PerformPKB: The Junior Golf Epidemic

This article is part of guest series to the RecruitPKB "Complete Golfer" program by Chris Finn, owner of Par4Success in Cary, North Carolina.  --- As Fall is upon us and school has started, the Girls High School Season has started without much of a break from the Summer grind and the Junior Golfing Boys are trying to catch their breath after a summer filled with heavy travel and play. This is the time of the year that, as a Physical Therapist and Strength Coach working with golfers, I tend to get a long line at my door of injured junior golfers.  Now, that isn’t to say they all just suffered an injury recently, quite the contrary.  The reason they are walking in now is because even though they have been hurting for at least a month, they were afraid to take a break and miss a “big [...]

By |2018-07-20T11:51:23-04:00October 6th, 2016|Physical Performance Articles|0 Comments

PerformPKB: Warm-up For Injury Free Power

This article is part of guest series to the RecruitPKB "Complete Golfer" program by Chris Finn, owner of Par4Success in Cary, North Carolina.  ---  RecruitPKB Perform: Warm-up For Injury Free Power With the season underway I have been getting a lot of questions in the past month about what my juniors can do to increase their distance in the short term while their strength is improving over the long term. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to answer the loaded question with one of the many options as my response is usually, “Well, it depends.” There was a study done recently that looked at the effects of how golfers warmed up and what effect that had on their power output, if any. The study started by having everyone go out and hit golf balls without a warm up and their performance was measured. The next day, the [...]

By |2018-03-21T20:45:20-04:00January 9th, 2016|Physical Performance Articles|0 Comments

PerformPKB: Your Strength Window – Don’t Miss It

This article is part of guest series to the RecruitPKB "Complete Golfer" program by Chris Finn, owner of Par4Success in Cary, North Carolina.  --- RecruitPKB Perform: Your Strength Window - Don’t Miss It You will only swing as fast as you can control. That is our mantra with all of our juniors and all golfers. Just as you would not expect the brakes in a 1998 Toyota Corolla to stop a Ferrari Engine pushing a car to 200 mph, you can’t expect untrained hip and core muscles to control a 100+mph swing. This brings me to our topic of the month, strength and stability training in juniors. There exists a window of opportunity in all developing juniors that occurs between the ages of 1317 that is often called the strength window. This is a time when developmentally the body has an influx in hormones that allow us [...]

By |2018-03-21T20:45:32-04:00January 2nd, 2016|Physical Performance Articles|0 Comments

PerformPKB: Prepare to be Great

This article is part of guest series to the RecruitPKB "Complete Golfer" program by Chris Finn, owner of Par4Success in Cary, North Carolina. --- RecruitPKB Perform: Prepare to be Great Fact #1: 95% of United States junior golfers today will not play competitive golf beyond High School. Fact #2: The international talent in college golf and on the PGA and LPGA Tours has exploded. These two statements may not seem related, but they are so closely intertwined they might as well be one. Experts believe that the rise in international success on the Tours is due to a shift that has taken place at the developmental levels internationally and is lagging here in the United States; Long Term Athletic Development. Many international countries have adopted Long Term Athletic Development (LTAD) programs and the results are astounding when you look at population size compared to worldwide wins (South [...]

By |2018-03-21T20:45:45-04:00December 26th, 2015|Physical Performance Articles|0 Comments

PerformPKB: It’s All in the Hips

This article is part of guest series to the RecruitPKB "Complete Golfer" program by Chris Finn, owner of Par4Success in Cary, North Carolina. --- Has anyone seen Michelle Wie or Rory Mcilroy move their hips in their swing lately? Tough to see unless you slow down the video because they are so fast. As a reference point, the average PGA tour player rotates their hips at most about 500 degrees per second. Rory’s speed is around 740 degrees per second. Power in an efficient golf swing such as with Michelle or Rory starts from the ground and works it way up through your hips, core and out through the hands into the club eventually resulting in faster ball speed. There is also an efficient weight shift from the trail leg to the lead leg through rotational movement and some lateral shift which comes from using the ground [...]

By |2018-03-21T20:46:05-04:00December 19th, 2015|Physical Performance Articles|0 Comments

PerformPKB: Foam Roll = Your Fitness Caddy

This article is part of guest series to the RecruitPKB "Complete Golfer" program by Chris Finn, owner of Par4Success in Cary, North Carolina. --- One thing has struck me this year as I have been watching the different Tour events;  What an integral part of each player’s success their Caddy plays. After every victory in the post round interview it is almost without fail that the player will thank or in some way mention the great team that they have around them, in particular their caddy. When you are playing in tournaments or just practicing multiple days back to back as well as working out, your foam roll essentially serves the same roll from a physical standpoint as a caddy does from a golf standpoint. If you are not foam rolling, you are allowing myofascial adhesions and other soft tissue restrictions establish long term homes in your [...]

By |2018-03-21T20:46:29-04:00December 12th, 2015|Physical Performance Articles|0 Comments

RecruitPKB Perform: Eat and Drink for Less

This article is part of guest series to the RecruitPKB "Complete Golfer" program by Chris Finn, owner of Par4Success in Cary, North Carolina. --- What I would like you to do is create a short mental checklist of what you will do when preparing for your next tournament. If it is anything like most of the juniors I work with it will probably look something like this: Go play a practice round Practice hard the week leading up to the tournament focused on the type of shots I may need or specific clubs I will need to hit more than others based off my practice round. Map out the round including what clubs to hit off what tees, green slopes, etc. If it is away from home, make sure you have balls, all your clubs, outfits for each day, etc. Three things are never mentioned whenever I ask this question, [...]

By |2017-09-13T11:45:59-04:00September 19th, 2015|Physical Performance Articles|0 Comments

RecruitPKB: Fitness and Nutrition

To further enhance the RecruitPKB "Complete Golfer" education that we provide to the PKBGT members we will be featuring articles from Chris Finn of Par4Success. I have spent time working with Chris and the Par4Success staff over the last few years and can attest to their knowledge and expertise on golf fitness and nutrition. These are two areas that are vital to being the complete player, while developing long term habits for being healthy. You can check out Chris's bio below and read his first RecruitPKB article: Eat and Drink for Less Chris is a licensed Physical Therapist, a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, a Titleist Performance Institute Certified Medical Professional and regarded as the premier Golf Fitness/Medical Expert in the Triangle. Chris' principles for physical improvement work to supplement golf instruction allowing clients to achieve results they never have before including distance, pain relief and overall [...]

By |2017-09-13T11:46:00-04:00September 19th, 2015|Physical Performance Articles|0 Comments

RecruitPKB: Junior Golfers and Working Out

As many adults have probably gotten back in the gym as part of their New Year's resolution it's a great time to get the kids interested in working out as well. It is never to early for a junior golfer to learn the basics of good nutrition and exercise. I wish I had learn these habits at an earlier age. I didn't realize the importance of eating healthy and working out until I started my degree in Health and Exercise Science at Furman and we started working out as a golf team. It's very hard to change bad habits, even to this day I still struggle with it. I love doing Crossfit and spin class, and I do my best to eat healthy when I can given my schedule but it's still not easy. Not only will learning these habits at a younger age help the junior [...]

By |2018-03-21T20:46:38-04:00January 12th, 2014|Physical Performance Articles|0 Comments
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