Diary of PGA Seniors’ Championship by Kitchenaid in St Louis Final practice round and last opportunity to take photographs/video of the players 1.00 pm: attended interviews by Peter Jacobsen and Tom Watson To hear them talk of all their injuries and surgeries OF JOINTS is painful. HOW can they NOT have injury if neither they nor their instructors have any background in human movement science? Would you go to an orthopedic surgeon to have a knee replaced who did not know every possible detail of the knee joint capsule, all of its ligaments and which direction of movement they restrict, where the cartilage is, where the meniscii are, how the femur and tibia lie with relation to one another, not to mention the nerves innervating the area, all the muscles, the arteries and veins that pass by, leave alone the many bursae?
Cases in point: Curtis Strange wears an elbow band. Look at his top-of-backswing below. Look at how his right elbow and right wrist are positioned. He does not have the timing of his youth, and so his elbow cannot drop backwards as well as straighten in time for good impact. He keeps his awkward bend ('V' of the elbow facing the sky) of his elbow almost to impact, then demands of it that it straighten on the ‘frontal plane’ (similar to a ferris-wheel), BUT the elbow is designed to straighten on the sagittal plane. So, the poor elbow is being forced to do something it is not designed to do!
Read the ‘Walking the Talk’ section of this blog for a detailed discussion of everything anyone could possibly wish to know about ‘tennis’ and ‘golf’ elbows, PLUS 10 pages of how they can develop in the golf swing. Dick Mast has sciatic pain. He “knows what he must do, his pro has told him, but he cannot do it because he is in pain”. Does his pro know his left hip is in its closed packed position at and past impact ( 20 degree extension, 50 degree abduction and 40 degree internal rotation), which could lead to his piriformis muscle impinging on his sciatic nerve? Or lead to compression of the nerve in the spinal level itself?
It's ALL ABOUT knowing where the club needs to be for impact, then FORGETTING about the club, and simply positioning all your major joints so that they CANNOT HELP BUT deliver the club correctly, BECAUSE they have been placed in accordance with what they are DESIGNED TO DO!
