Lance Gill, President of Lance Gill Performance, and Kayleigh Franklin, Director of Performance at Lance Gill Performance, share some exercises designed to help you build core strength and stability that will ultimately help you improve your golf swing and increase speed in your game.
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Important: Not all exercises are suitable for everyone and this or any other exercise program may result in injury. Please always consult your physician or medical professional before beginning this or any other exercise program, especially if you have any chronic or recurring condition, and/or if you are pregnant, nursing, or elderly. This exercise program is not recommended if you experience chest pains or have uncontrolled blood pressure or other uncontrolled chronic diseases.
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00:00 – Intro to the core
01:05 – Training the side of your core
02:00 – Leg raises
02:35 – Side plank
04:02 – Side pillar strength
04:30 – Side plank variations
07:42 – Hip hikers
10:22 – Summary and review
Let’s talk about core control oh that famous word the core in the fitness and performance industry it’s a catchall for a lot of different things when we think about core majority of us think about the abdominals right here the other side of the core is usually the glutes all
Right and the big round butt muscle but there are more sections of the core that often get overlooked or mistra and we’re going to talk about the lateral component the side of the core and with specific Focus we’re going to talk about the glute medius the muscle on the side
Of the butt never heard of it and the quadrus lumborum in the in the lateral stabilizers of the spine now many of you are like what is he saying don’t worry I want to talk about those two regions because when used properly they can help you prevent pain in your golf swing be
More repeatable in your golf swing and hit the golf ball fall farther so let’s get into the topics a little deeper so as we talked about there’s two muscle groups or regions that are going to make up the lateral or the side portion of the core the first one is going to be
The glute medius the muscle on the side of the butt this muscle is responsible in part for Abduction of the leg which is raising the leg up and down all right up and down this is a very important move in golf which helps us prevent excess iive lateral motions and it also
Helps produce better coiling in the back swing better uh release of power into the downswing so this is very good for producing power for maintaining our golf posture as well as protecting the lower back so the the movement of hip abduction using that glute medius is very simple kayle’s going to bend her
Bottom leg to 90° and from her shoulder to her hip to her ankles in one straight line and from here she’s just going to Simply raise her leg up and down 6 in all right while doing this what we’re looking for is nothing to be used right
Here in the side of her belly or on the outside of her leg the majority of the motion is being accomplished by this muscle right on the side of her hip called her glute medius majority of our golfers that come to see us are using compensation strategies other than the
Muscle that we’re looking for if we can isolate it into the right Zone you’re going to get better better carryover into your lessons and on the course very good KY the second drill we’re going to talk about is for the lateral stabilizers of the spine very tiny
Muscles inside the spine in between each segment called the qls you’re not going to be tested on that those are spinal stabilizers yet we never train them to stabilize all right so Kay let’s put our feet straight I’m going to show you a side plank all right this is what how we
Test for that so on kayle’s Elbow she is going to raise her her entire body up in a straight line so that her elbow is directly below her shoulder her shoulders are in line right here and what she’s using is those side core muscles to stabilize when those are weak
Show us a little bit of what we see oh what happened your pelvis just sank to the floor or we start to see the pelvis rotate or we start start to see the Torso rotate take a break all in all those are compensations all right I
Would like you to be able to show me about 10 leg raises that you can say all 10 occurred from right here and then on the side plank I’d like to see you be able to hold a 30 second side plank without compensations all right if you
Can’t start there do not fret we will get there you always start where you start that’s the start of your journey all right so we’re going to train those two muscle regions the side of the belly as well as the side of the butt and by
Doing so you’re going to add a whole new dimension to your core let’s start with side pillar strength medical research shows that if you’re going to do one exercise for your core it’s a side plank it has the most carryover to preventing low back pain remember that’s from the
Medical side of things and I find that to be very interesting because when you go into gyms everybody’s training the front side of the core in the back they’re never training the side so let’s start with the B basic common the lowest denominator of a side plank that we can
Do so what kayle’s going to do is get in this sideline position on her elbow and in this version she’s going to keep her knees on the table at all times all right so from knee to ankle is not elevated off the table so she only
Effectively has to lift up this much of her body weight so it decreases the amount of weight that we’re using you’ll notice from her Center of her spine to the center of her knees is one straight line and and what we’re trying to also make sure that her elbow is directly
Under her shoulder sometimes people get it kicked out too far we’re going to try to hold this for upwards of 30 seconds if you can’t go 30 you start where you start and then you progressively work up now we will also see that golf is an asymmetrical sport meaning we play it
One hand all the time in fact some of us have hit millions of golf balls One Direction thereby you may see a side to side discrepancy if you flipped over you might be weaker on one side do not fret we’re just going to try to get them in
Balance with one another so whatever side I demonstrate on you’re going to repeat on the other side with the athletes that you’ve trained what are some common pitfalls or strategies that you are using with them on this exercise so what I see a lot of like you said
Lance is when people get up they have their elbow too far underneath them or too far away for them or when they come up this is too far length forward forward or sometimes even too far back is what I see a lot of so those compensations will start to recruit
Other muscles versus the quadrus that we talked about that side pillar strength and the theory behind this is we’re going to use the small tiny stabilizer muscles for stabilizing versus using them for big motions such as rotation bending so on and so forth okay let’s go
To the next level in the progression if you’re excellent on the knees Kaylee show us where we would go to make this a little bit harder so the next thing you would do is take the top leg from being bent and just simply put it out straight
So you’re now going to raise up and you’re going to have one foot there perfect so she’s by adding an extension of that top leg she’s increased the weight very slightly that her core stability is having to withstand same rules apply correct yes sir what would be the next level
Would be simply taking the bottom leg bringing it out so we’re now raising up onto the elbow and the two feet what would be a next level adding in rotations we could have a band or a cable so you’re up on there we could be adding rows we could be adding flies we
Could be adding big rotational movements but I will say as a point here do not overh hold it once you once you feel you’re fatiguing shut it down be honest with yourself again when the fatigue sets in shut it down there are no records here there are no medals for
Long it’s about what you can do and slowly progressing Beyond it so when we get into training methodologies for the glute medius which again is the muscle on the side the one the one exercise that I really migrate to personally is an exercise called hip hikers I love hip
Hikers because it challenges the glute in multiple different positions and you’re going to get a good burn burn really quick so what kayle’s going to do here is she’s going to get up I have two 2×4 so that’s about 3 and 1/2 in above the ground you can use whatever you want
The edge of a stair whatever you want so the opposite leg is freely swinging as you notice here she’s got a golf club just supporting her the exercise is very simple she’s going to allow the floating leg to raise up and down roughly 3 in Up 3 Ines down the entire time she’s
Keeping her chest level her shoulders level and all you’re seeing is that opposite side right hip going up and down up and down now many people when they actually get into this exercise think we’re actually training the right side Kaye can you point to where you’re
Training it’s the lead leg right now the left leg is actually doing all the work all right move your hand just for one second the muscle on the side of her hip is shortening on this side pulling it down which raises the other side and then when she relaxes it allows it to
Fall down Kaye what are some ways that we can make this a little bit harder because it seems too easy it’s really not too easy we can change the position of the foot so we could turn the foot slightly inward or slightly outward so if we’re in
Here I found that the inward turn of this lead foot is a very good exercise for getting the most amount of burn as well as those fibers inside the glute medius that also help rot us so this lateral glute stability is going to actually promote more rotation in the
Long run and naturally are we supposed to do this on both sides yes sir all right if you don’t need the golf club for support and balance don’t use it it’s always Safety First in our world and then we’ll progress to something more uh Hands Across the chest and I do
Find having the golf club helps give you a reminder to keep your upper body up nice and tall as you’re doing this as well is it is it saf for for someone to use a mirror do this drill in a mirror to watch themselves 100% now for sets
And Reps it’s very simple once this bad boy starts catching on fire you’re going to know when to stop and it’ll cool down 30 seconds to a minute later go back and do another couple sets remember you should be feeling it here not here and not here this exercise is called hip
Hikers so we talked about core stability or strength uh Theory here and the whole premise was not just focusing on the front side or the back side but the side and because of that what it’s going to allow us in the golf swing to do is prevent excessive lateral motions
Sometimes golf professionals refer to those as sways and slides and by doing that you’re going to able to get better backswing pivots or torqus built up which will allow you to accelerate laterally and rotary both of those are going going to be discussed in another section but they’re vital to producing
More speed the other side benefit to the side pillar it’s the number one rated exercise for lower back pain so if you’ve ever suffered lower back pain this is a great exercise to help get your spinal stabilizers in lock step with you and prevent that nasty injury from coming back
2 Comments
Very good info
This is golden. I’ve had both of my hips replaced over past 2 years and definitely will be doing these !!