Gearing up for that charity golf tourney? If so, thank your lucky stars that Function-N-Fitness trainer Shannon Curvey took up golf last year. An extraordinarily gifted medical exercise therapist and licensed massage therapist, she is now also a certified Golf Fitness Specialist and Corrective Exercise Specialist through the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM).
Shannon founded Function-N-Fitness in Leesburg to bridge the gap between health care and fitness for all active adults, but now has a special place in her heart for golfers, and wants to make sure their love of the sport doesn’t take a toll in pain that kills their pleasure. Put plainly, if you’re a golfer and don’t think you’d benefit from some golf fitness training – you’re probably spending all your time in the cart or the clubhouse.
More diplomatically, Shannon says, “Golf is like any other sport, where you have to prepare your body for it. Golf has its own very unique movements and if you're not properly preparing your body to make those movements, you're going to injure yourself.”
To help with the process, she developed a six-week fitness program for golfers of all levels. Each session is an hour long and conducted one-on-one because every golfer’s issues are different. Overall, the program helps golfers improve flexibility and range of motion and help them recover from injuries or weakness. As a way of demonstrating the immeasurable value of conditioning for the sport, we enlisted her own golf teacher Robyn James (robyn@roundswithrobyn.com), an LPGA Class A Professional who leads women’s golf clinics with Raspberry Golf Academy (see http://thebirdiebeliefproject.com), to demonstrate some conditioning basics.
It begins with rotation, says Shannon. “During the course of your day, when do you rotate? How often do you rotate your trunk? We live in a very linear, one-directional world right now, so rotation is not something we do regularly, yet, we want to go on a golf course and play 18 holes where we’re rotating 100 times. It’s not surprising if afterwards your back hurts.” Core stabilization is equally crucial to guard against excessive movement.
She hastens to add that while she doesn’t teach technique, she understands movement. “Being able to swing as far as you can in one direction, in order to generate force to swing in the other direction, is very important to drive a golf ball. If you’re not practicing rotational movements on a regular basis, that swinging movement is not going to go very well.”
Some characteristic exercises in her program, demonstrated in the accompanying photos, are designed to activate knees, hips, back, shoulders, neck, the oblique and abdominal muscles. Here again, every session starts with a golf movement assessment. “From that assessment, I see where you move well, and where your movement needs work. And from there, we can determine what areas need improvement, from strength to stability to endurance and everything in between.”
Afterwards, just in case you haven’t properly prepared your swing, you can always opt for the after-tourney massage!
Visit https://www.function-n-fitness.com/ to book training sessions or a free consultation and download Shannon's free e-Book on fitness psychology. 604 S. King St., #006, Leesburg 20175, 571-207-7887, shannon@function-n-fitness.com.