A Toastmasters Companion: Golf Swing Program
Our clinic, 5th Street Spine, is known in Santa Rosa and Sonoma county for the rehabilitation of low back pain. We do this with the restoration and rehydration of the discs of the spine with our non-surgical spinal disc decompression protocols including using the DRX 9000 and Spine Force machines.
In any good low back pain relief program you will find an “active” care program where the spinal muscles are strengthened and the “proprioceptive” system of the central nervous system is retrained. This proprioceptive training strengthens the neurological connections between what the body is sensing in the environment and the way that the body then responds.
We were rehabilitating a few golfers in the final stages of our low back pain protocols, and we noticed one interesting commonality between them. They all became better golfers.
In my last Toastmaster speech, I talked about how and why the spine is the master balance organ. I talked about it’s role in providing equilibrium feedback to the brain in response to body position in relationship to gravity. In our new Golf Swing Sonoma program, we harness the power of spinal feedback, and we take it a step further by applying it in the various stages of a golfer’s swing.
Our golf swing program:
- Enhances flexibility for more speed.
- Develops strength.
- Fine-tunes the finesse of the swing for accuracy.
One of the things that makes our program so unique and so powerful is our thorough physical evaluation program. Since we are spine physicians, we are formally trained in the physical examination to come up with a differential diagnosis of a patient’s condition. Taking that a step further, we evaluate a golfer’s physical condition to come up with a “diagnosis.”
- We collect range of motion information.
- We do a muscle strength evaluation.
- We look at the state of the nervous system, including the balance system.
- Areas of dysfunction are looked at more in depth.
We see where the limitations are, we quantify them in our medical records, and we come up with a specific “prescription” or action plan to provide the best in golf-swing performance.
If a golfer has a pre-existing injury, of course we naturally have the tools of rehabilitation at our disposal. We know how to treat some of the more common golfer’s injuries, and we are continually learning new techniques to prevent some of the common faults in the golfers chain of muscles and joints for better injury prevention.
Give me your thoughts on this program in the comments section below. Compare and contrast it with other programs by biomecaswing and mayo clinic.
Of course, read more about it at www.golfswingsonoma.com
Any effort to treat golf-related injury or improve the golf swing requires a combined approach that addresses both joint mechanics AND muscle flexibility. Joint mechanics are best addressed with corrective chiropractic adjustments to the affected joints. Chiropractors use massage, physical therapy, Active Release or Graston therapy to restore flexibility to tight damaged muscles.