Welcome to the Labor Day weekend!  I've got so much to share with you today.   I'll begin with our brand new video; it's finally complete and ready for viewing!  It's going up on our website shortly, but I wanted to make sure you were among the very first to see it.  Take a peek and let me know what you think of it, okay?  Special thanks to Peter Drittel, Phyllis Osterman, and Mia Tangredi for volunteering to make candid appearances during production.  

Congratulations are in order for Physical Therapist, Dr. Tara Gibson!  Earlier this month she went out to Steamboat Springs, Colorado to sit for the extremely rigorous Certified Functional Manual Therapy (CFMT) exam.  I'm proud to report that Tara not only received the coveted credential, but she did so with Honors.  Way to go, Tara!    

It's official!  Massage Therapist, Christina Domond, has joined our team as a full-time Massage Therapist. Christina will be available for evening and weekend massage appointments Tuesday thru Fridays (4pm-8pm) and Saturdays & Sundays (9am-5pm.) To celebrate, I'll be announcing another "subscriber only" massage related gift for you right here next week. 

*Please note that our administrative offices will be CLOSED on Saturday August 31st and Monday September 2nd in observance of Labor Day. 

Cheers the long holiday weekend,   

Did you know that the hips decelerate during the downswing?  Not only do we decelerate our hips in the downswing, but this deceleration is a major power generator.  

One of the most common misconceptions I hear from golfers is that they need to continuously accelerate their hips through impact. This is a fundamental problem for amateurs and professionals alike.  

When we look at the best players in the world, their hips start the downswing with a rapid ACCELERATION followed by a rapid DECELERATION. In fact, several tour players are completely STOPPED at the moment of impact. That's right, STOPPED!

The golf swing is not just about swinging fast and hard during that 1.5 seconds. It's about segmental stabilization and mobility. The speed that is created at the club head is the end result of each of the segments (lower body, torso, arm, club) accelerating and DECELERATING. The speed and power that is generated by each segment is sequentially transferred to the next segment efficiently when the previous segment is STABILIZED and decelerates.

Producing and controlling movement is a lot harder than it seems. Take for example 100m and 200m world record holder Usain Bolt. His average speed during a race is around 23mph, translating into 34 feet per second. That's FAST. Now, think about what it takes to decelerate a human body flying through the air at that speed. The key to decelerating a spring or after a jump is eccentric contraction-or lengthening of a muscle. Concentric contractions occur when muscles shorten to produce movement. Think of someone performing a jump-you would start standing upright, then perform a slight downward movement (the eccentric action), and then explode up as high as possible (concentric action).

Why do we care about this? Because the storage and recovery of the energy between eccentric and concentric muscle action is what causes a movement to be either powerful/explosive, or slow/weak.  

In golf, we want to be both  powerful and explosive! We can achieve this by training the body to become more efficient at accelerating and decelerating quickly. A physical screen allow us to determine  any physical limitations in the body producing power deficits  that would be need to be addressed through proper exercise programming.