I’m particularly proud with the mountain of physical work one of my athletes, Hank Lebioda, has been putting in. Hank is a left-handed workhorse who is an extremely dedicated player. He pushes himself and his golfing ability to the limits. He’s one of those guys who wants to outwork everyone.
Hank is seeing some dividends pay off in the form of clubhead speed after putting in some serious work in the gym in relation to his body and alignment. His clubhead speed has increased by at least five miles an hour, which is just a by-product of the work he has done to get his body out of the tough spot it was in six months ago.
Last year, I performed a routine assessment on Hank and found he had a higher right shoulder and a left pelvis that was sitting higher than the right, stemming from his natural setup position.
Once I’d done the assessment, we implemented some corrective exercises to improve the core and stabilization of one half of the body while the other half of the body moves on top of it. The core exercises were especially effective around the lower abdominal section so that his pelvis can remain in a neutral position into the backswing, through the downswing and the follow through. That way, he’s not having to adjust for the tilt in the pelvis. We also went through glute stability and strength exercises on the right hip as well to correct for the asymmetry.
For professional golfers, we really want the glutes to be firing with a lot of strength and stability. This allows proper loading into the hips in the backswing, extends the hip and pelvis during the downswing pre-impact, and stabilises the body at the finish position in the golf swing. So, supine bridges (double and single leg) focusing on the right side were important for Hank. We worked on increasing the resistance of that exercise with a band around the knees and pushed on to single leg squats.
Once we started to unravel those issues, the body started to become a nice moving unit again day in, day out. Once we started working on those patterns and started maintaining the right fundamentals, we saw physical progress. Hank has had two nice results recently, a top-20 at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and a top-30 at the Mexico Open. With more work, it’s onwards and upwards for Hank.
Cheers, Nic Catterall
About Nic Catterall/Peak Power Golf
Nic Catterall is an Australian high-performance coach, specializing in strength and conditioning, musculoskeletal therapy and sports science, for professional golfers on the PGA Tour in the U.S.A. Nic works with Cam Smith, Luke List, Matt Jones, Dylan Frittelli and Hank Lebioda. Nic created the Peak Power Golf company to educate about the athleticism of golfers and what they are capable of. Peak Power Golf provides online training, athlete mentoring and athlete assessments.