Getting Hip to Power

Most professional golfers stay in shape. Tiger Woods works at it. Phil Mickelson works at it. Even the young guns on the tour work at it. There’s a good reason why. In every activity, links exist between physical weaknesses and mechanical flaws. Strengthening specific muscles not only prevents injury, it improves performance. It stands to reason, then, if you strengthen the right areas of your body, you’ll play better and lower your golf handicap.

So what area of the body should you work on to increase power? Believe it or not, it’s your hips. Of all the muscles responsible for generating power, none separates players with exceptional power from those with average power than the hips. That’s what scientists are gleaning from results generated by studies conducted on the golf swing. If you want longer drives, your path is simple: take golf lessons to perfect your swing and work hard to strengthen your hips.

This idea would seem to square with what we know from experience, whether we’re talking about golf or another sport. Take baseball, for example. Ask most hitting coaches on professional teams and they’ll tell you that a player’s power comes from his hips. Even Ted Williams, arguably the greatest hitter of all time, said the same thing. Players get power from their hips. So it makes sense that golfers looking to generate more power should focus their hips.

Interest in Fitness Increasing
Interest on the tour in physical conditioning has increased over the last decade. Previously, golfers spent far more time working on their swings than their bodies. About the only PGA golfer known for re-shaping his body during his playing days was Jack Nicklaus. But that’s all changed. PGA pros now spend time both in the gym working on their bodies and on the practice tee taking golf lessons from their swing coaches.

Even the great swing coaches, like David Ledbetter, are getting hip to fitness. Ledbetter offers his own fitness program for getting in golfing shape. Par Without Pain is an eight-week fitness program based on an analysis of a player’s swing. The program is available at the David Ledbetter Golf Academy near Orlando and at Dick’s Sporting Goods Store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

With this program, the player’s swing is biomechanically measured and a golf-specific musculoskeletal assessment done. Then a customized exercise program is prescribed. Two months later the player returns to be re-tested and might be given a follow-up exercise regimen. To date, the program has shown some significant increases by participants in terms of driving distance. One key goal of the program is increasing hip strength.

Scientific Studies Backup Theory
Scientific studies done by major universities would seem to back up the relationship of hips to power. One study that sifted through data from more than 700 golfers, including 35 PGA pros, yielded some interesting results. As expected, strength and flexibility of the shoulders and torso were important. But when it came to power, the hip abductors proved the key discriminators between those with average power and those with more power.

Hip abductors are the muscles that engage when you move your legs apart. According to the study, stress equal to two or three times the golfer’s body weight is placed on the hips immediately before impact. On average the study found that those who had more power were 30 percent stronger in the hips.

Unfortunately, the balance and trunk stability provided by the hips is often overlooked in golf. Golfers with weak hips are predisposed to commit swing errors that hinder their game and make them prone to injury. Even players with perfect swings can be susceptible from heavy amounts of practice. But the tide is shifting. Players are focusing on more on their hips as sources of power.

Gaining Hip Strength
Taking Ledbetter’s program would be nice. But you don’t have to invest a lot to increase hip strength. If you belong to a health club, it probably has machines designed to strengthen your hip abductors and your hip adductors—those muscles that engage when you close your hips. Two to three sets of these each time you visit your club will help. Combine these exercises with exercises designed to strengthen other areas of your lower body and you’ll build a solid foundation for your swing.

If you don’t belong to a help club or you don’t have the time to visit one, you can still do some simple exercises designed to strengthen and stretch your hip muscles. For example, try sitting on a chair and slowly turning completely from one side to the other while keeping your lower body straight. Another is standing on one foot and slowly moving your elevated foot from side to side in front of you. Do sets of 10 for best results.

Strengthening your hips helps generate more power, improve your swing, and knock down that golf handicap. But why stop there? If you really want to improve your golf game, try getting in better shape with a complete work out program. It will also help extend your life. So why not do it? You’ll not only enjoy your time on the course more, you’ll also enjoy your life more.

Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book “How To Break 80 And Shoot Like The Pros.” He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately. He has a free weekly newsletter with the latest golf tips, golf lessons and golf instruction.