You are about to be introduced to a cutting-edge golf mental game technique that combines centuries-old wisdom with quantum physics, enabling you to effortlessly slash strokes off your score…without a bit of additional practice

Does it sound too good to be true?

Skeptical? - Who could blame you?

Despite being “unconventional”, do yourself a favor and suspend disbelief for a short time. Dare to “think outside the tee box” and actually test these techniques on the course. After all, it’s about results, right?

Renegade Mindset Techniques ™ is a do-it-yourself form of acupuncture—without the use of needles. Instead you simply “tap” on a few “clearing points” while focusing on a negative feeling or emotion.

There are countless situations where RMT for Golf can be applied to make your game more effective. For example:first tee jitters, yips, anxiety about hitting over water, fear of embarrassment, anger and frustration, etc

Want to know more? Read on…

Step One: Tap the Clearing Points (Negative Focus)

Using the tips of your index and middle fingers, lightly tap each point approximately ten (10) times while focusing on the negative emotion (anxiety, tension, fear etc.) or physical symptom (rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, etc.) you are experiencing. It is important that you focus on the negative while tapping. I shudder to think what the “positive thinking police” will have to say, but that’s a topic for another article.

• Point One – Collarbone 

Technically speaking, it is not the collarbone, but rather the two boney notches at the base of your neck (the location of the knot of a necktie). Tap lightly ten times while focusing on the negative emotion.

• Point Two – Under Eye

Tap on the bone about one inch directly below the eye. Tap lightly ten times while focusing on the negative emotion.

• Point Three - Double Wrists

Simply tap the insides of both of your wrists together (about the area that you would wear a watch). Continue to focus on the negative emotion.

Interesting (sort of) side note: this wrist point is the one that can reduce sea sickness. If you have ever been on a cruise ship, you may have used one of those wrist bands for your queasy stomach. The truth is, those bands are designed to stimulate these exact wrist points. The manufacturers don’t tell you that because it seems too weird!

Step Two: Tap the Collarbone Point (Positive Focus)

Now tap the collarbone point again approximately 10 times while repeating (aloud or silently to yourself) the phrase “Let it be easy

Step Three: Take a DEEP BREATH. 

The chances are very good that the intensity of your emotion will have decreased substantially or disappeared completely. If some of the emotion is remaining, simply perform the above routine one or more additional times until it dissipates completely.

You could test this out right now by simply imagining a stressful situation out on the course.Your subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between what is real and imagined.

Could this sound any more like voodoo nonsense?

I’ll concede that it is rather unusual. But one thing more unusual than the technique itself is the RESULTS it produces.

As a golf mental game coach, and a fellow golfer, the only thing I really care about is results.

How about you?

Stephen Ladd is a “Renegade” Golf Mental Game Coach, pioneering breakthrough energy psychology techniques, and the creator of Renegade Mindset Techniques for Golf ™. Visit RMT for Golf, for free reports, newsletters and products to catapult your game to a new level today!

Healthy eating before and during a round of golf may be just the boost you need to take your game to a new level. Just look at the increasing number of golfers on the tour slimming down, eating healthier, and playing better golf. Everyone realizes that it’s good to eat healthy. But nutrition is not a common topic in golf instruction sessions or golf tips. Most golf lessons and golf tips focus on how to swing a club or how to play a certain shot, not on what to eat while playing 18 holes. If you’re not learning how to putt better, you’re correcting a swing fault. Nevertheless, the fact remains: All golfers can benefit from better nutrition and proper hydration.

Avoiding a Quick High

Many golfers get a little hungry during a round. To satisfy this hunger, they often eat foods that give a quick energy boost. A candy bar, bagel, cookie, hot dog, soda, or a beer are probably the most popular foods consumed during a round of golf, at least judging by students who take my golf lessons. While these foods are among our favorites on or off the course, they don’t help you play your best. These foods give you a quick high. But the high is inevitably followed by an energy crash, as the body releases insulin to combat the sudden elevation of blood sugar. The insulin release makes you feel tired and sluggish. No one I know plays his or her best golf when feeling tired and lethargic. Just swinging a club seems like a real chore. You also tend to lose confidence in yourself when you feel tired. But eating the right foods helps maintain your energy level.

Eating Before A Round

The key to eating before (or after) a round is consuming healthy foods, foods that don’t add extra fats or empty calories. You should be thinking whole foods and nutritional balance instead. Don’t have a huge bowl of pasta with a slice of white bread before a match. That just adds a lot of empty carbohydrates and not much else. Instead, eat a side dish of pasta (whole grain, if possible) or whole grain bread with a small piece of meat, fish, or chicken (no skin).

Fruits and vegetables also are good to have before (or during) a round. In fact, they’re good to have anytime. They act like nutritional bodyguards. They contain antioxidants, which protect the body’s cells from potentially harmful chemical reactions. Fruits and vegetables should be a part of your diet whether you’re playing a round or not.

A good rule of thumb to keep in mind when it comes to eating before (or after) a round is to go for a variety of color. If your plate is made up of foods having the same hue, your nutritional balance is probably off. So you’ll want to make some changes. And, of course, you should drink 64 ounces of water a day. Drinking water before or after a round keeps you hydrated and healthy.

During A Round

For snacks during a round, forget the traditional convenience foods. Leave things like energy bars, sports drinks full of sugars, salty chips made with unhealthy trans fats are best alone. Also, beware of foods that seem healthy but really aren’t. Many yogurts, for example, contain high doses of sugar. Some ’multi-grain’ snacks are no better for you than their process grained counterparts. When you have snacks during a round, choose natural sources of protein and fat, such as nuts and jerky. You can also have carbohydrates in the form of fruits and whole grains. Instead of a beer or a soda, have water. These are better for you both during and after a round.

Older Golfers

Older golfers especially they have to watch what they eat before, during, and after a match. As a golfer gets older, you need to consume enough protein to maintain muscle mass. The body functions best when it has a constant supply of protein, from which to draw. Small amounts of meat, poultry (no skin), fish, nuts, and cheese, distributed among your meals and snacks, are excellent choices.

Eating healthy won’t help you cut your golf handicap overnight. You’ll still have to take golf lessons, read golf tips, and practice as often as you can. But one thing is certain. All golfers can benefit from better nutrition and hydration, two factors that play a key role in energy availability and utilization.

This Article is provided courtesy of Jack Moorehouse who is the author of the best-selling book How to Break 80

Golf season is fast approaching, and if you want to have a good season this year (better than last year, at least!), then there are a few things you should do to prepare. No, I’m not talking about cleaning the mud off your golf clubs. These are things to help you get your body ready for golfing.

If you figure that playing a round of golf is enough fitness for one week, then you are not alone. And it is true to some degree, but the far more important thing I want to discuss is how to get your body ready in advance of the new season after you’ve been out of shape all winter.

And for those who ride the course in a cart rather than walking, and then pack away a couple of cold drinks after the round, the fitness element can be almost non-existent. If your body is capable, I encourage you to save the money and global-warming contributing emissions from your golf cart usage, and take to the fairways by foot this year.

But before the season starts, there are several ways to prepare your body for the rigors ahead. The goal is to get you ready to handle the lengthy time standing and walking on the course, and to gently build muscles that are used frequently in golf.

Aerobic and stamina-building exercises are the key to beating the long walks in the heat of summer. And flexibility and muscle training will help you achieve longer drives, better swing consistency, and overall mid-torso strength. You won’t need to become a heavy lifting body builder at all! No, the goal is to tackle the repetitive, asymmetrical movements of golf by gently strengthening your muscles in advance.

Rotational flexibility, hip flexibility, lower back muscles, and shoulder strength all play a role in each golfer’s swing. And working these areas will also help you avoid getting spasms in your leg or back muscles during a long day on the links. If you have been cramped up in an office desk and chair all winter, then this is even more important.

Don’t feel intimidated by the time commitment, because you can perform many of these exercises during your lunch break, or at home in the evening in front of the television. You also don’t necessarily need to break a sweat doing most of them. The rotational power in your torso relies on the hips, buttocks, thighs, abdominals, and lower back muscles all working in coordination. So begin by stretching those core areas. Later you can begin strength training, but still maintain the emphasis on the core power zone areas.

The core area is all the bones, muscles, and ligaments between your chest and your knees. Hundreds of exercises and variations can help you work your core, including abdominal crunches, gentle trunk rotations, gentle torso twists, lower back stretches such as “cat” arches and hunches, hamstring stretches, and side rotations using resistance.

If you are like me and tend to spend the winters being sedentary, make sure you begin gently. The risk is that you will overdo things at the beginning, and injure some of your core areas, causing you to push back that first tee-off date. Begin each session by warming up for a short while using some aerobic option such as walking on an incline on a treadmill, a stationary bike, or a rowing machine

The key is to start early in the spring. I will provide some specific exercises in my next article, but don’t delay starting until a few days before your first tee-off! Try some of these things in an easy, short, daily effort, long before the first game of the year, and your torso strength and stamina will be much enhanced. Your body will thank you right up until the final hole of the round.

I often hear from amateur golfers about how training with weights makes them feel “tight” and it ruin’s their golf swing. Traveling on the PGA Tour I disagree with this point of view completely. It is well known that the top players on the PGA Tour; Tiger, Vijay, and Phil workout regularly. They praise the benefits of their workouts in the development of their golf swing. I am a first hand observer of what they do in the gym on the days they play.

As a result, I see the reasons why amateurs do not workout as excuses rather than legitimate reasons. I would guess that the difficulty amateurs have with weight training or working out in relation to the game of golf is how to do it correctly. This article will discuss how to properly workout to improve your golf game.

Weight training is not bad for the golfer if done correctly.

Weight training done incorrectly is bad for the golfer.

This is where the amateur gets sidetracked, frustrated, and ends up thinking weight training is bad for golf. A typical weight training program found at many health clubs can be detrimental to the golf swing. These types of programs can make you feel “tight”, adversely affect your golf game, and leave you frustrated.

The reason why these “generic” training programs are counter productive to golf is their inability take into account what is required of the body in relation to the golf swing.

Golfers need to be very aware of a few important concepts when weight training in relation to the golf swing. First and foremost, any training program for golf needs to be cross-specific. A cross-specific training program develops the body to the positions, movements, and requirements of the sport you participate in.

Granted everyone’s swing is slightly different but the base components are the same. All golfers rotate around a fixed spine angle, transfer weight forward and back during the swing, generate clubhead speed, attempt to square the club at impact, and complete the swing in a balanced finish position.

The main goal of a cross-specific training program is develop your body physically around the golf swing. This induces what is termed a transfer of training effect onto the golf course. Simplified this states that the training you do in the gym pays off on the course in a positive manner.

Designing a weight training program for golf is a simple process if done correctly. The best place to start is with flexibility. Golfers need to be flexible. The golf swing requires you to move the club through a long range of motion, thus requiring your body to be very flexible. Areas of the body that typically require large amounts of flexibility for golf are; the hamstrings, lower back, hips, and shoulders. Oftentimes the amateur’s swing can improve from just adding flexibility exercises to their training program.

Another aspect of a cross-specific training program for golf is balance training. Balance is the ability of the body to control its’ center of gravity and body parts efficiently. Balance exercises address both the nervous and muscular systems of the body creating greater efficiency in its ability to control body movements and center of gravity.

After you have looked at the flexibility and balance components of a training program for golf, it is time to shift gears to the “weight training” side of the equation. The golf swing requires the development of strength within the muscles of the body. You need muscular strength to maintain a fixed spine angle, create an efficient weight transfer, and develop clubhead speed.

The development of strength in the muscular system is where the amateur commonly makes mistakes. Remember all the exercises in a cross-specific training program for golf must revolve around the movements of the swing, and create a benefit to your play on the course.

Typically, strength training is thought of as a group of exercises that create “bulk” and build the “beach muscles”. Bench pressing 300 and developing biceps like Arnold does not mean you’ll drive the golf ball 300 yards.

Developing strength for the golf swing is very different from “football” or “bodybuilding” strength exercises. The golf swing uses the whole the body, from feet to fingertips. As a result, golfers need to strengthen the entire body cross-specifically to the movements of the golf swing. A key to strength training exercises for golf is to integrate the entire body into the exercise patterns, rather than isolating a specific muscle (a.k.a. bicep curls and bench press).

For example, bicep curls may make you look great for the beach or fill out your golf shirt, but you do not swing the golf club with your biceps only. You use your entire body, and as a result the strength training part of your program, must incorporate the entire body. Exercises such as ball crunches, Russian twists, single leg squats are beneficial strength training exercises for golf.

Completing the template of a golf specific training program is endurance training. The golf swing is a repetitive movement. In a single round of golf the swing is repeated numerous times. A week on Tour might find players swinging the golf club well over 1000’s times. As a result, it is necessary to develop the endurance capacities of your muscular system.

Developing endurance in your muscular system allows you to repeat a movement over and over again without getting tired, a key component of the golf swing. Once the body becomes tired, the ability to swing the golf club properly becomes impeded resulting in miss hits, lost distance, and poor shots. Bottom line, you need to make the same swing consistently to score consistently. Endurance training assists in this process.

To summarize; weight training and working out is beneficial to the golfer, if and only if it is done correctly. The wrong choice in the type of training program, exercise selection, or even exercise sequence can hinder your golf game. Choosing a training program that is cross-specific to the golf swing and induces a transfer of training effect onto the golf course is best. This type of program incorporates; flexibility, balance, strength, endurance, and power exercises relative to the golf swing providing benefits to your body and golf game.

Fatigue makes cowards of us all. It also makes us poorer golfers. Getting tired on the back nine is no fun. Inexplicably, it seems, you find yourself making mistakes on the back nine you didn’t make on the front nine, costing yourself strokes. Preventing fatigue is why you see more and more professional golfers getting in shape these days, including Tiger Woods, who works as hard at it as anyone.

Here are five keys to improving golf muscles:

* Focus on flexibility
* Work on balance training
* Exercise for symmetry
* Avoid bulking up
* Include cardiovascular training

The secret to developing your golf muscles is focusing on three things: flexibility, balance, and symmetry. Combining a workout routine emphasizing these there elements and cardiovascular conditioning, like running, swimming, or power walking, strengthens not only your golf muscles but also your whole body. Together, they lower your scores while they prolong your life.

Before a round, focus on exercises emphasizing flexibility, like stretching the back and shoulder muscles, and the rotary muscles of the hips, torso, and rotary cuffs. After a round or when you’re not playing in the winter, concentrate on strength and balance training, like imitating the golf swing using a weighted club or resistance bands to increase range of motion.

Keep in mind, however, that the key with strength and balance training is symmetry. That means doing exercises in both directions to develop both sides. For a left-handed golfer that entails swinging a weighted club from both the left and the right sides. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a strong left side and a weak right side, creating the peak conditions for an injury.

Performing exercises on one leg instead of two also improves balance. But remember to switch legs. Assuming a golf-swing posture as you go through your routine helps. Also, don’t bulk up too much if you’re into resistance training. Bulking up hurts the stretching you’ve done.

And don’t forget to add a cardiovascular workout to your routine. Your heart is a muscle, too. It needs exercise to strengthen itself just like your arms, hips, shoulders, and back. Work at staying in shape and you’ll not only post lower scores, you’ll lead a healthier life.

This Article is provided courtesy of Jack Moorehouse who is the author of the best-selling book How to Break 80