How to Unleash Your True Golf Potential

Craig LePage, CSCS, NASM-CPT

By Craig LePage

Time and time again we see today’s golfers out on the driving range trying to better their game. Whether it’s working their short game or driving the long ball, hours upon hours are spent on trying to master proper technique in order to take strokes off their game. What most golfers are unaware of is that the proper technique they are striving for is often hampered by something call muscle imbalance. Muscle imbalances are postural deficiencies that will cause faulty movement patterns, discomfort or even pain during activities such as a golf swing.

Muscle imbalances can be caused by many other factors besides golf, for example sedentary lifestyle, occupation, and injury just to name a few. Repetitive movements such as a golf swing can cause muscles on one side of the body to tighten while the apposing muscles become weak and lengthened. This will often result in the loss of power and accuracy in a golfers swing. For a golfer to achieve his or her true potential, one must correct these imbalances that are hampering their ability to perform proper technique.

Muscle balance can be achieved through a method of exercise called Corrective Exercise. This type of exercise program focus’ on identifying and correcting both tight (short) muscles and lengthened (weak) muscles through a series of strengthening and flexibility exercises. Achieving muscle balance will result in a strong balanced posture and allow the body to perform at an optimal performance level (increased power and accuracy).

When hiring a fitness professional to improve your golf game ask them if they are experienced on the topic of corrective exercise. A complete evaluation should be performed to identify your areas of need.

Einstein is not ... merely an artist in his moments of leisure and play, as a great statesman may play golf or a great soldier grow orchids. He retains the same attitude in the whole of his work. He traces science to its roots in emotion, which is exactly where art is also rooted.
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939)

For additional information please contact (Craig LePage) craiglepage@yahoo.com

Or log on to www.lakenormanfitness.com

Craig LePage, CSCS, NASM-CPT

Craig is a well-known Fitness Professional in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, where he resides with his wife Nicole. He has been helping people reach their fitness and wellness goals for more than 10 years. His credentials include a Bachelors of Science Degree from the University of Bridgeport Connecticut, CSCS credentials from the NSCA and a Personal Training Certification from the NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine). Craig has written for Charlotte, NC area Newspapers, authored his own fitness & nutrition program and is a frequent guest on a Charlotte area radio show that focus’ on health and wellness. He is currently co-authoring a golf specific exercise book (Play Better, Longer – Golf) and is also working on a book of his own that should be available sometime next year.

Of our major professional sports, golf alone retains the lyrical innocence with which it began centuries ago among Scottish herdsmen slapping the gutta-percha ball around the bonny banks. golf alone, despite huge purses, has remained immune to the violence and vulgarity that have turned other sports into spectacles of sanctioned mayhem. The game, as Andrew Carnegie believed, is an “indispensable adjunct of high civilization.” No other group of professionals is self-ruled by an honor code in which players call penalties on themselves. golf etiquette prevails. Can football etiquette or hockey etiquette be imagined? golf has no Charles Barkley, who has spit at fans. It has no John McEnroe, the obscenity-shouter, nor does it have enforcers, late-hitters, or self-absorbed clods who moan that they aren’t paid enough.
—Colman McCarthy, U. S. journalist. “Gentlemen and Louts,” The Washington Post (June 19, 1993)

Craig LePage CSCS, NASM-CPT

Craig is a well-known Fitness Professional in the Charlotte, North Carolina area and is the Director of Precision Fitness Mooresville. He has been helping people reach their fitness and wellness goals for more than 10 years. His credentials include a Bachelors of Science Degree from the University of Bridgeport Connecticut, CSCS credentials from the NSCA and a Personal Training Certification from the NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine). Craig has written for Charlotte, NC area Newspapers, authored his own fitness & nutrition program and is a frequent guest on a Charlotte area radio show that focus’ on health and wellness. He is currently co-authoring a golf specific exercise book (Play Better, Longer – Golf) and is also working on a book of his own that should be available sometime next year.