LONG GOLF: Long's Putting Stroke

by Steve Long

Long Golf

Note: All Long Golf web pages are living documents--they are continually updated. Unlike a finished book, they won't go out of date.

Contents

1. Strength training for longer hitting

2. Sleep

3. Diet

4. Time of day to perform a sport better.

1. Strength training for longer hitting

I have used weight training type machines to regain some of my strength which was lost to old age. You get stronger and longer if you exercise the golf muscles that animate your wrists, arms, shoulders during the downswing. I even made a machine to do this at home.

The problem with strength training machines is that you have to go to them, and they don't exactly simulate the moves or resistance you need for the golf swing.

But you don't need a machine to strengthen your golf muscles. I prefer doing exercises without a machine while sitting at my desk. How convenient is that? At most you will need a golf club for the wrist work.

The muscles that animate your hands, arms, shoulders, and torso on the downswing are the weak links in the array of muscles that make the downswing go. If you only develop those muscles you will most likely already have enough strength in your legs and feet to handle the extra forces.

To do arm power exercise, you just sit in a chair and press your hands against your leg while turning your torso back and forth to the left and right and bend and straighten the trailing elbow. Also there is an optional turning of the hands. It might take you ten minutes to learn it.

The exercise has two positions that you move back and forth between, as shown in the two photos below.

Learn the two positions separately and then gradually learn how to move between them smoothly.

Photo 1. Mostly top position

For the arms, shoulders, and hands, this simulates the downswing at or near the top of the swing. The right elbow is bent, the shoulders are turned to the left and the hands are turned vertical. The edge of the palm and little finger of each hand press against the leg. The further out on your fingers the contact with the leg is made, the more force there will be on the muscles that move the wrists.

Photo 2. Impact Position

The right elbow is nearly straight, the shoulders are turned to the right, and the hands are flat against the leg, although overlapping. The first two fingers of the right hand lay on top of the left hand.

I am now trying out putting the left hand against the left leg and the right hand against the right leg instead of what you see in the pictures. One hand on each leg more closely simulates a real swing as far as leg power is concerned.

You don't need to do the hand movement if you don't want to. Separate exercises for the wrists will take do much more than this exercise does for the wrist power.

Go slowly back and forth between these two positions until the muscles are well worked.

Use lighter force on the first few repetitions when starting out cold.

Use enough force to get the muscles tired after one set, which is 10 to 12 repetitions. Do this three times in a day, and then wait a day to see if your muscles get a bit sore. If they don't, do the exercise again with greater force or more sets, or every day instead of every other day.

The reason for going in both directions between the two positions is to keep tension on the muscles while they lengthen and while they shorten. This is a key principle of dynamic resistance training (weight training).

I am experimenting now with separate exercises for the forearm muscles that power the wrist movements during the downswing. When I have time I will add some pictures or video here but I can describe it now. You hold a club with one hand on the grip as you would during a swing, while the other hand holds the shaft about 1/3 of the way to the head. The hand on the grip is going to get the exercise. The hand on the shaft moves the club back and forth in one plane against the resistance provided by the hand on the shaft. The gripping wrist should move as it does during a part of the downswing. The direction of the forces of each hand change during a real downswing, but in this exercise you work in one plane at a time, so that a force is directed in a single direction during any given set. This keeps the tension on one set of muscles. Look at your real swing positions for direction until I get some pictures posted. Just remember to keep the force on in both directions, for muscle contraction and muscle lengthening.

There are two ways to allow extra blood to flow into the muscles during the set. You can relax after each repetition, or even each half repetition, which allows the blood in the muscles to be replenished, or you can keep the force on throughout the set, which keeps the blood flow reduced and presumably causes exhaustion earlier. I recently developed this exercise so I don't yet know which way is better or builds strength faster, but I'm trying to find out.

Risk Factors

Use this exercise at your own risk.

The risk from this exercise, if there is any, comes most likely from club swinging and/or ball hitting after you gain strength, rather than from the exercise itself. I don't know yet if there is increased risk of injury just from having worked out.

There are certain behaviors that are already risky, and they can become riskier during a strengthening program. Sometimes the tendons do not strengthen as fast as the muscles, increasing the chances of over-stress and injury to a tendon.

Be careful about jamming the clubhead into the ground or into a mat in such a way that the clubhead decelerates quickly. Even swinging too hard or with too high of a swingweight can overstress certain tendons. The injury may develop gradually. Numerous smaller stresses may accumulate in their effect. Hitting hundreds of balls can do it.

So use your new strength with care. If something starts to hurt, swing so it doesn't hurt or stop hitting until the healing is complete.

The most likely injury is to a tendon. Tendons can be injured by high numbers of repetitions at less than full strength. Old age can weaken tendons. Tendon injuries can take many weeks or months to heal.

Tendons are usually the culprit in golfer's elbow, although it is possible for a golfer to damage elbow ligaments as well, by bending the elbow joint backward in the impact zone. The normal Golfer's elbow is a tendon problem on the inside of the trailing elbow. The tendons in golfer's elbow tighten the four fingers on the grip of the trailing hand and they also transmit the wrist bending forces. According to Wikipedia and my study of my arm, all these tendons come together in a bundle at the elbow bone where golfer's elbow occurs. If this is true, then it seems that squeezing the golf grip at the same time as the wrist is tensioned increases the chances of injury. You cannot swing without doing that, but you can grip more lightly with the fingers in the trailing hand and so reduce the forces. This light grip could hurt your power a little but not if the first three fingers grip lightly while the pinky grips as hard as it needs to.

Gripping the club down the shaft can also reduce the stress on the tendons in golfers elbow.

If you gain muscle strength slowly enough, then the tendons have a better chance of growing as fast as muscles.

If something starts to hurt, stop swinging or working out until it doesn't hurt.

Be extra careful about swinging hard if you have taken anti-inflammatory medication or alcohol, because damage may occur or exist without you knowing about it, or the severity of it may be underestimated.

Actual pain means something is wrong, both during the exercise and anytime later. If there is any soreness during or after the exercise, it should definitely be in the muscles, not the tendons, ligaments, or joints, and it should go away while you work out.

Gradually build up the severity of your workouts. If you have soreness, don't work out again until the soreness is gone. If you don't get soreness later, but you do get strength gains, then don't increase the severity of the workout.

You can measure your strength gains with a clubhead speed measuring device or just watch the length of you golf shots.

Alcohol drinking may reduce your testosterone levels and do other bad things with the possible result of slowing or preventing strength gains from exercise and healing of injuries.

Good health and long golf.

2. Sleep

Get plenty of it! Your mind may tell you that you are not tired enough to sleep, but you still need those hours in bed. I prefer to stay in bed until my body gets "itchy" to get up and move. This usually happens after eight hours in the sack. Sleep deprivation will reduce your sport performance, mental performance, and health.

3. Diet

The less you eat the longer you live and the healthier you will be, if you eat nutritionally well. So don't eat so much. Definitely ingest Omega-3, preferably the EPA and DHA type, rather than the ALA type. You do this by eating grass fed animal products and/or taking EPA and DHA supplements, such as fish oil or algae derived. Ingest less of Omega-6 as found in grain fed meat and most plant oils (not flaxseed oil, which is good, but like all plants, it is ALA and might not help you if are still eating lots of Omega6).

Get Vitamin D (tablets are convenient) for the low-sun months or consider getting enough sun exposure.

Read about nutrition.

Alcohol drinking may reduce your testosterone levels and do other bad things. It could reduce or eliminate your strength gains, or even reduce your muscle mass, slow the healing of injuries, and perhaps cause a deterioration in physical coordination. For me, alcohol was a substitute for eating, so I think I lost some muscle mass to a kind of starvation.

4. Time of day to perform a sport better.

Afternoon and evening, according to statisticians. Safer and better.