Even with lessons, instructional videos and store-purchased aids, your golf game will continue the way it has been without consistent and efficient practice. Consistent because practice sessions involve exercises that are meant to develop muscle memory. Efficient because pacing your energy to the kinds of exercises you’ll do is important as well.
Simple as this point may sound, it is one that is easily overlooked. Many golfers think that for as long as they spend enough time on the practice range, their score will improve. Unfortunately, that is not necessarily so. To get a better game, it is important that your practice sessions be as regimented as the way you play the game itself, if not more.
Before you groan about how boring practices are, it might help to think that practices are what build good playing habits when you hit the greens. And if you approach your practice sessions as more than chores and see them as yet another fun aspect to your game of golf, the results can only be a game all the more fun than it already is.
First of all, think of your practice session in three parts consisting of:
- the warm-up,
- the fresh stage
- and the fatigued stage.
In these three stages, you will carry out different sets of exercises that when done in the right stages will make your practices more effective giving you results you can see on the greens as you play.
- Warm-up:
Many are deceived into thinking that golf requires no strenuous physical activity as it only involves swinging and walking. Nothing could be further from the truth. The very nature of swinging causes your muscle groups to work in ways not common to everyday routine.
Your upper torso, arms, as well as your lower back muscles are the groups most worked when playing golf. Which only shows then that it is important to warm up with some stretches. Start from the top of your head and work your way down to your feet. Flexibility and getting your muscles’ full range of motion is your goal. If you are unfamiliar with stretches, you may consult a trainer or the instructor in your club for some tips.
- Fresh Stage
After your warm-up, start working on exercises that build on a skill you haven’t mastered yet, or on parts of your game that’s been causing you higher strokes. This could be anything from putting, chipping or driving.
The idea is that when you work on these problem areas while you’re still fresh and limber from a stretch routine, your body responds more positively to the exercises you’re subjecting it to.
The thing about most people’s idea of golf practice is simply spending time on the driving range without even considering whether or not driving is their waterloo. But if you’re aware that your short game is what’s giving you problems, then you’d do best to hit the greens to work on your putts as soon as you finish warming up. (As an aside, it has been observed that more than 60% of a player’s strokes take place on the green. Unfortunately, this fact is overlooked by many players thus resulting in poor practice habits. )
- Fatigued stage
Once you start feeling winded from the earlier exercises, move on to work on facets of your game that simply need reinforcement. Since your body already knows this motion, this stage in your practice serves as maintenance to your form.
If any correction is necessary, your stressed out body isn’t as pressured to master a difficult form. As in the previous example, only after working on your problematic short game can you then go to the driving range to give positive reinforcement to your drives.
Finally, here are some more observations and suggestions in carrying out your practice.
- To be able to see continuous improvement, a good practice-to-play ratio is about 2: 1, which means giving twice as much time to practice as to what you would spend in playing.
- However , give yourself sufficient time to rest in between exercises and in between stages. While it is a work out, you should not be winded down by the activity. Doing so may actually do more harm than help.
Your game should see improvements as you give your sessions a more defined structure. Be consistent and note the results of your exercises to step up that game one stroke at a time.
I've also developed golf conditioning workouts that you can get instantly at http://freefitnessworkouts.com/golf.
I'll bet you're frustrated that your team's football kicking skills are leaving at least five points on the field every game you coach. Think about it, how often have you been in a fourth and three situation on the opposition's fifteen yard line with no confidence in hitting the field goal?
You go for it instead of trying the kick and don't make it. Instead of a three point lead, your opponent takes over and drives down for a touchdown. If you could improve your team's kicking skills to the point of making just one field goal and two extra points per game, what would those five points do for your football coaching record?
Let's discuss five simple tips for football kicking to help your kicker eliminate bad technique and have more success.
1) Instill in your football kicker the need to invest consistent practice time on developing his kicking skills. This may sound obvious, but too many youth football teams spend so little time working on their kicking game, it's no wonder they can't get the football through the uprights.
2) Here's another obvious one, but worth mentioning. Teach your kicker to kick with the side of the foot ("soccer style") as opposed to the "straight on" method. Your kicker will automatically become more accurate using this style of kicking.
3) The plant foot is critical. Teach your kicker to place his plant foot alongside the ball, not behind it and not ahead of it. As contact is made with the ball, the bottom of the shoe should be about parallel to the field.
4) Pay close attention to the follow-through. Your kicker's head should stay down and remain focused on seeing his foot make contact with the bottom third of the football. Help your kicker avoid a common football kicking mistake by teaching him to keep his head down as long as possible on the follow-through. Make sure the follow-through is aimed straight toward the target.
5) Lastly, many young football kickers have a tendancy to alter their approach mechanics on longer field goal tries. Help them be aware of this and teach them to keep their approach consistent no matter the length of the attempted kick.
By applying these five simple tips to your team's football kicking skills, you can add at least five points to each game's total. Many football coaches seem willing to avoid working on the kicking aspect and leave these points on the field.
If you work on this aspect of your game and invest the time to study other finer points of successful football coaching, you'll quickly and easily begin to overtake those other coaches.
Deer Hunting
(October Lull)
Have you ever wondered, while bowhunting deer in October, what happened to all the deer that you were seeing in early October? After about the first ten days in October the deer that you were seeing have disappeared. Why you ask? There are a few reasons for this, but first I need to tell you that an average deer eats about 8 to 11 pounds of food each day and about 1 ½ to 2 tons of food each year. Most of their food comes from the natural food sources, such as; acorns, leaves, pine needles, wild berries and lichens. This is a key to pinpointing deer movements during the slow times in middle October. 60% of a deer’s diet comes from natural food, which most hunters forget about and never learn how to identify when deer crave these natural foods. In the Northern forests, lichens become a favorite food source in mid to late autumn when the white oak acorns start to fall, which deer prefer over red oak acorns until all the white oak acorns have been eaten. Then the deer move to the red oaks to feast on their acorns.
Probably, most hunters in early October are hunting areas that are hand planted by man and the deer will learn this by hunters leaving tell tale signs like their scent or sightings. Deer will then start feeding nearer their bedding grounds on natural foods. Deer need to feed about every four hours allowing their four stomachs to regurgitate and predigest their food. This time of the year (early to mid-Oct. ) is the best time to take a doe. The reason behind this is, does are not as skittish as later on when they are wise to the hunter, and if you are successful in harvesting one at this time you can check or study the contents of the food in their stomach. Studying their contents will explain what types of food they are eating and where you need to be while bowhunting deer at this time of the year.
Bucks are starting to become more competitive at this time also. I have found that calling with a grunt call or a bleater can is very effective while bowhunting now. Also, you may rattle antlers by doing so lightly. The younger bucks are trying to figure out their dominance and how well they rank in that particular part of their home front. This causes the bigger bucks to be curious and to check out who is in their neck of the woods.
Learning what deer eat when deer seem to disappear in mid-Oct. will definitely help your chances of being successful during your bowhunting deer season. Three things to investigate are; where do they bed, what are they feeding on and where are they moving to and from during daylight hours. Your sightings of deer during the lull of mid-Oct. bowhunting deer season will improve when you learn the invisible menu of the Whitetail’s diet. Enhance your chances!
