A few weeks ago Tyler wrote about earning the right to rotate! Now it’s time to elaborate and advance some of these exercises! The definition of rotate is to move or cause to move in a circle around an axis or center. In the human body the axis we are rotating around is the spine and the ground. The object doing the rotating is the ribcage. As we put pressure into the ground, energy is transferred up through fascia and muscles to fire and get ribcage turning around the spine. The slings are activated to help propel this rotation. The connection of muscles and fascia that are working are the anterior oblique slings (pictured on the left below) and the posterior oblique slings (pictured on the right below)
As you can see these chains of muscles push and pull at each other to create rotation around the ground and spine. As a right hand golfer in your backswing your anterior oblique sling needs to stretch on the right side and contract on the left side as the posterior oblique sling needs to contract on the right side and stretch on the left side. If you can picture this, the more stretch you get on the anterior oblique sling, the more it can contract on the downswing, powering every shot you take! If trained properly, overtime you get more ground forces working through the body and eliminate any unwanted lateral motion in your golf swing! This leads to the body working more efficiently and overtime leading to more power on the golf course!
In the previous article we went over exercises that trained anti rotation capabilities, creating stability through the core. You need to be proficient in these exercises before moving on to training the slings to rotate. These exercises below will help strength both the stretch and the contractile ability of these chains of muscles.
The first exercise is the Golf Posture Cable Press, your focus is creating ground forces and allowing the weight of the cable to pull you into your rotation, feeling the stretch of the anterior oblique sling all while keeping the hips from rotating. After the stretch powerfully rotate the upper body, pushing the cable with your maximum controlled force. Over time, this will allow you to create more separation in your backswing while also training the body to learn how to powerfully contract on the downswing. Click here to see the exercise in action!
The second exercise is the Split Stance Cable Row. For this exercise you will set up in a split stance with the front leg being the same leg as the hand that is holding the cable. Your focus is again creating ground forces and allowing the cable to pull you into your rotation feeling the stretch of the posterior oblique sling all while keeping your hips from rotating. After the stretch powerfully pull the cable and rotate using the contractile forces of the posterior oblique sling. This again is to train your body how to use the posterior oblique sling properly in your golf swing. Click here to see the exercise in action!
Try these out and increase your strength and ability to rotate in your golf swing! As always the Performance Zone team is always around to assist, so come find us and we will help you with the form and the feeling of both of these exercises!
Pictures courtesy of Golf Digest and A Team Performance and Chiropractic LLC.
