Why Choose Fitness for Golf & Tennis?
by Ted Bonham, Director of Fitness IFPA, CTPI-1
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Why fitness? Especially golf and or tennis specific fitness? This is the great debate between your mind and your body. By the way, your mind usually wins and your body suffers.
I asked a good friend of mine, who I train, this very question. Jim is a very dedicated individual especially to his golf game and has realized the importance of fitness being part of the “I don’t want to embarrass myself on the golf course”, equation. Jim gave me four reasons for his dedication to fitness.
Jim’s first response was length. Every golfer from junior to senior wants to hit it farther than they already do. As a matter of fact, college coaches, when recruiting, require certain distances a player hits a golf ball, especially females. Next is consistency. In golf specific fitness, I work on stabilization and mobility. These two areas are key to a repetitive golf swing which in turn gives a player consistency with distance and shot patterns. If you know which direction your golf ball is going your course management improves and so does your confidence. The same is true in tennis.
How about endurance? Jim said when he gets to the last six holes in a match he knows he can make up a couple of shots on the field because of his cardio endurance. This is so true and is one of the most over looked pieces of the fitness pie. Does this sound familiar? You are at the end of your round or match and you cannot figure out why your game is heading south when you are still on that north bound train. You are still mentally engaged however your body is fatigued and cannot respond to the tasks your mind is requiring it to do. At the end of the round you wonder why you did what you did; the lack of cardio endurance.
The mental edge is the last reason. Dr. Bob Christina can enlighten you in this area and I’m sure he would agree that a person, who is physically fit or is working toward that goal, has a mental edge on their opponent who may not be. Jim said that when he is finished with his fitness session, he feels healthy and positively motivated. Wealth has different meanings. To me, wealth is a healthy body and a positive mind.
The last thought is knowing you are working at staying in shape and your opponent more than likely is not. Win the debate between mind and body and get into shape.
