Training: Golf Stretching for a Better Swing DVD Review

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By Jack Waddell via TheSandTrap.com

Mike Pedersen is an accomplished athlete in peak physical condition. Can the stretching routine he demonstrates help your swing? That will depend on you.

It's no secret that physical conditioning is more important to your game than your equipment. While that doesn't necessarily mean you need to be as cut as Tiger Woods or Camilo Villegas, it's worth considering that even doughboy Phil Mickelson works out.



Strength and flexibility are obviously the keys to the golf swing and Mike Pedersen, a trainer and author specializing in golf, aims to loosen you up in his newest video as he leads you through an extensive stretching routine.



With an ever-growing number of DVDs and websites like the Titleist Performance Institute devoted to golf fitness, Pedersen's offering faces considerable competition. Here's how we think it stacks up…

The Trainer
Mike Pedersen has been a fitness trainer for 24 years and for the last 10 has concentrated on helping golfers. A former nationally ranked college track star and decathlete, he earned his degree in exercise physiology from Oregon State University.



His website, performbettergolf.com, offers up an array of fitness DVDs, a fitness manual, and assorted equipment. He also contributes regularly to golfonline.com and golfillustrated.com.



He's certainly got the credentials and the body to go with them. He's in remarkable shape for someone I'd guess to be in his mid-40s. But, then again, that's his business. Like most ripped fitness professionals, he eschews body hair. I always thought that a little creepy, but I'm old and so what do I know?



The Routine
After the obligatory FBI warning and medical disclaimer (if you're so out of shape you need this DVD, don't use it until you see a doctor and, most of all, please don't sue us), Pedersen gets right into the routine.



According to him, one of his goals was to avoid a lot of extraneous talk and instruction that would get old quickly as you repeatedly watch the video. I think that's a very good strategy, but as I'll discuss later it comes with some drawbacks.



The first 30 minutes or so are devoted to a series of stretching exercises that target all the major muscle groups. No body part seems to go un-stretched. Hamstrings, glutes, lower back, hips, quads, shoulders, and calves all get some attention. Where appropriate, each stretch is performed symmetrically on both sides of the body.



Most of the stretches in the routine I've seen elsewhere in other programs. None of them require any equipment other than perhaps a mat or some sort of block.



Pedersen does a very good job of talking you through the setup for the stretch as he demonstrates and holds it as you follow along. But it wasn't until about 15 minutes into the routine that he tells you to hold each stretch for at least 15 seconds.



During some of the stretches he gives hints on how to perform the exercise if you're not as flexible as he is. I could have used more of that. There is no way this older, out-of-shape body could come close to some of the positions Pedersen can get to. His physique and fitness are, frankly, pretty intimidating.

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