Balance is ability of your body (i.e. nerves, muscles, and skeleton) to swing a golf club effectively and efficiently on correct path without changing position of your body in such a way that it is detrimental to swing and its outcome (i.e. contact with ball). Pretty simple definition when you break it down, and from now on when your swing coach says, “You have to stay balanced,” you know what he is talking about.

Developing Balance in Our Golf Swing

Okay, we now know definition of balance and its relationship to golf swing. Now, for second question of this article: “how do we develop balance in relationship to our golf swing?” This next section will answer this question for you. I would also bet that answer is not as obvious as it appears.

I will first say that developing balance in your swing is a combination of a couple of factors. The first and probably most obvious factor is mechanics. The golf swing is a biomechanical movement that requires body to take club through a specified swing path in a certain sequence and timing. The body must learn biomechanical movement of a golf swing to become efficient with movement. As your body becomes aware of movement, more efficient with movement, and has a better “feel” for movement, concept of balance in your swing will improve. So first part of developing balance in your swing is linked to mechanics of swing and becoming more efficient with these mechanics. This all funnels down to two things: 1) proper instruction about swing, and 2) practice. Practice, practice, and more practice is necessary to create better balance in your swing.

The second factor has to do with a term that many of you have probably heard before. That term is “muscle memory.” Realize that within your body skeleton is controlled by your muscles, muscles are controlled by nerves, and nerves are told what to do by your brain. The messages sent to your muscles through your nerves by brain create movement (i.e. muscles working to make body move). These movements can either be efficient or inefficient. Inefficient movements by muscular system tend to be “sloppy” and “unrefined.” Efficient movements are just opposite. Efficient movements by your muscular system are refined and technical. Improvement in balance is a result of latter (i.e. efficient muscular movement). Efficient muscular movement is developed through training muscles and nerves of your body to become more efficient. This is not done through typical exercises like bench press or leg press, but through stabilization and balance exercises.

As golfers we have our priorities. Let’s get some balance in our golf swing by training our bodies, getting proper instruction, and certainly a lot of practice. Once we’ve got balance there, then we’ll start talking about balancing our checkbook or helping Washington balance federal budget. To learn more about improving your golf swing go to our web site www.bioforcegolf.com.

Sean Cochran is one of most recognized golf fitness instructors in world today. He travels PGA Tour regularly with 2004 Masters Champion Phil Mickelson. He has made many of his golf tips, golf instruction and golf swing improvement techniques available to amateur golfers on website www.bioforcegolf.com. Check out his manual and DVD, Your Body & Your Swing, on BioForceGolf.com. To contact Sean, you can email him at support@bioforcegolf.com.

Moving on to our second point, loss of muscle mass as you age, this one is a tough one to swallow. Just think, we actually LOSE muscle as we age. Pretty depressing. The good news is it can be limited or stopped. Before I give you solution, let’s look at how this affects your golf swing. Essentially, in golf swing you create club head speed. That club head speed is result of creating rotational power, which we define as torque. To create torque, muscles of body have to be flexible, strong, and powerful. Now guess what? If you have less muscle, what do you think is going to happen to your power outputs and club head speed? The answer is they will decrease. No wonder they make senior shafts with a lot of flex. This is golf manufacturers’ attempt to deal with this problem. It helps to a point, but we have a better solution. How about putting something in your bag that makes you stronger, improves your power, and gets back that lost distance? Sounds good? Well, it can be done if you implement a golf-specific strength-training program. You can get back that lost muscle mass, get back that power, and improve your driving distance. This is what we call development of “golf strength,” and it can be done with a program that takes a total of 15 minutes a day!

Finally, moving on to flexibility issue, our bodies lose flexibility as we age. Flexibility is a must when it comes to golf swing. Here is what happens when you do not “work” on your flexibility. A loss of flexibility in golf swing limits ability of body to perform correct actions to create proper swing. Essentially, your body won’t allow you to take club back and through on correct swing path. This leads to miss hits, slices, hooks, and a whole bunch of other shots that are very unpleasant. So how do we fix this problem or not allow it to become a problem? The answer is to implement a golf-specific flexibility program. This again requires a daily commitment, but time frame is very little (say 5 minutes a day). So again, ask yourself: Is it worth spending 5 minutes a day on flexibility to have golf swing you would like? I bet most of you would answer yes.

The Magic Pill

Well, there you have pleasures, displeasure, joys, and sorrows of aging process. We all get older, but there are things we can do to prevent displeasures and sorrows. If we take a little time every day and perform proper exercises and activities, we can reduce effects of aging and have a great swing for as long as we like. That’s only magic pill we know of. If you would like more information on this subject and how to go about improving your golf fitness, take a look at our web site at www.bioforcegolf.com.

Sean Cochran is one of most recognized golf fitness instructors in world today. He travels PGA Tour regularly with 2004 Masters Champion Phil Mickelson. He has made many of his golf tips, golf instruction and golf swing improvement techniques available to amateur golfers on website www.bioforcegolf.com. Check out his manual and DVD, Your Body & Your Swing, on BioForceGolf.com. To contact Sean, you can email him at support@bioforcegolf.com.