Good afternoon for what has become an unofficial holiday here in St. Louis. Tonight, the Cardinals open their baseball playoffs in a play-in game against the Dodgers. We win, we’re in. We lose, we’re out.
Around town today, you’ll see tons of men, women, kids and dogs wearing their Cardinal gear. To get in the playoff spirit, I love to wear my 1982 Tommy Herr, baby-blue Cards jersey.
If you haven’t been following baseball this year, the Cards ripped off a 17-game winning streak to get back in the race, and ultimately win a Wild Card berth. It was very Moneyball-esque.
So, why did they struggle so much for the majority of the season? One word:
Injuries.
And golf is very similar to baseball. It’s a lot of start-stop. We take a swing (which is inherently a pretty violent movement), then we may not take another for 10-15 minutes sometimes.
There are a lot of opportunities for muscles to cool and injuries to happen.
Which leads us to the question: what is the best way to avoid the frustration of pulls, strains, tweaks, and general jacked-upped-ness and stay injury-free?
This is not going to be any surprise, but the best, most effective tool we all have for injury-prevention is strength training.
Here’s why…
Strength training improves the strength of our muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones…
Stronger muscles and tendons help hold our bodies in proper alignment and protect the bones and joints while under impact.
Oh yeah, if we can focus our strength training on our “golf areas”, we’re doubling-down on our injury-prevention because we’re using our time wisely to reduce our risk in the high-exposure areas on our golf bodies.
So, my unsolicited advice today…get stronger and you’ll stay on the course.
Your #1 Fan,
Jeff Pelizzaro
PS – If you’re ready to bullet-proof your body from injury, there are two places you can start:
First, if it’s been awhile since you’ve done any strength training, check out Golf Body Blueprint – Activate to safely get you back into it.
Second, if you’ve been consistently training for the past few months or longer and consider yourself an intermediate or advanced gym guy, then Golf Body Blueprint is more up your alley.