Last week, we started to talk about balance and how it’s a part of every phase of the golf swing. It becomes very prevalent in the backswing because of weight transfer, linear and rotational movements that are visually apparent in the backswing.

We also mentioned that balance is a component of both your swing mechanics and your body. Simply put, balance, in relation to the body, is the ability of your body to maintain the proper postural alignment and center of gravity in all phases of the swing. Breaking down balance it is contingent on two physical components in the body -- muscular strength and nervous system efficiency.

This week, we’ll introduce an exercise that can improve your balance in relation to golf swing.

This process of improving balance with your body requires us to increase muscular strength levels and improve the efficiency within the nervous system. In order to do this, we have to utilize a series of exercise progressions. The exercises progressions create overload on your muscular and nervous systems equating to an adaptation by both of those two physical components in your body. The end result is better balance.

The difficult part of balance training is we must create an overload on both the muscular and nervous systems at the same time. In order to do that, we must place the body in what we call an unstable training environment. This will force the muscles to get stronger and create greater efficiency in the nervous system.

Here’s a quick example of how we create an unstable training environment to improve balance capacities

Simply stand on both feet. This process requires balance from the body and you’re in a fairly stable environment with two feet on the floor and it’s a fairly simple act to perform. Now, from this position raise your left foot off the ground, balancing on one foot. This action forces your muscular and nervous systems to work harder to maintain balance on one foot. Now from this position, close your eyes and continue to balance on one foot. This creates an even greater overload on muscular and nervous to maintain body balance. Simply put, that’s called a progression of taking the body from a stable environment to an unstable one. This creates an overload of the muscular and nervous systems to elicit adaptation in your muscles and nerves to create better balance over time.

That is a great example of how we put your body in an unstable environment to improve balance capacity in relation to the golf swing. The exercise we’re talking about this week is one of my favorites and it’s called the single leg cone reach.

Single Leg Cone Reach

1. Begin this exercise by placing a towel three feet in front of you.

2. Place feet together, place your hands on your hips, and eyes looking forward.

3. Lift the right foot off the floor and balance weight on the left foot, taking your right hand off the hip.

4. Attempt to keep the right foot off the floor throughout the entire exercise.

5. Begin the exercise by simultaneously bending the left knee and reaching out towards the towel with the right hand.

6. Continue to reach to a point a couple of inches above the towel on the floor.

7. At this point of the reach, pause for one second and then return to the starting position.

8. Repeat for the suggested number of repetitions and then move to the opposite leg/arm.

Continue to perform 10-15 reps of the single leg cone reach exercise balancing on the left leg and reaching out with the right hand and then perform the same exact sequence balancing on the right leg reaching out with left hand.

Again, this is a great exercise to develop balance capacities within the body to improve the golf swing. It forces the muscular and nervous systems to work harder and will, in time, improve your balance capacities in the golf swing.