Opposite Side Training
What does Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson, and Sergio Garcia all have in common?
Yes, they are all golfers on the PGA Tour in the top 100, but they are also ambidextrous. By that I mean, in regards to, Tiger, Jordan, and Sergio they are all left handed but play golf right handed. Phil Mickelson on the other hand is right handed but plays golf left handed.
This isn’t a rarity in golf either: Mike Weir, Johnny Miller, Greg Norman, Curtis Strange, Nick Price, David Graham, Byron Nelson, Bob Charles, Mac O Grady, and Ben Hogan also play(ed) golf on the opposite side.
So what are the benefits of this?
Dr Greg Rose at TPI, and Dr Tom House came up with the Big Break Theory which states that you can only accelerate to the point where the body knows it can safely decelerate. If the joints and tissues involved in accelerating the golf swing can’t protect themselves by slowing down and decelerating, then parts of the body are in effect unstable and therefore you will leak speed and power, or there’s a high chance of developing an injury if deceleration isn’t possible or optimal.
Our left handers who play right handed, or vice versa, have an initial power advantage as they naturally throw balls or play other sports (hockey for example) on the opposite side to which they play golf, which trains the decelerators involved in their golf swing.
Opposite side training is an important part of strength and conditioning for golf not only for power generation, but as the saying goes “you can’t fire a cannon from a canoe” – making sure asymmetries, posture, and stability of the core and joints is fundamental in order to accelerate and generate force, which training the non-dominate side of play does.
This isn’t just a concept for golf but for all rotational sports – baseball, hockey, and tennis included, a mistake is often to overwork the dominant side. If you think how much these athletes train each day swinging in one direction, bringing them into the gym to carry on doing exercises following the same path can lead to pattern overload and injury.
The key is to work in the opposite direction training those decelerators, ironing out any muscular asymmetries creating joint stability & aiding mobility which makes the dominant side swing faster and harder. The same can be said for eccentric training, and running backwards. In the NFL some of the fastest runners are the cornerbacks, as they spend the majority of their time running and tracking backwards. There are many benefits to training the antagonist muscles, or opposite movement pattern to your sport.
The ways I do this for golf are:
1. Swinging for speed with clubs in the opposite direction. In kneeling, and standing positions.
2. Using a variety of chops and, reverse wood chops on the cable machine. Standing and half kneeling positions for strength in related muscle groups and patterns.
3. Velocity Ball Pitching (for ground force reduction) – I use baseball plyo-balls from 3.5oz up to 32oz. With these I practice same side pitching without letting go of the balls, and also opposite side throwing, again from the kneeling position, and also from standing/rocking (i.e Happy Gilmores – an exercise developed by Tom House). The heavier balls are for strength and flexibility, the lighter balls are for arm speed and for making the nerves go faster – all for joint integrity and threshold training.
4. Lastly, as briefly mentioned earlier backward sprinting.
However, before strength, explosive speed, and power are utilised and trained in the gym, the foundation and fundamentals of mobility and stability need to be acquired in the body. Because mobility is the key to power, if you can stretch the muscle you can get more elastic energy, and therefore generate more speed and power. The sequence to bear in mind in order of correction or detection for dysfunction in the golfer or athlete should be: mobility, stability, strength, then power. Trying to put strength or power on immobility or dysfunction often results in injury or exacerbates any dysfunction.
When screening golfers and athletes it becomes apparent that loss of mobility and flexibility is often not due to muscles shortening, but a lack of stability. A common example is with perceived hamstring tightness where the nervous system will use the hamstrings as a braking system, in order to create stability, as seen when attempting to do a standing toe touch. Or, if the client has too much of anterior pelvic tilt meaning that the hamstrings are already in a stretched and lengthened position (long and taught, as opposed to short and tight). In both cases creating core stability, and eliminating muscular asymmetries will correct the flexibility issue and pelvic tilt.
All golfers who want to hit the ball further and faster should seek out a TPI professional in order to screen, detect, and correct any dysfunction or asymmetry, to then be able to delve into the world of speed and power training, especially opposite side exercises!