We’ve talked about using the “torquing” or
twisting spiral patterns to release whole body power that creates
maximum acceleration over the shortest possible distance.
But say you’ve learned how to release the power stored
in your entire body. What about learning how to store more power?
I’m 51 years old. When I was a young man, and just starting
out down the physical training path, I read in a weightlifting
book that the squat is the king of all lifts. I never forgot
that.
In the moving stance work that we practice with the Vertical
and Horizontal Infinities and the Coiling Drills, we’re
training not only the energy storage capacity of moving “low,
slow and continuous” but also probably what’s the
most essential and universal athletic requirement, the dynamically
balanced weight shift.
But here in the Horse Stance Drill we’re focusing on creating
and storing that very energy of impact which we release when
we do the whole body “One Inch Punch” whipping motion.
Several things make this drill superior to the squats I learned
as a young man.
First of all, the stillness. Which means simply holding the
posture and not moving. We focus our attention on that body core
area, and when the stress of the exercise starts to kick in we
don’t try to overcome it by gritting our teeth and tensing
up.
Instead, we cultivate what I call “The Chill Factor.” Which
means that we “chill out” or relax without going
lax, a sort of dynamic restfulness. You might even call it “in
the zone training.” We pick a spot in front of us and keep
our eyes locked on it, half open and not blinking. And then we
just pay attention to our core area, just watch it and chill
out.
You’d be surprised how much longer you can last when you
get good at this.
The Horse Stance Drill is composed of four parts, the stretch
and the three variations. The third variation is the Horse Stance
Drill proper. The other parts are about opening up the hip area.
In the standard squat it’s the quadriceps that are principally
stressed. But in the Horse Stance we get our feet a little wider
than shoulder width and then spread our knees so they’re
over the feet, but take care not to let them go forward past
our toes. And then we get our back straight.
This shifts everything into the body core.
The stress is moved inward, away from the quadriceps and onto
the structural elements, principally onto the psoas muscle which
wraps around the pelvis and attaches to the spine.
The psoas is a very powerful and important muscle and yet it’s
rarely trained. In chair-sitting cultures the psoas becomes brittle
and underused.
Yet the Kinematic Sequence depends heavily upon the correct
functioning of the psoas muscle.
The psoas helps join the upper body and the lower body. If the
upper body and lower body are not joined, where is your Whole
Body Power?
Most people completely miss how important it is to have unified,
whole body sequenced movement. Not just for golf, not just for
any athletic event, but for living in the body period.
When you sit quietly in that Horse Stance you can really start
to juice up the batteries that reside in the body core. You’re
creating and storing energy which is functional because it’s
integrated and synchronized.
Clubhead lag is the real secret of golf. It’s the result
of slow acceleration from the ground up, a dragging effect that
doesn’t get to the hands till the end. Any break in the
sequence from the ground up will destroy your clubhead lag. And
that’s pretty much the end of your swing.
I’m not saying that this training replaces correct mechanical
alignments. It doesn’t. I encourage you to work with qualified
teaching professionals so you can weed out the inefficiencies
in your swing. Self help diagnostics and procedures are hit and
miss, and usually produce only temporary results.
But I’m also saying that lifting weights and doing stretches,
and working on body parts, will not train the unified, synchronized,
and integrated body movement which is the prerequisite of all
athletic endeavors, and certainly of golf.
Without such training, the old saw that “athletes are
born not made” holds true.
Golf with its heavy emphasis on the kinematic sequence generating
clubhead lag can really benefit from this stuff.
Trainer Joe Scuderi
