Increase Your Muscles’ Learning Power

Performing your resistance training in a way that challenges your balance as well as your target muscles should improve the link between the central nervous system and the muscles. Which means … you will have greater control over the muscle, you will probably receive more feedback from the muscle and your strength will probably increase as well. This is mainly due to the fact that you have improved the connection between the central nervous system and the muscle. These factors are all useful when it comes down practising any sport, especially a very technical sport like golf.

So what sorts of things could you do to challenge your balance? Simple things really. (This sort of training will only work with free weights, not resistance machines!)

• Try balancing on one leg whilst performing resistance exercises.
• Instead of sitting on a bench to perform an exercise try sitting on a fitball or standing up.
• Lie on a fitball instead of a bench.
• Try closing one eye.
• Try closing both eyes.
• Stand on a bosu ball instead of the floor.
• Try the exercise with one hand at a time.

All of these examples are ways of challenging your balance and stability which will help you to control your golf swing. There are a few things to remember when engaging in this kind of training.

• By decreasing your stability you make the exercise harder so will need to drop the weight down by approximately 30%. If you normally lift 10lbs try 7lbs.
• The benefits are best with this kind of training when you perform a high number of reps. If you need to further decrease the weight then go for it. Aim for 20 reps for 1 – 3 sets.
• The main thing you should focus on here is to use your whole body to maintain perfect posture throughout. You might need to further decrease the weight to manage this (seeing a pattern here?), use your abs and obliques to keep your back long and straight, use your calves to balance etc. You might be surprised at which body part feels it the most!
• Have you spotted the pattern? Yeah the goal with this kind of training is not to lift maximum weight but to challenge the balance.

Try this out next time you are at the gym or having a workout at home. Balance and stability training can be quite challenging and fun, and you will notice the benefits in your golf game. Hopefully you will receive more feedback from your body during your golf swing, you will find it quicker and easier to get your body to learn techniques, and balance issues in your golf swing will be a thing of the past.

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