Stage 3 – St Omer Golf Club
The Golfbreaks.com Tour Fit For Golf competition winners embarked on the 3rd stage of their programme with the European Tour Performance Institute at St Omer Golf Club last week. The key focus at this stage was to look at their progress so far in terms of both their exercise programme developed with Rob Hilman, Physio Unit Director at European Tour, and the biomechanics of their golf swing with Jean-Jaques Rivet, Sports Biomechanics Consultant to European Tour.
Chris Hughman and Nick Blunt, the competition winners, began their day with a physical assessment with Rob Hilman putting them through their paces and asking lots of questions to gauge their progress since the first stage of the process. Rob had differing challenges with both Nick and Chris, largely due to the fact that Chris had developed an injury since their first meeting. While Nick worked on exercises to develop the strength and flexibility needed for a complete turn during the golf swing, Chris worked on exercises that would allow his injury to recover while continuing to improve upon the progress made so far. At this stage in the process it was particularly interesting to see whether both golfers had made the progress that they had hoped to make at the outset of the competition. It was clear early on that they were both finding exercises they had initially found difficult, much easier to complete.
Following a brief conversation with Rob it was time for Jean-Jaques to put the competition winners through their paces. One thing that has become apparent throughout the process is the simplicity of Jean-Jacques methods, it is easy to over complicate and confuse an amateur golfer with too many ideas to work on. Jean-Jacques likes to focus on one key area at each stage of the development and having worked on balance from set up to the top of the back swing and back to impact at the previous stages of the programme, the 3rd stage saw the guys work on the impact through the
ball and into the follow through and finish. It is perhaps important to note that the guys are now beginning to see real improvements in their ball striking and alignment as a direct result of the work completed so far.
While progress could be easily attributed to improved practice methods, there are tell tale signs that the improvements are a direct result of the work they have done to increase their strength and flexibility throughout the programme. The clearest example came when Chris was hitting a few balls at the end of the session, having hit his final ball he turned to Jean Jacques and sustained conversation for a few seconds, Jean-Jacques then asked Chris to look at his current position in order to understand his progress. Unbeknown to Chris he was still stood in his finish position with nearly all his weight over his left knee, a fantastic development for a man who arrived just a couple of months ago unable to hold such a position for even a second. It is these little tell tale signs that really show the benefits of the process; it continues to surprise both golfers.
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