The golf industry is notorious for creating buzz and hype around a singular element of training.

Unfortunately, by the time innocent and uninformed golfers understand the connection between multiple training elements and better golfing, they have already invested their precious time and hard-earned money in a big hype trap.

If anyone hiding under a dark cloak wants to trade your cow for some magic beans, run for the hills! No singular magical bean, pill, potion, or technique, for that matter, will instantly turn you into Jon Rahm, because there is no singular technique that is the be-all and end-all of techniques.

Mobility is often built up as THE most important element to improve golf power, distance, control, and consistency. But timing matters, as does strength, and don’t even get us started on flexibility, muscle balance, and control of your emotions on the green! They each play a part in transforming good golfers into great golfers. Throw any of these elements away and you’ll be an average golfer, at best.

Let’s take an integrated approach to golf training and see why no one should play favorites when it comes to different training elements.

The Right Building Blocks

Remember the fairy-tale of the Three Little Pigs? Two little pigs were lazy and built their respective houses out of straw and sticks. The third little pig built his house with brick, complete with a fireplace, chimney, insulation, piping, furniture, and an air fryer for the tastiest wolf-burgers a pig can make. 

OK, we’re exaggerating; maybe he didn’t have an air fryer, but he was smart enough to build a house that would stand up against the Big Bad Wolf.

The same goes for training techniques in golf: build with only one weak element, and you’ll find your house collapsing. Your body, like a house, needs a good mix of everything that makes a house strong from the inside out.

Remember the Periodic Table from high-school science?

Think of each training element as an individual element on the Periodic Table.

At Integrity Golf Performance, we call these elements the F8s: 

1. flexibility
2. stability
3. mobility
4. coordination
5. strength
6. speed
7. power
8. energy-delivery system

The point we are making is that value doesn’t come from implementing one individual training element (like our example with mobility), but from the combined reaction of multiple elements.

Unlike the elements on the Periodic Table, each one of the F8s listed above can be broken down into more elements. For example, take the energy delivery system. Within it, you will find hydration, nutrition, supplementation, sleep, social time, mentality, hormones, attitudes, relationships, spirituality, dating, ambition, and adversity—all in one system.

A golfer’s emphasis should be integrating multiple elements into his training regime, rather than selecting one specific element—making a molecule, if you will. Adaptation is the molecular reaction you get when you combine the right elements.

What are we saying?

Combine the right building blocks, and you’ll get the result you want. Use the wrong ones . . . well, look at the foolish pigs.

How Mobility Works

OK, let’s address our main element, mobility.

We know it sounded like we were talking smack about mobility, but we weren’t. Mobility is good, and every golfer should have it.

But “good” is the enemy of “best,” and mobility on its own is only good, at best.

Our bodies are not perfectly engineered Iron Man suits capable of moving perfectly on a track system. Although it would be nice to have Tony Stark on your golf team, the reality is, we do our best with what our bodies have got. We are humans with muscles, limitations, and habits, and no two movements produce the same result. That’s why mobility is important, and muscle length is the foundation of mobility.

Muscles need to be a specific length to activate at the right time, generate a specific amount of force, and allow a specific range of joint motion. This allows the joints to sit in optimal alignment, and aligned joints are stable joints.

Stable joints allow multidirectional motion to occur at high speeds, like the elliptical motion of the golf swing.

But first things first. To improve your mobility, your muscle length and stability must be developed first. Then mobility can be integrated, which will improve distance, control, and consistency in your golf swing.

Not only will golfers develop the power needed to increase clubhead speed, but they will also eliminate discomfort and pain during and after the round. How can anyone say no to that?

Let’s revisit the story about the three little pigs.

When the wise pig built his house, he planned like a pro. He had an itemized checklist detailing all the different components he needed to ensure his house would last. Any wise pig knows that a house needs both external and core strength.

Imagine if he had listened to the two foolish pigs and built with just one element? No pig would have lived to tell the tale.

If you build your golfing technique with one element, no one will hear about you, either. Sooner or later, your body will give in to fatigue, become injured from bad technique, or you’ll start playing a sloppy game.

Not the Be-All and End-All

Mobility is not the be-all and end-all in golf. Neither are flexibility, coordination, or power. The eight blocks we listed are inseparable—a well-oiled team—and they work better together than alone.

Consider Integrity Golf Performance’s F8s again, and look at yourself with open eyes. Where do you need to improve? 

1. Flexibility
2. Stability
3. Mobility
4. Coordination
5. Strength
6. Speed
7. Power
8. Energy-delivery system

If you don’t know where to begin, no judgment. It might be a bit disillusioning and challenging to shift your mentality from focusing solely on one element to being introduced to the rest.

Contact us and schedule an assessment with one of our kinesiologists, and you’ll see how your game will skyrocket to heights you never knew it could reach.