Wednesday night was the season premiere of the Golf Fitness Academy of the Golf Channel. Coach Michael Boyle was on to show how to develop power.
As you know, I have talked about Coach Boyle's 2 DVD set Power Development for Golf many times. I think it is one of the best products out there for an overall program.
It was a good show for an introduction to Coach Boyle's DVDs, but certainly did not do his system for developing power justice. To be fair, there is no way to get everything in with just 30 minutes and Dave Phillips and Dr. Greg Rose do a great job of moving things along.
First, Coach Boyle went over using the foam roller "to increase the elasticity in your muscles, by rolling out any knots that are causing tightness and inhibiting your ability to increase your range of motion." He went over how rolling the glutes, thoracic spine, shoulders and lats can be beneficial to the swing.
After that, he showed some stretching techniques for stretching the hips that most people will have never seen. I use these stretches with my clients and they love them. Anyone with low back pain will appreciate the show just for that segment.
At this point, he would normally get into some more mobility, core, activation, and dynamic warm up exercises, but again due to time restrictions, they weren't able to show that.
Power development was next. For lower body power, he showed standing jumps, jumps to a box and jumps using the Shuttle MVP (which most likely, you will never have access to). Be careful with the jumps, try to get a fitness professional to at least watch you do a few to make sure technique is sound.
One way to take some stress of landing is to jump to a box or stepper as Coach Boyle demonstrated on the show.
For upper body power, he showed a few different medicine ball throws. Med balls throws are a great way to develop rotational power and help with sequencing. These also get tricky as you need either a wall, a rebounder or a partner. The Dyna-max balls are great for partner throws because they are easier to catch. Coach Boyle used them in the show.
For the Strength Portion, he only did one set of exercises: an upper body push (push up), an upper body pull (The Half-kneeling X-Pulldowns) and a lower body exercise (slide board back lunge). You don't need a slide board to perform the lunges, you can use Valslides. They are much cheaper, portable and work just as well.
Like I said, this is a good introduction to Coach Boyle's methods. If you liked what you saw, check out his 2 DVD set, Power Development for Golfers. If you get it, forward me the receipt (Anthony at GolfFitnessproducts.net) and I will send you a companion worksheet with all the exercises for you to keep track of your progress.
