Are you a 20/20/20 Gym user??

Are you a 20/20/20 Gym user??

I have performed many gym consultations in my time as a Personal Trainer and I always like to ask new clients what they are currently doing during their sessions. The answer I very commonly get is ' I do 20mins on Cross trainer, 20 on bike and 20 on treadmill (sometimes rower!), I follow this by asking if they do any resistance work, usually getting either ' I do a couple of the machines', or 'I'm not looking to get bulky'.

20 Minutes sitting reading a book on bike.

All this explains to me is why so many people give up using the gym after the first four weeks. Firstly this is such a boring workout and secondly it will bring you the minimum results in the maximum amount of time. 

With most people looking to lose weight, tone up and be generally healthier then some kind of functional resistance training is essential. You cannot tone up without resistance work and you won't burn many calories working in the 'Fat burning zone' or as I like to call it the 'doing nothing at all for you zone'. If you want to be in the fat burning zone, walk slowly to the shops or hoover the house at low intensity, that's how effective it is. The other way of knowing if you are in the 'waste of time zone' is if you can read a book or watch the tv. Whenever I see someone doing this I just want to scream 'put the magazine down!!!'

How about a magazine?

If you want to use these machines then do some HIIT training, that High Intensity Intervals. But I do have problems with doing this also. How functional is it being fixed in one position for a period of time? What are you really doing to improve posture, balance, flexibility, core stability, mobility, power, strength. The answer is very little. The same goes for any machine that you sit on. If you have a sedentary job you spend the whole day sitting at your desk and in your car/on the train, then you sleep in a  seated position whilst lying down. So basically a good 20 hrs crunched up, why use the gym to sit down also?

Wonder what's on tv?

If you don't know what to do then ask a Personal trainer. A good trainer will be able to screen you and sort out your goals to plan a programme that is designed specifically to meet your needs. It seems that people would rather wander around the gym wasting their time than ask a professional to give them guidance. People are willing to pay to fix their TV, car, phone etc. But when it comes to their health they would rather not bother. I don't know whether they've just worked with poor trainers (of which there are a few) or just think they know best. Most trainers are very dedicated professionals who have a real desire to get their clients to achieve their goals. Put your trust in one and see the results.

For more details on my personal training visit www.berkhamstedpersonaltrainer.co.uk 

Mission to more power. Hit it one club further in 90 days.

After playing my first tournament of the year earlier this month and hitting 15 greens and only two real bad swings I've decided that my swing is moving in the right direction. This inspired me to take on a new challenge in addition to improving technique. I believe that with the right training and diet I can gain at least one club more distance.

I'm going to base my gain on two clubs. Driver and 7 Iron. Currently I hit my 7 Iron on average (in English weather!) 162yds. One club more distance would therefore mean 13 more yards. This should translate into approximately a 20yd gain on my driving distance. Which would mean hitting 2 and a half clubs less into most par 4's. That would truly transform my game, 7 iron instead of 4 iron is a big difference. I will also be checking on my clubhead speed which averages 108mph with the Driver atm, I would like to get it up to 115mph, to achieve my required gains.

Will this be me soon??!

I'm starting today with a heavy legs session. Box Squats, Lunges, Deadlifts and Romanian Deadlifts. As I am already trained I am going straight to the power phase, anyone duplicating my workout will need to start with mobility and strength first. My numbers for squat and Deadlift today were 105 for 5 for squat and 140 for 5 Deadlift. This is an indicator that I haven't trained big in a while. I know that Lee Westwood can Deadlift 190kg for 1 so that is my initial target, I am about 25kg short of that at the moment. My box squat target is 135 for 5 giving me approximately a 150kg 1rep max.

 I am going to try to get a 5 day routine in place with Legs, Chest and triceps, Back and Biceps, Power shoulders and legs day and a Core day. This will be in addition to my golf conditioning class, spin and plyometric classes that I teach but also participate in.
Golf is an all body sport so I will be covering the whole body. One of the keys to my workouts is to include stretching during my rest time to maintain and increase length of muscles.

My goal date is 90 days from today to have gained the yardage. It's not long but if I work hard and eat well I truly feel it's achievable.

My blog will be updated regularly with updates on my progress and on the various workouts, supplements and diets to help along the way. Check out my golf blog for updates on my swing changes.

Golfing Blues

David Duval

The Golfing Blues

I interrupt my usual blog to talk about getting down at golf. I think most people who have played golf for a while have got to the point where they have just about had enough with the game. It usually comes after a period of particular struggles and a feeling that it’s not worth the time you put into it.

I had myself experienced various minor periods of the blues but had my worst case of it during the middle of my current swing change. I had been putting in plenty of quality time into my practice and although results had been pretty poor had seen enough in terms of position change and shot shape improvement to continue to persevere with the work. However towards the end of last year in spite of some real big progress with my swing positions I couldn’t find a way to get my driver going. The rest of my game was going pretty good but my driving was shocking. Probably as bad as it had been for a long time. It wasn’t just that the direction was bad, it was the quality of strike. For about three weeks I practiced and was hitting some absolutely horrendous feeling shots. But I am not one to give up easily so I carried on with the practice.

However, the final straw came playing a Winter mini tour event at a local venue I won’t name. Arriving on a frosty winter morning I expected the usual decision to either delay or cancel the event due to frozen greens. But to my surprise we were going out. ‘The greens must have thawed out’ I thought to myself. But a trip to the putting green confirmed the opposite. So in spite of the poor decision I go out. The first couple of holes go okay, fairway wood off tee and run the ball in to frosty greens and scrape pars. Then I start to miss fairways and hit into rough, which is sodden. Every shot missing fairway is plugged. Balls missing fairways by yards or greens by feet can be lost in their plug marks. Balls hit on greens bounce through into soaking wet lies. This is not enjoyable golf, made worse by the fact my driver shots feel like I’m hitting a rock with a drainpipe. I left the tournament with one thing in my mind. I’ve had enough.

I didn’t pick up a club for two months apart from during lessons. I made a choice that I was only going to get back to it when I felt a real desire to practice again. Two things brought me back to the game. Firstly, during a lesson I hit my driver and the face cracked, turns out it had a flaw in the face and that was one of the reasons it felt so bad!! But I still wasn’t fully converted back. The final turning point was my coaching trip to PGA Cataluyna in Spain. Good golf course, good condition and the sight of the sun that I hadn’t really seen for twelve months did wonders. My new driver head was a revelation also and suddenly golf became about enjoyment and making birdies and eagles again. My love affair with the game had renewed.

Unfortunately coming back to minus temperatures in England put a bit of a dampener on it, but I finally feel a desire to hit balls and get back to it. The pieces of my swing change feel better now I have confidence back off the tee and I am starting to look ahead to some tournament golf again.

My experienced is shared with another at my club. Neil Padbury, who is featured in some of my earlier videos got the end of his golfing tether at around autumn last year. He has a huge amount of golfing potential but apart from brief periods has never quite has showed the work rate required to push on from a potentially good golfer to actually reaching the scratch standard some would say he should have. As a result his dreams always outweighed the results he achieved. He is currently retired from the game in his early twenties, but I hope this season some good weather will bring him out and maybe give him the motivation to give his well of potential one last run at the big time.

My biggest respect goes to David Duval, he has suffered possibly the biggest career slump since Sandy Lyle, but still comes back to play week in week out. He must have gone through the blues several times but still works hard. I hope that soon he is rewarded for his perseverance.

Swing change Part 2

Old Flatter Shoulder Turn

So after my change to the posture that I discussed on my earlier blog the next step in my swing adjustment was to adjust my shoulder movement in my backswing.

Partly due to the excessive lumber curve in my posture and partly just bad habits my left shoulder tended to move back on the backswing with a immediate movement to the left and also coming up as I swing back. This caused two major issues. Firstly it meant my head and upper body moving to the right, it also meant that my shoulder plane became too shallow. This gave my swing a weight shift that was caused by my upper body, as opposed to through the movement of the hips and pelvis.

The first thing that I need to do with the change was to sort out the first movement away from the ball. Before I would initiate my backswing with an immediate turning of the body and pushing away of the left shoulder.  The feeling I needed to get was that of my shoulder remaining in position for the first couple of feet of the backswing, and then getting it to work down, and under my chin.

Secondly in order to stop my shoulder over turning I have to keep head centred with my face on the ball. Before I would rotate my head about 25’ to the right on my backswing. Now I need to have no head rotation, this limits my shoulder turn dramatically.

New Shoulder Position

At first it feels as if my swing is really steep with a lot less body turn.  I am struggling with how my weight shift is going to happen. But there is more than enough to work on for the time being. I love the look of my compact backswing, but can’t really feel how I’m going to generate power. It is close to the feelings I had when I was experimenting with the Stack and Tilt motion. This does change soon. I’ll be discussing how in a blog in the near future, and the movement is a revelation in my game.

For more details why not visit my website at www.jrgolfacademy.co.uk

Getting flexible for my new swing.

One of the areas I needed to work on to help implement my swing changes was my flexibility. Restrictions in hip flexibility can affect the amount of controlled rotation you can make on your back-swing  Tight hamstrings can affect how well you can maintain spine angle and posture on your back-swing. 

The first exercise I decided to use in my workout was the reverse toe touch exercise. This is basically where you squat down holding onto your toes and then straightening your legs whilst keeping hold of your feet.

This exercise has a couple of benefits; firstly it’s a great way to help lengthen your hamstrings. The other main benefit that convinced me to use this exercise is that it helps me to achieve a better squat position.

Reverse Toe Touch

I have always struggled to get the full range of motion when trying to perform a squat. With the squat being such an important exercise for golf and for life it seemed that if I wanted to get the most out of my training then I needed to be to get into a full squat position.

When I first started this exercise I wasn’t able to get my legs to full extension on the way up. It took about 4 weeks of repeating this exercise (30 reps a day) to be able to get to full extension. The second goal I had in this exercise was to be able to let go of my toes at the bottom of the squat and maintain my balance. This was much harder for me, doing the exercise helped me discover that my calf muscles were preventing me from balancing at the bottom of the exercise.

Standing Calf Stretch

Calf flexibility is important for correct knee movement and good balance in your swing. This meant adding another exercise to accelerate the process; I added the simple step calf stretch. Standing with your toes on a step let your heels drop down until you feel a gentle stretch, hold for 30 seconds allowing the muscle to relax throughout the exercise. This feels really good especially after a day walking the links. 

Hopefully you can add these exercise to your daily routine and start getting fitter for golf. I'll be starting a golf fitness class at my local gym soon and these will definitely be included in there.

Check out my website www.jrgolfacademy.co.uk for more info.

Time for a Change

This season has been mixed at best for me, results and scores not what I wanted. My old technique left me open to a straight push and a hook. Plus the distance I was getting was average. Things needed to change, so in October I decided to spend the next few months rebuilding my swing. This series of blogs will discuss the process and my thoughts and results during it. I’m aware it won’t be easy but know that you don’t achieve anything without hard work.

I started my project by locating another Pro who I could work with. I needed someone whose ideas I understood and agreed with and whose current players swung the club in a way that I desired. After conversations with many Pros at tournaments I decided to work with Matt Belsham a coach who works with guys such a Rob Rock and several other European tour guys. People often ask why I don’t work on my swing by myself. Well the problem with that is that I am always my biggest critic, and when looking at my own swing I see all the elements I want to change but tend to flit from change to change. All pros I speak to agree that changing your swing alone doesn't work. You never teach yourself like you do others. You would give a pupil 2 or 3 changes to apply each lesson, when you work on your own you tend to see so many things wrong that you never commit to a single move for long enough. I need to agree on what I'm going to work on and stick at it until it changes. Working with another Pro ensures I commit to the swing change one piece at a time. 

Step one of the change was to get my setup into a new position, I need to steepen my shoulder plane so  had to get more tilted over the ball at address, reducing my knee flex, and looking down at the ball more. Plus had to remove the excessive lumbar curve in my setup. Also wanted to improve knee and hip movement so turned my feet out more and narrowed my stance. As with all changes this feels very odd my posture is more relaxed with my stomach muscles able to work better but feels to me lazy and hunched. Feet feel like I’m a duck and legs feel super straight.

One check on the camera confirms that despite feeling so bad it’s actually correct, this is a very common feeling for anyone changing the swing. I have every confidence that I’m moving in the right direction but know that results may suffer whilst my brain is working hard to turn these moves from conscious to subconscious.

Will update soon on the second phase of my changes. 

What makes a good pupil?

As a coach you are judged on the performance of your pupils. You can give the best advice and give great lessons but if your students don't use the tools you give them correctly then they are destined to fail.

What makes a good student?


Good Practice. 
This is the first and most obvious answer. If students don't practice then how are they going to improve. It takes 10000 good repetitions to take a new movement and make it instinctive. 

• Firstly students need to make time to practice. This means stopping the excuses that accompany doing any activity. People find time to watch their favourite TV programmes, go shopping or other time wasting activities they should be able to find an hour in the day to hit balls or even just practice the motion at home. The more you practice the faster you can implement these changes.
• Practising doesn't make perfect it makes permanent. They key to practice is to work hard at the positions you are taught not just bash balls. 40 balls can be better than 140 if you are deliberate and precise over what you are doing.
• Finally you need to be strong minded enough to take these changes onto the course and get used to feeling these new movements on the course.

Trust

This sometimes takes time to achieve as a coach but a pupil has to trust that what he is working on is correct.   This is where video coaching sometimes can help. But a number of people will have a lesson and then come back to me telling me how they've also been working on some tip they saw in a book or magazine or that they have filmed their own swing and seen something else they think might need work. 

A good pupil will stick with what they have been given to work on and make sure this is improved. They then may ask about other things they have read or seen in the next lesson. What they won't do is get a lesson and then go and practice something completely different.

Patience

Sometimes swing changes give instant benefit, sometimes it takes time. Only with patience can a student be able to stick to changes and takes his swing forward. This also means sometimes results getting worse before getting better. If changing your swing was easy then there would be a lot more low single figure golfers in the world. Truth is its a tough game sometimes and those who push through the tough times can reap the rewards afterwards.

Adaptability 

The willingness to change a movement even if it feels and comfortable and initially gives worse results is possibly the most important factor in creating a great golf swing. When I see someone come back looking exactly the same as the week before I know they have trouble letting go of their old techniques. This is linked to all the above attributes and can take a while to improve.

Conclusion

The best pupils have all the above attributes plus the single minded dogged determinedness of a champion. You can be a good player with just ability but to become a great player you need to drive to leave nothing to chance to be the best player you can be. 

Whatever level of golfer you are if you want to get to the next level in you game you need to be able to look at yourself and honestly believe that you are doing everything possible to achieve you goals. 

Greatness can be achieved not just by what you do but also by what you sacrifice to do it.