Got a surprise for you today. I know everyone is interested in fitness for golf so I decided to post about the report I got recently on how to get a lean golf body.

For some background, I thought over the off-season I would try and focus on getting a bit leaner in an effort to improve my performance on the course. I hope to be limber and flexible and to do so I know that getting rid of excess belly fat is one of the first steps.

I introduced you to Mike Geary earlier in the week and wanted you to know about a FR*EE gift he is giving away to us.

Mike is giving away his "Training and Nutrition Insider Secrets for a Lean Body" absolutely free today.  He normally sells it for $17.95 but for us it's free.

You can download it here.

Oh yeah--he also gives you your own Metabolic Rate Calculator that takes your own personal characteristics into account.

And what I didn't know is that Mike also gives you 5 simple, super-easy training routines to do right at home...no gym needed or anything.

He said he will be taking it down next week so give it a look while it's still available.

This guy is the real deal folks. Mike not only is very ripped himself but is also heavily into training athletes..a lot of which are golfers.     Fitness For Golf- lean body report.

Enjoy!

Jack

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How To Break 80 Newsletter

January 5th, 2010

"The Web's Most Popular Golf Improvement Newsletter"

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In this issue we'll discuss...

1) Two Easy Fixes Stop Pulled Putts

2) Hitting Straight Irons

3) Drill of the Week: Cure Your Slice

4) Article: Keys To Creating A Solid One-Plane Swing

5) Article: Crank Out More Yardage Now

Jacks Note:  Happy New Year to one and all!  I'm hoping you have great aspirations and that you achieve them all.  For a lot of us, losing some weight in 2011 would be  a welcome change.  I sent out an email the other day about how to lose stubborn belly fat with a few little-known techniques that Mike Geary showed me.  See here for more.

This week we're doing something a little different, from now on the newsletter will be more blog based, so be sure and bookmark the blog!

Trouble viewing links? Your browser may be the issue. We recommend using the Firefox browser. Click Here To Download. Some email clients also distort links: try to copy and paste web urls directly in your browser, or turn on images for emails.

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1) Two Easy Fixes Stop Pulled Putts

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Pro golfers tend to blame pulled putts on a breakdown of the left wrist (right wrist if they're left-handed). But that's not always the case. Sometimes, golfers can do everything right and still pull a putt. The reason: Their set ups are off, causing them to pull the putt regardless of what their hands, wrists, and arms do. If you've been pulling putts, this may be the cause.

Below are two easy fixes that will stop you from pulling putts:

* Pull your hands close together

* Rotate your shoulders slightly

With a standard putting grip, you place your right hand below your left. This arrangement tends to open up your shoulders, so they're pointing slightly left of the target line. This in turn causes you to strike the ball with an out to in stroke. Even if you're putterhead is square at impact, you'll still pull the putt. How do you correct this?

First, push your hands as close together as possible. The closer your hands are the less likely your shoulders will point left of target and the more likely your stroke will be straight and true.

Second, rotate your shoulders clockwise slightly. This will align your shoulders with the target line and the more likely you are to produce a stroke that follows the target line back and through.

Putting-Along-The-Shaft Drill

This drill is designed to groove an online putting stroke:

Lay the flag stick on the ground. Set your putter squarely over it and make practice strokes. Try to swing your putterhead slightly to the inside going back so that just the toe section is over the stick. On the through stroke, move your putterhead straight down the pole. This will stop those misses left and get the ball rolling toward the hole.

Practice this drill as often as possible. It teaches you to align your shoulders with the target line, improves rhythm, and promotes a nice flowing stroke.

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2) Hitting Straight Irons

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How often have you hit a great drive only to follow it with a bad iron? All too often, weekend golfers follow great tee shots with wicked slices or big hooks off the fairway on what should be routine shots into the green. Talk about frustrating. It can ruin the hole for you—and maybe the day. What's worse many golfers don't even know why they hooked or sliced the shot. But a simple mental trick helps you hit irons as straight as an arrow.

Below are six keys to hitting straight irons:

* Plant your front foot

* Make a post with front leg

* Maintain a forward bend

* Form a sideways "C"

* Keep your lead hand square

* Finish on the outside edge

Of the six keys mentioned above, the most important is the one about your lead hand. Straight shots are hit with the back of your lead hand square to the target at impact. That's because your lead hand mirrors the clubface at impact.

Bad shots occur when the back of your lead hand is anything but square. Slices happen when you hit the ball with the side of your hand leading through impact. Snap hooks happen when you turn your lead hand over too much through impact. In both cases, the back of the lead hand lets you down.

To improve iron play, think in terms of the clubface as the back of your lead hand. At impact, you should feel as if you're hitting the ball with the back of your lead hand facing the target and club's shaft leaning slightly forward. Done correctly, this produces a nice divot on the forward side of the ball pointing directly at the target.

If you're not hitting good irons from the fairway, keep your lead hand square to the target at impact for better results. Master this golf tip and you'll hit your irons straight every time.

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3) Drill of the Week: Cure Your Slice

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If your hand and lower body get ahead of the ball on your downswing, you'll struggle to square the clubface at impact. That can lead to a slice. This drill can help you correct the flaw:

Take your normal address position, with a 7-iron in hand and a ball at the normal 7-iron position in your stance. Have a friend hold two shafts—one directly above the other—against your club at address. Now swing. Then try to hit the lower shaft on your downswing. Have your friend pull the shafts away just before impact.

The drill encourages you to release the clubhead earlier in the downswing, which squares the clubface at impact and straightens the ball flight. Make sure you don't flip your wrists.

If you've got a golf question you'd like
answered, send an email to us at questions@howtobreak80.com
and we'll review it. I can't guarantee that we'll use it but if we do,
we'll make sure to include your name and where you're from.

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Golf swings fall into one of two basic types. With a one-plane swing, the golfer bends over more and swings around her body. With the two-plane swing, the golfer stands upright more and shifts her weight from back to front. Both have advantages and disadvantages when it comes to improving a golf handicap and both can be improved with hard work. The key is to find which type of swing suits you best, and then mastering its keys. This article provides golf tips on the one-plane swing.

One way to think of the two swing plane types is to imagine an airplane trying to land on a concrete runway. Too much forward movement keeps you circling the airport. Too much up and down movement sends you crashing into the ground. Neither event is good. A swing like that taught in golf lessons employs the right combination of forward and backward movement. To improve your gold handicap, you must determine if you’re a one- or two-plane swinger.

What Kind Of Swinger Are You
The following drills can help you decide what kind of swinger you are: First, stand farther from the ball, bend over, and hold your driver like a hockey stick. Now swing in a flatter more “around” path. Next, stand upright, swing back, and thrust your hips at the ball before your arms swing through. If you hit better shots from the first position, you’re a one-plane swinger. If you hit shots from the second position, you’re a two-plane swinger.

Both swing types have their advantages and disadvantages. One upside to a one-plane swing is that it has a long flat spot at the bottom of its arc. One-plane swings are great when hitting short irons. The downside of one-plane swing is that golfers have trouble hitting the flat-faced irons in your bag, like the 3-iron and 4-iron. A good golf tip for one-plane swingers is to replace their longer clubs with a hybrid, which is designed to hit the ball higher. The hybrid will help you when you need to hit a ball high and long.

Golf Tips For A One-plane Swinger
Mechanically, you need to add a little more “up and down” to your swing. The way to do that is to bend over more at address and extended your butt out a little more than normal. A good way to feel this is to think of your butt end pushing up against a wall at address and staying there during the swing. Now swing. But be careful. You don’t want to turn your shoulders at a steeper angle. If you do, you’ll tilt forward on the backswing and backward on the forward swing, like you might do with a reverse pivot.

The intentional draw is the go-to shot for the one-plane swinger. When you hit an intentional draw, your arm begins rotating earlier in the swing and you hit a more controlled shot. Aim at the right edge of the fairway (left edge, if you’re left-handed) and swing away without worrying about the lake on the left. Be careful, though. You don’t want to start hitting snap hooks.

Keys For One-plane Swingers
If you’re a one-plane swinger, keep the following golf tips in mind:
Bend over more at address. Standing tall or transferring your weight aggressively impedes your swing.

* Keep you head relatively still on the backswing. Don’t get “behind the ball” as you may have heard an instructor say in golf instruction sessions.
* When it comes to swing thoughts, think about swinging around your body.
* Avoid feeling as if you’re pulling with your left arm (right arm for left-handers).
* On the downswing, turn your body as hard as you can and hit aggressively with your right hand (left for left-handers).

There’s a wide variety of ways to swing a golf club—not all of them are covered in golf instruction sessions. But all golf swings fall basically into one of two categories. They are either a one-plane swing or a two-plane swing. Neither of these swings is better than they other. In fact, they both have advantages and disadvantages. To take your game to the next level, determine the type of swing that fits you. Then work on the kinds of things that will help you chop strokes from your golf handicap.

Want to add 40+ yards to your drives right now—without taking golf lessons? Imagine what that could do for your golf handicap. A study done by Golf Digest indicates that you can add 40+ yards to your drives simply by “hitting from the inside.” By that we mean swinging the club on a path that approaches the ball from the golfer’s side of the target line as opposed to outside the target line. Unfortunately, many weekend golfers approach the ball from the outside. How does that affect your swing?

Hitting a ball from an outside path doesn’t achieve the right launch angle or generate as much height as hitting a ball from an inside one. Both are critical to achieving extra yardage. A temporary solution to the problem is changing clubs. Using a higher lofted driver improves launch angle and mitigates the effects of sidespin without a meaningful loss of ball speed. But this change won’t add the kind of yardage we talked about in the beginning. To do that, you must make a swing change.

Below are several golf tips that can help you achieve an inside path without attending golf instruction sessions.

Too Far Inside:

When we talk about going inside, we’re talking about the downswing. If you go too far to the inside on the backswing, you’re heading for trouble. Going too far inside too soon encourages you to re-route the club to the outside—known as coming over the top. To eliminate this problem, make sure you’re hinging your wrists as you take the club back, not just turning your shoulders, which pulls the club inside. Try taking the club back to about hip high and stop. Check the club’s position. Is it where it should be?

Swaying (Reverse Pivot)

Golfers taking golf lessons are told to keep their heads still. Too often, they’re so intent on doing that that their back hips slide away from the target, instead of turning behind them. This is called swaying, which can lead to a reverse pivot. It sets up a steep downing swing that makes it almost impossible to swing down from the inside. To rid yourself of this flaw, put a chair next to your back hip at address. Leave an inch or two of space between them. You should be able to make your turn without bumping into the chair. You may brush it lightly as you turn, but don’t bump into it.

Not Turning Enough

You may not be comfortable or flexible enough to make a complete turn when you swing—especially if you’re a senior. But if you want to swing from inside the target line and generate more power, you must make at least a 90-degree turn behind the ball. This is a complete turn. To learn to achieve a complete turn, lay a club on the ground inside your back foot. Take another cub and hold across your chest. Turn your upper body so the club at your chest is parallel to the one on the ground.

Creating Too Little Space

As you swing to the top you need to create sufficient space between your right hand (left, if your left handed) and your back ear or you won't have enough room to swing down from the inside. To make sure you make sufficient room, take the club back with your right hand and stop. Look at your hand to ensure you have plenty of room between your hand and your head. If you do, grip the club with your other hand. This is a good top of the swing position.

Golf Digest’s study indicates that taking an inside path to the ball—just like golfers are taught in golf instruction sessions—can add 40+ yards to your drives. Taking an inside path improves your launch angle and generates more height than taking an outside one. Using a more-lofted driver is a temporary solution. But it doesn’t generate as much yardage as making a swing change. The golf tips described above will help you make the necessary swing change. Add 40+ yards to your drives and you’ll chop strokes off your golf handicap.