we need fundamental movement patterns to ensure that our movements with daily activities as well as sports skills are efficient. Additionally maintaining sound fundamental movement patterns helps prevent injuries. Performing a fundamental movement screen will aid in establishing the starting point of your fitness program, and selection of exercises. The golf specific screen is important because poor movement patterns and swing faults are essentially the cause of poor golf shots. For example, lack of mobility in the hips, and lack of control through the pelvis, can lead to a reverse spine angle in the backswing and/or early extension in the down swing. A reverse spine angle is described as having excessive backward bend (extension) or lateral bend of the upper body at the top of the backswing. This is a killer for the low back. Early extension is another swing fault and refers to the hips & spine moving forward or straightening too early during the downswing. This results in a hook or blocked shot. I’ll discuss functional movements and swing faults in more detail a little later with the golf performance model. I also mentioned posture earlier and how it needs to be looked at during the initial fitness screen. The screen will determine the type of posture you have at set up and how it can lead to certain swing faults. The two most common postural problems in the golf stance are what we call the C-posture and S-posture. The C-posture is recognized easily by the hunched over position of the upper back and trunk at set up. The S-posture is the opposite where the golfer creates excessive arch in the low back resulting in the butt sticking out too much. Both of these postures contribute to problems in the swing. You are ideally looking for a neutral posture which gives you greater flexibility and control throughout the swing. I’ve added these 2 pictures below to show a C-posture and a corrective exercise.

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C-Posture

Use a golf club to practice good posture

A golf specific assessment is the only tool that truly identifies what problems or physical restrictions that need to be addressed in the fitness program and where to actually begin. More detail can be found on my quick start DVD. So don’t let your inability of not knowing where to start, or a lack of planning to be the cause of not getting the results you desire. In the next section I will discuss specific fitness components but first I would like you to try a few drills from my golf specific assessment that will immediately help your swing. Your Self-assessment Here is a little homework for you to try on your own that will help you identify and correct some very common physical restriction. The first exercise drill shown below is another example of checking and correcting poor posture in your set up position.

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Use a golf club or dowel and place down your back so that your head, upper back & tailbone touch the dowel. Then practice pushing your hips back so you assume your golf posture. The dowel should remain in contact in each spot. After you get the feel of the correct position practice taking the club off your back and place down as if you are getting to hit a ball. Your goal is to do this without losing your good set up position. Practice this daily. Now one of the major problems I see in golfers is the inability to separate the shoulder and hip turn in the golf swing. This separation is one of the more important concepts to understand, and perform in the golf swing. And it is essential in developing power in your swing. What happens often times with the golf swing in amateurs is they have an incorrect sequence of the arms/shoulders, and hips or pelvis. The way to test your ability to independently control the hips and trunk in the golf swing is easy to do. First you need to check pelvic control in the sagittal plane (forward/backward). To do this get into your golf posture and cross your arms at your chest as shown below on the left.

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Pelvic Tilts in Golf Posture Now gently tilt your pelvis forward and backward without moving anything else. This tilting of the pelvis demonstrates your ability to independently control pelvic movement with you stabilizing muscles (core) as well as, shows you how much mobility you have. It may be easy for some and difficult for others but this motion and control of the pelvis in this front/back direction is very important. If this motion feels limited or choppy then practice it daily until it improves. Another way to practice this motion is seen in the next picture. This is an example of tilting the pelvis in a normal standing position. You can practice this if tilting in the golf posture remains difficult.

Pelvic Tilts in Standing

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The next movement to check regarding this pelvic shoulder sequence is pelvic rotation. Many golfers have trouble with this. Get in your golf posture as shown and then without moving your shoulders just twist the hips (rotate the pelvis). It is ok to let the knees move a little but not the trunk & shoulders.

Pelvic Rotation (hip twist) This pelvic rotation & control is essential in pulling the hips through the swing ahead of the shoulders, arms & club. This is a critical concept for developing power in your golf swing. To correct any limitations in this pelvic rotation component is to simply practice in the above position.

The last assessment and drill I want you to try at home is isolated trunk and shoulder turn. Stand in you golf posture as before and then only twist your shoulders & trunk. Do not allow the hips or pelvis to move this time. This not only shows the degree of shoulder turn you have but also core control of the pelvis.

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Below is the exercise to practice to improve your shoulder turn without moving the pelvis & hips. Stand with your hips against a wall in a good golf posture. Keep the hips touching the wall and turn your shoulders into the back swing & follow trhough. Don’t allow the butt cheeks to come off the wall. When you get good at this move away from the wall.

So there you have several golf specific assessment and corrective drills to help jump start your golf fitness training. These alone will take you a long way toward implementing fitness into your golf life. The really cool thing about these exercises is they will help you with normal daily activities and even may help with back pain. ©The Ultimate Guide To Golf Fitness Training All rights reserved, 2012 www.chicagogolftrainer.com is a division of FIT-TO-PERFORM, LLC

Let’s move on to discussing the golf performance model. The Golf Performance Model The golf performance model is a way to look at the process of building or rebuilding the athletic golfer. As you can see in the diagram there are 3 levels. You need to build the base with fundamentals and a good solid physical body. This is where you work on posture, improve fundamental movement and treat injuries. The next level is specific fitness training. Then followed by the highly specific skill acquisition that you get from working with a teaching professional.

Golf Skills (instruction)

Golf Performance (fitness training)

Fundamental Movement Patterns

Golf Performance Model Focusing on improving fundamentals and basic movement patterns as well as, specific physical restrictions as they relate to your golf swing is very important first step. When writing about fundamentals, I always think about some of the all time great coaches in sport. Names such as John Wooden, Leo Durocher and Lou Holtz were not only great tacticians, motivators, and recognizers of talent, but continually coached fundamentals of their sport. There is no difference when it comes to golf and golf specific training. Top golf instructors such as Butch Harmon, David Leadbetter and Jim McLean are always focusing on fundamentals of the golf swing. This same concept of fundamentals should also be applied to the process of health and fitness. As I mentioned when describing the assessment/screening step earlier, we must re-establish and maintain ©The Ultimate Guide To Golf Fitness Training All rights reserved, 2012 www.chicagogolftrainer.com is a division of FIT-TO-PERFORM, LLC

fundamental movement patterns as well as, good function. This must be done before working on general fitness. We all developed fundamental movement patterns as we grew from infancy to adulthood. These movement patterns or skills usually occur in a specific sequence. Essentially the sequence develops the foundation for the more advanced functional movements we ask of our bodies as we move into adulthood. As I mentioned before I am referring to head control, rolling, crawling, squatting, walking, lunging, climbing and running Often times - more than what we like to see - these fundamental movement patterns are delayed or fail to develop in children. As a side note…I actually have a colleague that specializes in working with children that are developmentally delayed in these movement patterns. It is very interesting work. My primary goal here is to show you that golf specific training is more than just getting a muscle strong or flexible, but is more about making sure patterns of movement are as correct and efficient as possible. To achieve this, you first need these fundamental patterns to build upon. You will then have an efficient connection between the brain and neuromuscular system. Colleagues and experts in the field of human performance use the phrase, “train movements, not muscles”, and I am in total agreement. Your golf fitness assessment will help identify whether you have any problems with these functional movement patterns. If you do, you must first clean them up. This will enhance your potential to improve and polish the specific skills in the golf swing. As I discussed earlier regarding the golf specific assessment, its purpose is to identify specific physical restrictions or problems that contribute to swing faults. Hopefully you have completed your homework above and have made some discoveries.

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A Few Words on Swing Faults After improving movement patterns, your focus needs to shift to those problem areas specific to swing faults in order to achieve the quickest results. Arguably swing faults can occur from poor understanding of swing mechanics, which is addressed by the teaching professional, but also because of physical restrictions. For example hitting a slice is often times the direct result of coming over- the- top during your golf swing. Over-the-top is one of the more common swing faults and is the result of having an over-dominance of the upper body during the downswing. This then causes the club to be thrown outside the correct swing plane and you hit the ball from an outside to in path. The final result is cutting across the ball creating a slice and a loss of distance (or often times a lost ball)! Admittedly, the over-the-top swing fault can be caused by many factors in the golf swing, but major physical restrictions have been found to be the primary reason by the Titleist Performance Institute. One significant problem is limited ability to maintain a separation between the pelvis and trunk during the downswing (remember your homework above). If you are unable to disassociate these two body parts, then your swing sequence is not correct, resulting in the upper body and arms leading in the downswing. This disassociation can be caused by decreased spinal and hip mobility and/or poor core stability. If these problems were found in your golf specific assessment, then you need to focus on exercises that improve that needed mobility and stability in those areas. Focusing on the specific physical restriction can make significant improvements in your golf swing. A major point to remember is that a lack of patience to work on the problem areas, and failure to use corrective strategies will only lead to frustration with your goal of improving your swing, and your overall golf performance. Stay focused to the task at hand. I’m now going to move on and discuss the process of how you should implement the specific fitness principles. ©The Ultimate Guide To Golf Fitness Training All rights reserved, 2012 www.chicagogolftrainer.com is a division of FIT-TO-PERFORM, LLC

Step Three What Are The Components Of A Good Golf Fitness Program That You Need To Implement? So what else do you need to know to begin a program? Well, developing a golf fitness program must include all the components of fitness. As I discussed before the first component is corrective exercise. Simply put, you must address any physical dysfunctions, and correct altered movement patterns that may be present in your body. These will be found by performing a golf specific assessment like I described above, and you may actually already be implementing corrective strategies. This is also where you re-establish an efficient stabilizing system for core control. Now, if you are a baby boomer, you probably are not going to move like you did when you were 18 however, you can most definitely make improvements.

Secondly, good posture and a balanced neuromuscular system are very important components and are quite frequently overlooked when exercising. Posture refers to more than just sitting up straight. Having correct alignment through-out all of your joints is a prerequisite to having a good functioning body. Addressing and correcting your posture, as I showed in step 2 above with the C-golf posture, is a key fundamental principle that can’t be overlooked. The next component most golfers must work on is flexibility/mobility. Flexibility refers to the elasticity of the muscles. Often times by just improving your flexibility you can have an improved golf swing and add distance to your shots. Mobility is then your ability to move a joint through an optimal range of motion. The ability to do this is dependent upon the position of the joint, the stability of the joint, and the neurological connection from the brain, or what we call a motor program. Therefore it is important for you to understand that improvement of flexibility/mobility sometimes requires more than just doing a little stretching. I’ve included this exercise as one method of improving rotation through the upper spine and shoulders for an improved shoulder turn in the swing. This is called Sidelying T-spine Rotation. ©The Ultimate Guide To Golf Fitness Training All rights reserved, 2012 www.chicagogolftrainer.com is a division of FIT-TO-PERFORM, LLC

Sidelying Thoracic Mobility with Core Stability This exercise is designed to improve upper back mobility and shoulder turn. You start by lying on your side and place a ball under the top knee. Then let your upper body twist flat as shown. Raise the arm on the same side you are lying on straight up. You then press your knee into the ball so that the core is engaged and reach the arm up toward the ceiling. You are essentially mobilizing the thoracic spine and stretching the upper body.

The next fitness component you must include is strength and stability. Strength as you know is your ability to produce force with your muscles. Studies have clearly shown that by just increasing general strength you can hit the golf ball farther. Just think of what you can do with re-established movement patterns and implementing a customized strength program. Stability is then described as your specific ability to control the forces generated by your muscles, through a joint. In golfers, the major area that we focus on (but not the only area) when referring to stability, is the trunk and pelvis. This is often times referred to as core strength, but I believe it is sometimes misunderstood and trained incorrectly. Strengthening the core is always a good idea; however you must focus on the control aspect. The function of the core is to control & stabilize the pelvis and lumbar spine, which in turn helps transfer forces during the golf swing.

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One of my favorite exercises for developing stability in the golf posture is the Cable Anti-Rotation exercise. Because the function of the core is to resist and control movement this is designed to control rotation in the golf posture.

Cable Anti-rotation Using a cable column machine (or tubing) set up in your golf posture and hold the handle of the cable in the middle of your body as shown in the first picture. Then slowly take the handle down & out from the body and hold for 5 seconds. Return to the starting point in the middle of your body. Your task is to resist the pull of the cable as it tries to rotate you out of your good golf posture.

Balance is another fitness component that is important to golfers. Your ability to stand and balance on one leg with your eyes closed for at least 30 seconds is an indication of good stability through the hip and leg. Tour players can actually balance on one leg with their eyes closed for 38 seconds on average. Single leg balance ability is related to the efficiency of both the nervous system and muscular system in the body. In the golf swing this balance must carry over to the dynamic coordination of the entire body. Additionally, balance in your set up and swing is something your teaching professional may help you with. Power in the golf swing is something we all desire because it certainly leads to hitting the golf ball farther. Power is the process of producing force at a high rate of speed. So it is a combination of strength & speed during the swing. There are a number of ways to train power in the golf swing; however, I need to extend a word ©The Ultimate Guide To Golf Fitness Training All rights reserved, 2012 www.chicagogolftrainer.com is a division of FIT-TO-PERFORM, LLC

of caution here. I usually train power at some point in the golf fitness program, but not until most physical limitations have improved and the player has a good fundamental swing. The main reason for this is, if you train power on top of dysfunction it may lead to injury or some other type of problem in the swing. The following exercise is an excellent way to develop power in the hips that can be translated into the golf swing.

Kettlebell Elevated Deadlift

This is called the kettlebell deadlift. If you are familiar with the deadlift pattern it specifically targets the hips and builds power in the golf swing. Take an appropriate weighted kettlebell and place it on a step as shown. Using your hips, hinge backward and let your trunk go forward. Keep an arch in the back and chest up & out. Your knees will bend a little but only because the hips go back. You then want to inhale at the bottom, push your feet into the floor and exhale as you rise up to a standing position. Cardiovascular Endurance is the last component of fitness that may be beneficial to many golfers. Having a general level of cardiovascular fitness is a factor when playing many rounds of golf on consecutive days. You need to have general endurance to withstand the rigors of many days of playing. Also if weight loss is a goal cardio should be part of your plan. Now let’s move on to the last step necessary to developing a successful golf fitness plan. ©The Ultimate Guide To Golf Fitness Training All rights reserved, 2012 www.chicagogolftrainer.com is a division of FIT-TO-PERFORM, LLC

Step Four How Do I Stay Committed And Disciplined With My Program? The next step to ensure success in you golf fitness program is to make a commitment to your program, and be consist in performing it. This may sound pretty basic but it is a major reason why you may not reach your goals. Commitment begins with believing in yourself and your ability to go after a goal and accomplish it. We all have times in our lives where we have difficulty in making commitments or decisions regarding one thing or another. Often times it is because of built in fears, faulty beliefs or lack of attaching a strong emotion to the accomplishment of the goal. I believe that if you involve the use of your mind and your belief system with the use of appropriate self talk, then commitment to accomplishing your goals is much easier. A formula that will be beneficial for you to remember is “Thought + Emotion = Commitment, and Commitment = Results”. After all, results are what we are looking for, and results do not occur without a purposeful emotional thought, commitment and effort. A particular roadblock to your commitment to a golf fitness program is something we all use, and that is, excuses. Excuses are essentially beliefs that get in our way of accomplishing results. It is very important that you recognize the excuses you make, and leave them behind. Without first recognizing your excuses that slow you down, you will never overcome their burden. That is a fact! So, next time you skip your workout, ask yourself why, and explore how easy it was to come up with an excuse. Then ask yourself why you didn’t try harder to overcome the excuse at hand. As I alluded to earlier, the number one reason people don’t get what they want is because they truly don’t know what they want. You must have a clear set goal or result that you want to accomplish in your golf fitness program and then focus on it at all times.

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You must also know, on an emotional level, why you want to achieve that particular result. How will it make you feel when you accomplish it? You attract what you think about and it becomes more powerful if your thinking elicits a strong emotion or a certain level of satisfaction. That is when you become committed. Consistency, another important principle, is closely related to commitment and must be present to succeed with your fitness program. When I look at fitness research, the major components I always see are, the program under study is performed at least three times per week, and secondly it is performed for greater than an eight week period. The bottom line is that in order to make improvements in any area of fitness you must consistently do the work for a period of time. It is very common for people to perform exercises one to two times per week or stop after a few weeks. We live in a society of instant gratification. We all want results now and want them with as little effort as possible. I’m here to tell you that you need to do the work on a regular basis for several months to see results. Often times, permanent change requires daily exercise, especially when trying to correct movement patterns, change muscle function or recover from an injury. Success is the little things we do every day. It’s a process and has a cumulative effect on our bodies. Remember, Commitment and consistency will produce results!

I admit we all are looking for the newest, most advanced or cool exercise to help us hit the ball farther and become a better golfer. It is hard to resist the temptation, but please, be disciplined. I used to work in physical therapy and it was not uncommon for patients to report injuring themselves while trying to do some advanced exercise. We are all physically different and our individual exercise needs are quite different. So trying to do an exercise you see a tour player doing, or something you see in a magazine, may actually end up hurting you, and can be a big waste of your valuable time. If you want to waste your time, and prevent your golf exercise program from working, then focus on those new trends or fads that are constantly popping up. ©The Ultimate Guide To Golf Fitness Training All rights reserved, 2012 www.chicagogolftrainer.com is a division of FIT-TO-PERFORM, LLC

Another point I want to bring up here is the number one reason or excuse I hear from clients regarding exercise is they do not have enough time. The majority of my clients lead busy lives balancing career and family life. So if you’re “busy” then it’s even more important that you use the help from a golf fitness professional, and get the specific program your body needs. To be effective in the shortest time possible then you must focus on the exercises that were customized for your particular needs and will give you the greatest benefit. Don’t waste your time on exercises that look cool or a friend swears by. My last point in making sure you stay committed is you must perform a golf specific re-assessment and follow-up screening. What this means is that your fitness professional does a follow-up screen at approximately 4-6 weeks to assess how the program is progressing. You need to answer these questions. Does the screen show improvements? Do you have improved movement patterns? Or improved mobility and stability? The answers to these questions, tells you how the program is going. Often times if you are not getting the results you want it is because of a lack of consistency in performing the exercises or you are not working on the fundamentals that I discussed earlier. Again personal accountability is huge! This re-assessment gives you the opportunity to make the needed adjustments to stay on track. So, there you have my 4 steps to starting a golf fitness program that really works. Remember when starting or changing your golf fitness program, make sure you remain disciplined and focused on the task at hand. By following these 4 steps you can reduce the chance of making mistakes and wasting valuable time. Your program will be successful and you will reach your goals if you do all of these steps. And above all, you will continue to have fun out on the golf course. Best of luck!

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References Adams, Mike, Tomasi, T.J. & Suttie, Jim 1998. The Laws Of The Golf Swing. New York, NY. Harper Collins Publishing Boyle, Michael 2004. Functional Training For Sports. Champaign, IL. Human Kinetics. Boyle, Michaels 2011. Functional Strength Coach 4. Course Manual & DVD Set Canfield, J., Hanson, M.V. & Hewitt, L. 2000. The Power of Focus. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc. Canfield, J. 2005. The Success Principles. New York, NY. Harper Collins Publishing Chek, P. 2000. Movement That Matters. San Diego, CA: A C.H.E.K Institute Publication, 2000. Chek, P. 1999. The Golf Biomechanics Manual. San Diego, CA: A C.H.E.K. Institute Publication. Cook, G. 2003. Athletic Body in Balance. Champaign, IL. Human Kinetics. Cook, G. 2010. Movement - Functional Movement Systems: Screening, Assessment and Corrective Strategies. Aptos, CA. On Target Publications Eker, H. T.2005. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. New York, NY. Harper Collins. Foran, B. 2001. High-Performance Sports Conditioning. Champaign, IL. Human Kinetics Titleist Performance Institute. 2006. Golf Fitness Instructor Manual. Schmidt, R. A. & Wrisberg, C.A. 2000. Motor Learning and Performance (2nd Edition). Champaign, IL. Human Kinetics. ©The Ultimate Guide To Golf Fitness Training All rights reserved, 2012 www.chicagogolftrainer.com is a division of FIT-TO-PERFORM, LLC