The Healthy Golfer: Lower Your Score, Play Injury-Free, Build Fitness, and Improve Your Game from the Ground Up

All golfers want to improve their swing, and as a result, lower their score. But often, despite numerous golf instruction videos, lessons with pros and time on the range, they are still far away from reaching their goals. Maybe that is because golfers are thinking about the process of improvement incorrectly? Maybe achieving a repeatable swing and staying calm under pressure is not all about time on the range or on the course, but the manner in which you care for your body and mind because that is the foundation of a great golf game. The goal of The Healthy Golfer is to provide you with information that will help engage all of your senses on the course so you can enjoy the game as much as possible for your entire life. In fact, this book is intended to be a complement to swing-based golf instruction as it provides a platform to build a solid golf game from the ground up, starting with your feet and concluding with a discussion of brain function. There is a void in golf literature when it comes to discussing how the body and mind impact one's ability to enjoy time on the course while playing to one's maximum potential. You will not find illustrations, photos and diagrams showing you where to place your hands or feet, where to set the club in the backswing, or the ideal swing plane. Instead, The Healthy Golfer takes a whole new look at the sport by focusing on critical aspects of human performance, such as diet, stress, muscle imbalance, the brain, and injury. These are neglected areas of concern for almost all golfers, regardless of age or handicap. Below are some of the key topics in The Healthy Golfer. Why your feet, and footwear choices, are so important. The feet are the foundation for all of your body movements and, obviously, provide the only connection between you and the ground when you are golfing. Practicing barefoot, and wearing minimalist golf footwear, allows your body to function naturally, while improving tempo, and providing amazing benefits in terms of balance and awareness. Developing endurance. Golf is a game of endurance. As an essential foundation of fitness it is a requirement for lower scores. It means building the physical and metabolic body to help accomplish several important tasks: it prevents injury and maintains a balanced mechanical body; it increases fat burning for improved stamina, weight loss and sustained energy; and it promotes virtually all other aspects of health and fitness including optimal muscle function. Eat well and hydrate properly. Specific foods are discussed in this book that can influence your game and energy more than you can imagine. Food can immediately affect your score, especially those consumed before and during the round. Proper hydration, not too little or too much, is also important. In addition, foods play a key role in controlling the body's inflammatory hormones-important to prevent many injuries, chronic disease, and help you recover from a round or a weekend of golf. Manage physical, chemical and mental stress hormones. Imbalance of these hormones can arise from the accumulation of everyday tensions. Stress adversely affects performance, contributes to illness or injuries and affects your biomechanics. You can control stress more than you think. Improving brain function. The brain is the most neglected and important part of playing better golf. It controls your entire physical and mental game, and a healthier brain produces lower scores. A better brain is the result of eating well, managing stress hormones, proper sleep, and adequate stimulation. The Healthy Golfer, as you will see, is not the kind of golf instruction book that you have seen in the past, because my expertise has not been in golf instruction but in helping the human body achieve maximum performance. It will be impossible for you to reach your full potential on the course if you are not healthy in body and mind. -Dr. Philip Maffetone