As La Reserva Club is synonymous with golf in Sotogrande, we were delighted to welcome former professional golfer and LPGA player Belén Mozo to show us how to improve our swing. Belen is originally from Cadiz province, close to Sotogrande, and a regular here at La Reserva Golf and came to us live from Colombia.
She joined our LRC Private Workshop series to offer our members and followers five days of golf training focusing on fitness for golf. These daily workshops focussed on different aspects to improve your swing and guide players through a sequence of daily exercises for the best possible results during lockdown.
These tips will take you through exercises for the thoracic spine, which helps with recoil, then moves through to hip mobility, pelvic rotation and disassociation from lower to upper body, then core strength, leg strength and finally golf tips on putting and swing.
You need a mat or a towel and to wear comfortable clothes which allows good range of movement and sports shoes to give the right support for the feet. Have your golf club at hand and also a few weights to increase the effectiveness of the exercises, a chair and fitness band are also used for some of the sessions. We recommend grabbing a bottle of water as well to stay hydrated.
Day 1 – Mobility exercises for the thoracic spine
Belen started with exercises to improve mobility and strength in the area of the hip flexors and hamstrings, two areas which can easily become tight thanks to the lockdown and the increase in sitting that we’ve all been doing. She recommended doing this every day, especially when you’re spending a lot of time sitting and offered a chair-based variation which works well in an office setting.
Once these areas were warmed-up she moved on to the thoracic spine, a vital area for rotation and recoil. To create power you need a h2 solid base, a still lower body, allowing rotation with little movement in the lower body to create the force. This is why she is starting with the thoracic spine, and running through a range to exercises to train it to move and rotate as much as possible.
Day 2 – Hip Mobility
On day two of the golf fitness training, Belen offered a hip mobility routine consisting of mobility exercises, stretching, dynamic stretching and some strengthening exercises. The exercises are designed to help you gain more club head velocity, power and speed to ensure that you can rotate all the degrees that you need to be able to create a good recoil.
The workout included 15-20 exercises to do together with Belen to learn them. She recommends that you do these exercises every day, especially before golf, or before a fitness routine to stretch and warm up your hips and protect against injury. She starts with mat exercises and then moves through to standing exercises with the golf club and exercises which are directly related to the golf swing.
You’ll definitely feel the burn and have some sore muscles tomorrow. To alleviate muscle soreness, Belen advises that you drink a lot of water and exercise more to move the lactic acid through increased blood flow.
Day 3 – Core Workout
Belen promises less chit chat and more work today with a challenging core workout, including her favourite core exercises that she used to do on tour. These include exercises that she was taught by some of the best golf trainers to improve core strength for a h2 and powerful swing.
She explains that core is probably one of the most essential parts of our body, it needs to be h2 and stable. It deals with the whole trunk area, not simply the abs. A h2 core is essential for golfers as a h2 core creates stability for your hip mobility, it allows pelvic rotation and tilt and a h2 core gives you more consistency in your golf swing.
This is an intense 40-minute core workout and Belen invites you to join her! You need a mat or a towel on the floor and comfortable, cool clothes too allow you to workout. If you have a fitness band, there are also a sequence of exercises using a fitness band on a door handle to give resistance and train the muscles and strengthening arms and the core through rotation. She completes with tips on the follow-through and gives you a few takeaways to think about, so have a golf club to hand as well.
Day 4 – Lower body strength
Lower body strength is vital for the golfer, as we create power through the legs, glutes and through the floor. The force we apply from the floor up gives us a faster swing and so we need to build leg strength. Belen stresses the importance of not forgetting the glutes and the hamstrings, and only focus on the quads during your workout.
This workout routine offers you the chance to workout with Belen and build your lower body strength with a combination of two leg and one leg exercises, on the floor and also standing. We recommend you have a mat or towel to make the floor work more comfortable. You will also need some weights, or a heavy bag for example, and a chair for a some of the exercises.
Make sure you also grab your golf club for the final set of exercises which relate fitness and strength training to the swing. Throughout she offers advice on maintaining the correct form to protect yourself from injury. Belen also offers some excellent tips on the right way to use weight transfer during the swing and gives examples of common mistakes and how you should be using your legs during the swing. This video has a series of drills to work on, to improve the use of weight transfer.
Day 5 – Golf tips and hacks for your golf swing
The final workshop of the week includes a bunch of golf tips, talking about the swing. It is a dynamic session, with lots of tips and advice on the topic of putting, something which is easy to practice at home. Belen emphasises the importance of good mechanics when it comes to putting and recommended everyone buy putting aids to help improve this aspect of your game, as this is an easy way to shave points off your score card.
She also includes a sequence of practical drills for the golf swing to work on to carry through the fitness you’ve worked on through the week and to apply it to the swing itself.
For this session, lay out any putting aids you have, or anything you use to practice putting, bring your putter and balls and wear trousers with belt loops. You also need an alignment stick, or a camera tripod pole or selfie stick.
Many thanks to Belen for taking the time to offer us all these great workouts and tips, we can’t wait to put them into practice on the golf course at La Reserva Club, book your tee time now. For more great tips from Belen visit her blog www.belenmozo.com or follow her on Instagram for more great exercises routines.
