Golf Pilates Enhances PGA Golf Performance
Professional golfers see the advantage of Pilates
Pilates is catching on among professional golfers. Rich Beem did a lot of Pilates leading up to his win at the 2002 PGA Championship win over Tiger Woods. New York Times reports Tiger does it to. Rocco Mediate ditched the weights and does Pilates to preserve his back.
Randy Myers, who has worked with scores of PGA and LPGA players and is now director of fitness at the Sea Island Resort in Georgia helped develop the GolfPilates Program at the PGA Resort in Palm Beach Gardens FL. “Bench-pressing 100 pounds 10 times will develop strength, but not the type that has any correspondence whatsoever to how far you hit a golf ball,” In fact short tight muscles hinder your golf swing.
Sean Cochran, Phil Mickelson’s personal trainer, said the Pilates technique (initiating movement from the core) is increasingly being incorporated into the mat and weight-lifting exercise regimes used by elite players—even by Mr. Mickelson.
Camilo Villegas, the studly young Colombian esteemed by PGA Tour groupies for his tight shirts and britches, is also a known Pilatean and endorses Hole in One Pilates
Dave Phillips, the co-founder of the Titleist Performance Institute in Oceanside, Calif., notes that the best golfers have strong, stable lower bodies and flexible, mobile upper bodies. Their swings progress from the lower body to the trunk, the shoulders and lastly the arms. To duplicate that sequence, amateurs usually need the most work on their glutemous muscles and their core. Lacking strength and flexibility in those areas, they compensate by using their arms, which is a primary cause of slicing. Pilates targets the core and develops functional strength needed to play well.
“People struggle really hard at golf and don’t get better because they don’t address the physical side,” Mr. Phillips said. “Their bodies just can’t do what a good swing requires them to do.”
written by PalmBeach
