Golf Injury? A Case of Bad Luck or Bad Form?
A golf injury is usually considered to be a case of bad luck and is probably the most frustrating experience for any golfer. Only one thing is worse, and that's a recurring condition. But how much is it down to bad luck? Is your rehabilition exercise program causing more damage? Could you be the root cause of your problem?
If you suffer a golf-related injury when environmental conditions and previous injuries cannot be blamed, the cause is most likely poor co-ordination. You're probably prepared to accept this as just one of the hazards of playing golf. A sports injury is seen as just bad luck or a sort of initiation into sport, worse still, some may even regard it as a trophy or a sign of commitment.
Why do non-contact sports injuries happen? What condition allows a muscle to pull or a ligament to tear? Conventional advice on injury prevention in relation to movement includes: -
To follow this advice can be harder than it first appears. Few of us are fully aware of what really constitutes good technique from a movement perspective because our learnt pattern is a habit. These patterns may become suspect due to poor conditioning, yet we remain unaware of the problem until an injury occurs. Up until this point we may have been satisfied with our technique if we have had no indication to the contrary. Following an injury new movement patterns are established to compensate for loss of function thus degrading the quality of movement further. |
Once this stage is reached avoiding poor technique is impossible without first improving how we move by eradicating the suspect patterns.
Trying to correct a technique will more likely increase effort as concentrating on the task translates into muscle tension. Imposing a style on top of a poorly aligned structure does not improve the structure.
To maintain good body alignment a golfer first needs to have poise to allow good body alignment! If we have poor movement patterns, and therefore questionable posture, we'll not know what good body alignment feels like and therefore be incapable of maintaining it.
If the quality of our movement is poor, attempts to achieve correct breathing are futile. If the structure is unbalanced, natural functioning cannot be resumed until the structure is balanced.
Conventional advice for sports injury prevention falls far short of addressing the real issue. Avoidance of injury requires a well-balanced, poised and flexible body capable of free movement in any direction with minimal effort. To achieve this state requires integration of the voluntary and reflex elements of movement, something
we cannot achieve by trying harder.
Many struggle to regain form after a serious sports injury and lengthy rehab period, some take months or fail completely. Getting back into form will be slow if we do not know exactly what it is that needs to be recovered. Natural talent for a sport comes from the right sort of conditioning. Good quality movement executed in the sporting activity sets up appropriate learnt movement patterns that reside at a subconscious level.
Trying to correct a technique will more likely increase effort as concentrating on the task translates into muscle tension. Imposing a style on top of a poorly aligned structure does not improve the structure.
To maintain good body alignment a golfer first needs to have poise to allow good body alignment! If we have poor movement patterns, and therefore questionable posture, we'll not know what good body alignment feels like and therefore be incapable of maintaining it.
If the quality of our movement is poor, attempts to achieve correct breathing are futile. If the structure is unbalanced, natural functioning cannot be resumed until the structure is balanced.
Conventional advice for sports injury prevention falls far short of addressing the real issue. Avoidance of injury requires a well-balanced, poised and flexible body capable of free movement in any direction with minimal effort. To achieve this state requires integration of the voluntary and reflex elements of movement, something
we cannot achieve by trying harder.
Many struggle to regain form after a serious sports injury and lengthy rehab period, some take months or fail completely. Getting back into form will be slow if we do not know exactly what it is that needs to be recovered. Natural talent for a sport comes from the right sort of conditioning. Good quality movement executed in the sporting activity sets up appropriate learnt movement patterns that reside at a subconscious level.
These ‘skill patterns’ can be replaced by new poor quality actions following sports injury and possibly may never be regained. My book, Golf Sense, contains many practical exercises and techniques to help golfers retain or relearn poise. These will help you rehabilitate from an injury, prevent further injury and increase both control and power as your coordination improves.
For more information please click here. |
