CRUSHING drives traveling over 400 yards! LASER-LIKE iron shots from 200+ yards away (longer than the length of 2 football fields) to within inches of the flagstick! High soft flop shots over bunkers that roll into the hole like putts! How is this possible. Golfers like Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Gary Woodland look more like NFL linebackers than that of a golfer.
The highlights could go on and on!
So after being a multi-sport athlete myself, and learning much through my certifications at the Titleist Performance Institute, here are 3 critically important skills your child will learn through being a multi-sports athlete:
BALANCE
- In just about every sport you are taught to feel and use the ground. Sports like ice hockey with its quick turns on a skate blade, soccer with its stops & starts are priceless. One cannot play these sports without great awareness of the ground forces and how your feet and body have to move to stay on your feet, and not tumble to the ground. Check out this cool video of PGA Tour Winner Rocco Mediate on how he practices his golf swing with NO SHOES! This may be difficult at first but I can assure you that this would be a GREAT drill for all to try out!
SPEED & POWER
- Pretty self-explanatory how important speed and power are in all sports. Recently I was lucky enough to sit in on a presentation by Florida Gators head golf coach, J.C. Deacon who said that he doesn’t pay to much attention to high school golfers that have less than 170mph ball speed. He wants players that can POUND the ball! Why you ask? Well, the answer is simple – the further you can hit the ball the less club you will have into the green and the closer you will probably hit the ball to the hole, and make more birdies! Do note that his team currently ranks inside the TOP 5 in college golf so pretty obvious he knows what he is doing when it comes to recruiting top-notch players! Sports like tennis, baseball, squash are tremendous sports that will help your future golfer develop a powerful golf swing.
SEQUENCE & RHYTHM
- The next time you watch a basketball game on TV, keep your eye on the shooter instead of the ball. Watch one of these athletes throw up a 3 pointer and witness what perfect sequence & Rhythm look like. These guys make it look absolutely effortless! The shooter is initiating his or her power from the ground and from there it is literally a chain of events through the body that takes place, almost like the effortless power of a wave rolling in the ocean. The scientific term for this is the Kinematic Sequence, which as TPI explains for a golfer in that “Each body segment; pelvis, ribcage, and arm sequentially accelerates and decelerates before impact, starting from the inner large body segments; the pelvis and ribcage, then progressing to the smaller outer segments; the arms, hands and club. Each successive segment peaks faster and later than the previous segment. This action causes the club to accelerate rapidly and reach its highest speed at impact.” This movement is very similar in Stephen Curry throwing up a jump shot (check out his sequence below). This kinematic sequence gives the athlete the effortlessness we see in top athletes, and it is learned perfectly through a sport like basketball!
Well hopefully after reading through my article I was able to convince you that it is really important to get your child into multiple different types of sports when they are young. If other sports isn’t an option look for sports programs or athletic development programs for your kids. At KOHR Academy athletic training is a key part of our year-long curriculum. Our Athletic Performance Coach, Andrew Wester, tests our Academy players progress throughout the year to make sure they are progressing in their athletic development. It’s pretty awesome to see the progress for these young athletes in development!
Feel free to check out the links below. Those are two really helpful websites that I am sure you will find to be great resources!
by Coach Spencer Sotell
Andrew Wester, KOHR’s Athletic Performance Coach, will be starting