Kai Fusser, M.S., has been Annika's personal trainer for over 7 years and now also directs the fitness program at the Annika Academy at Ginn Reunion Resort.

THE 1ST PRINCIPLE FOR EXERCISING
RIGHT: THE BASE, FEEL THE GROUND

We know how important a good base is for any sport — just try standing on balance pads or on a steep slope in a bunker and instantly you wish for a better connection to the ground. When we move our limbs away from our body, we create a load and leverage that will affect our center of gravity. This load wants to pull us over. Just look at a crane and it's easy to see how important the base is. The further away and heavier the load, the stronger the base has to be.

When we want to produce power, we need to utilize the ground to push against in order to load up our muscles. (This is the principle of elastic strain energy, or the push pull effect. See Lee Parore, Power Posture.) If you are not well connected to the ground you miss out greatly on that effect.

The rotation during a golf swing also creates another load that wants to move our body away from our base. Consider the forces of the driver's head traveling at about 60 mph in the back swing and in an instant you reverse the direction of that force as you turn to your down swing.

Of course balance has a great impact on your ability to hold your base. There are countless balance exercises available with tools, such as balance pads, gym balls, and wobble boards. There are also exercises without tools, such as one leg exercises, and being on the toes. I will show some of them as we go along.

I always prefer to perform exercises in a standing position whenever possible. For instance, you can do a seated row sitting on the floor or on a seated row machine with a bench, but that position will not help you to better your base. When you sit, your body will learn how to deal with that force in a sitting position and not standing. So let's do the row standing up (Jockey Row). Your feet and legs will have to handle and distribute the load and your nervous system will learn from this. When exercising like this, you will have a better carry over to your "standing sport," because your body will remember. So here is how you do it:

Imagine how you would like to stand if someone would want to push you out of position. You should firmly push your feet against the ground with your knees slightly bent— that's the position you need to be in for any standing exercise, no matter how easy or hard. You want to feel a good connection to the ground, balanced between the front and the back of your foot. This will require a little more effort then "just standing there," but at the same time you don't want to be completely tight in your legs. This would take away from the ability to produce power, so remember that you want to have a bouncy feeling.

Here you see a good standing position. Knees slightly bent, upper body centered over the feet and good connection to the ground.

Here is an example of the Jockey Row performed standing up, keeping the base while overcoming a big load.