“Don’t Forget to Breathe*
Most golfers say that they do hold their breath when they are swinging. Pay attention to how you breathe. Holding your breath causes more tension, which inhibits your smooth motion.
Less tension creates faster club head speed. Increased club head speed means more distance.
If you are someone who works out, you know that to lift weights easier, you breathe out for extra energy as you lift the weight, and breathe in as you lower the weight. In any athletic performance involving resistance, breathing out through the hardest part of the effort allows you to perform it easier and better.
Watch tennis players who take a deep breath before they serve, basketball players before shooting a free throw, and baseball pitchers who do the same to relax.
Just as tennis players and weight lifters audibly grunt as they exhale, you can get more distance on your drives by exhaling through your downswing.
If your abdominal area is not filling up with air when you inhale, you are not breathing the most efficient way for your mental, emotional, and physical coordination and health.
Under stress you breathe high in your chest, which means that only half of the capacity of the lungs is being used. The air is only moving out from the top half of the lungs. Fresh oxygen is coming in to fill it all up when you use the entire lungs. The brain is then more fully oxygenated. This requires proper movement of the diaphragm downward.
In natural breathing the abdomen moves outward (not in) when inhaling and moves down toward the spine when exhaling. The chest remains still. When that happens, the air in the abdomen is forced out of the way by coming forward. When you breathe this way you are taking full advantage of your lung capacity. You will have more energy and less fatigue. You will be more focused, your memory will be enhanced, and your muscular tension will be reduced.
When we breathe in we inhale oxygen and we breathe out carbon dioxide, which is a waste product of cellular respiration during the production of energy. The golf course is a wonderful place to energize your body as the trees take in your carbon dioxide waste and give off life-enhancing oxygen for you to inhale.
*Excerpts are from Chapter 10: Deep Breathing; “THE HEART OF GOLF, Access Your Supreme Intelligence for Peak Performances”
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