Healthy Swing

Fueling the Body Correctly

"Emotion, mind, and muscle" Wither you are a golfer or football player, your body becomes your diet and you have become your body. Meaning you are what you eat. For example, having a piece of chocolate before exercising will help release the endogenous morphine like proteins; which are located in the brain helping you power yourself to exercise by decreasing your heart action and increasing coronary blood flow. This is Beta. Alcohol on the other hand is a carcinogenic that destroys every living organism for building protein cells. The amino acid nitrogen containing acids that are used by these cells will build protein for your body.

Your diet is the most important thing you can do for your body. Eating correctly and consuming the proper protein drinks throughout your life will greatly enhance your ability to exercise, as well as boost your mental and emotional state of mind. Allowing not just your body to remain healthy, but also increase the brains ability to absorb commands through the proper channels. Like the Somatosensory cortex and the Motor cortex more relative to motion and movement. Keeping these parts of the brain as well as others fueled with the correct body nutrients will greatly enhance a person's state of mind, as well as desires physically and mentally. Thus, allowing less muscle restriction during a workout or sport activity.

Exercising the Body and the Mind

There are hundreds of different exercises you can do to keep the body in a healthy condition. But, it is important to exercise the proper muscles that are used in a golf swing the proper way. The best form of exercising the body in my opinion is swimming. Swimming works just about every positive muscle in your body from the neck to the legs and everything in between.

Focus on a few selective muscles which are very important in a golf swing needed for power, distance, balance and strength. Low impact exercises are what you mainly want to do. You don't want to bulk up and muscle bound, as you would lose your flexibility and range of motion.

Your back and shoulder muscles are very important in your golf swing. Muscles such as the Trapezius, Deltoid, Scapulae and a few more, working though your golf swing, to help increase your impact as well as delivery speed. You will see the illustration below, a model of what I believe shows a few of the muscles that are associated with a golfer's well being, as well as their increase on performance if exercised properly.

Remember your main concern is to stretch and work the muscles that will impact your swing. You do not want to bulk the body or muscle bound it. The object is to produce low impact, to strengthen the proper impact position at delivery.

How does the brain work during a golf swing? Can the brain get in the way of a golf swing? When you stand at address to hit the ball, it is important that you think of nothing else, other than a smooth swing plane to impact. This allows the brain to send neural commands from the motor cortex. This is the part of the brain that drives the movement of your body to the sensory cortex part of the brain that affects the body interrupting touch, motion and signals, thus powering the correct muscles to expedite impact and accuracy.

It is not good to think about more than one thing at address. This will confuse the Motor cortex sending mixed signals to the body's Somatosensory cortex. This is why it is said not to think about missing a shot, or saying to yourself "I am going to put the ball in the water; I can't make it over this water hole!" They say you are talking yourself out of a shot. But what you are really doing is sending a command from the Frontal cortex where your thoughts begin to the Sensory cortex, making you miss the shot. I call this, "stinking thinking", which starts at the back of the brain in the Parietal cortex.

I will talk briefly about what is needed physically and mentally to accomplish a proper swing path. The most important is rhythm and timing. Exercising the mind is as important as going to the practice range to work on your swing. What we have a tendency to do, forget the brain needs to be exercised like a leg or back muscle. If the brain does not get challenged, it goes into a standby mode. Allowing the memorization of the muscles to keep the body active and moving.

You don't need the brain too much to walk, the body knows to place one foot in front of the other. That is a natural instinct. What happens when you run or jog? Your brain comes off standby because you need to pay more attention to what is in front of you, to avoid tripping or maybe avoid running out in front of a car at an intersection.

When the body is moving at a fast pace, the brain is working harder by making the body move at a faster pace. The brain now has to make sure the lungs are taking in enough air, your balance is on target; and when the body says to slow down, the brain acts accordingly slowing down the proper muscles to avoid flying over your own feet. This is done through the Cerebellum.

As you can see, it is very important to keep your mind exercised as well as your body. What helps to exercise the brain is aerobic exercising, light workouts and controlled breathing. By practicing mindfulness, you can choose how to react. You can learn how to breathing deeply improves oxygen flow and signals your brain to cut the stress and feel good.

By exercising the brain you will increase your emotional as well as your physical being, allowing the muscles to react with little restriction. This is what I call P.M.A (positive mental action). P.M.A is when the brain tells the body to lift that barbell, even if it is more weight than you are used to lifting. The brain is in positive mode. The Frontal cortex allows the cerebellum (a part of the brain that projects over the Medulla and is concerned with coordination of muscle action and body balance) to react.

So you can see how mental exercises can affect the body's ability while influenced by proper muscle movement, achieving certain physical challenges; the brain receives it rewards through healthy breathing and positive thoughts. One way to accomplish this task is to be firm with your thoughts. How do you do that? Simple, make sure your Intention equals your Attention. For example, if your intention is to just drop the ball on the green. Then your attention should be focused on speed, impact and distance to reach the green. If your intention is to drop the ball with in club distance of the hole, then you should be focusing your attention on your delivery and movements of your body to give accuracy. Remember, Attention must equal Intention.

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