Date: October 01, 2013
Author: Nick Randall, Golf Australia
THE ISSUE – Hunched posture While not a swing fault in itself, hunched posture causes so many poor movements that it simply has be included! Hunched posture basically consists of a combination of forward head position, forward and inwardly rotated shoulders and a rounded upper back. It is becoming more frequent and starting at much younger ages due to long periods of time with a fixed focus on phones and computer screens. THE FIX – Postural awareness and mobility drills We target the tight muscles that are dragging the posture forward – pecs, biceps, extensors and superfical flexors of the neck, anterior deltoid, abdominals – with a combo of soft tissue therapy, spiky ball release (self massage) and stretching. Once these muscles have been loosened off we look to activate the postural muscles that have “switched off” – low and mid traps, subscapularis, multifidus, lumbar erector spinae, deep neck flexors, tranversus abdominus – using activation drills. What we mean by the muscle “switching off” is that the neural connection between brain and muscle has been under-utilised and control of said muscle is far from ideal. This results in being literally unable to use that muscle for the purpose for which it was intended, in this case holding us in good posture. For the majority of the exercises we prescribe we use the Ramsay Posture Belt, a great bit of kit that allows us to get into good posture and then make small but very rapid muscle activations and reopen that neural pathway back to the brain. Thereby making us more aware of those key postural muscles and more likely to use them during set up and swing.