THE GOLF FITNESS ASSESSMENT
THE GOLF FITNESS ASSESSMENT
Bob Forman
Director, The Golf Fitness Academy
Certified Golf Fitness Instructor
You wouldn’t go on a cross-country trip without mapping out the routes you want to take beforehand. Contractors wouldn’t build a house without first developing a blueprint. So why would you jump into an exercise program to improve your golf game without knowing exactly what areas you need to work on?
You’d be wasting time and, in some cases, money without that fitness road map. More than likely, you also wouldn’t be achieving those outcomes you had hoped for, despite the time and sweat equity invested.
Without an anatomical blueprint, there’s a very good chance that you may also make worse an existing deficiency, enhancing the imbalance and creating a situation where the potential for injury is increased dramatically.
The golf fitness assessment IS A MUST if you really want to improve your game. The physical snapshot offers an in-depth look at your anatomical make-up. It exposes the 
weaker areas, helps to define the workout progression, and offers both you and the golf fitness instructor a solid direction in which you will need to take your golf fitness program.
Collecting data allows for comparison to specific norms that can determine to what degree the deficiency exists and how much time and attention should be focused on it. It also offers a starting point, a baseline, to which future assessments can be compared and progress judged.
A credible golf fitness assessment should consist of at least 10 to 15 components. Some of these would isolate areas such as:
- posture
- balance
- the ability to disassociate the upper body from the lower (X-factor)
- shoulder rotation
- mid-back range of motion
- glute strength
- core strength
- internal hip rotation
- hip flexor/hamstring/calf flexibility
The information is priceless when developing a time-efficient, targeted exercise program to correct the weaker links. Improvements will be achieved faster and that equates to better performance out on the golf course sooner.
If done on a consistent basis, significant improvements can be seen in as little as 2 months. Along with those physical enhancements come better ball striking, increased distance, fewer aches and pains, and a better golf game.
Another benefit of the golf fitness assessment is that it can rule out physical factors that might be causing a swing flaw. If an individual tests okay for a particular deficiency, but presents with a swing fault that typically correlates to that deficiency, we can equate the fault to poor swing mechanics and/or bad habit vs. a physical cause. This would require work with a teaching professional to reprogram the brain-body pathway so that the inefficient motor skill can be corrected and the neuromuscular pathway reset for better results.
There is no substitute for an up-front golf fitness assessment when it comes to bettering your body to better your golf game. The personalized anatomical blueprint provides valuable insight to your specific needs and helps map out a game plan so that effective outcomes can be obtained in the least amount of time. Be leery of programs that do not offer this component!
