I'm sure you've experience this before - you've chosen your club, lined up your shot and gone through your preparation ritual and then... aaarrrhhh! What came out at the end of the process definitely wasn't what you thought you'd put in at the start!
This was how a golfer described it to me today on the range. So why does it sometimes go so wrong?
I asked him to explain to me what he was doing as he got into his stance and sorted out the grip etc. And guess what? He was failing to do half the things properly he told me he was doing - and then did many other things he didn't mention and therefore didn't realise he was doing. In other words, what he had in his head was not finding it's way to his body (hence the lost in translation).
So what was he doing?
When he said he was 'relaxing his shoulders' he was actually lifting them slightly. He thought his back was straight when in fact he was bent slightly forward from the middle, and rather than his legs 'being like springs' they were quite fixed and tense.
Now before you think I'm being a bit harsh on this chap I'll say that the same goes for the majority of people whether playing sport or not. We're usually quite unaware of many of the unnecessary actions we bring to any activity. For example, when you get up from a chair do you notice whether you
- Push you lower back in.
- Pull your head back.
- Lift your shoulders.
- Hold your breath or make a noise or
- Push down with your hands on your legs or arms of the chair.
You might want to get someone to watch and point these things out.
If you do, did you know that all of these actions are completely unnecessary? They actually make the movement harder work than it should be.
If you're unaware of what you're doing when you get out of a chair, what about on the course? Anything you might do there that doesn't help? Speaking from experience (both personally and from coaching others)
I've seen many inefficient actions used by players that add nothing to their game, many in fact, reduce their power, accuracy and even heighten the chance of an injury.
You won't know you're doing these actions because they're part of a habit and therefore you're unable to control them. The only way to ensure that what you want to do and, what you actually do, are pretty much the same thing is to get into the moment, quieten your thoughts (and therefore your muscles) and become more sensitive to what you're doing.
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