Virginia Golfer article, June 2005

Stretch For Success

Muscles feeling tight? Craving more distance? Shooting for lower scores?

Advances in golf-specific exercises can help shape up your game for the summer and beyond

by Arthur Utley

Dr. David Berv might as well have been in his favorite candy store.

Berv attended his first Champions Tour golf event, the ACE Group Classic, in February and was telling two lunch-time listeners some of the details.

His enthusiasm for the adventure and the excitement generated by it was unmistakable. Berv is a Richmond-based sports chiropractic physician and master golf fitness instructor. He had something to offer the players on the PGA Tour’s over-50 circuit, and some were quick to take advantage.

“It was clear that the senior touring pros were aware of the value of physical conditioning for performance, but like most amateurs, they don’t really know what’s right for them," Berv says. “I think a lot of it is generational. Today, 12-year-old kids know more about computers than their parents. Similarly, today’s high school and college golfers integrate rigorous physical conditioning in their routines whereas it was an afterthought when today’s 50-year-olds were college age.”

Berv has spent years developing a golf performance program, InnerSwing, that targets golfers seeking better consistency, accuracy, lower scores and doing it pain free. What golfer doesn’t want that? The program is good for all ages, but Berv has taken aim at a particular demographic: 45 to 60 year old men.

“When age-related physical issues set in, it adds a more complex and individually pronounced picture,” Berv explains.

At the Champions Tour stop, “My eyes saw no biomechanically perfect swings out there as we see with many younger PGA touring pros. Ball flights looked nice, but at the expense of incredible compensatory movements in order to get there: buckling knees, feet spinning out, balance issues, obvious mobility problems, poor posture. Most had lost what they once had and didn’t know how to get it back.”

Berv, 37, doesn’t cross the boundary between doctor and swing coach. He has been playing golf seven years and has cut his handicap from 20 to 11. People see him do his non-traditional warm-up exercises, then watch him whack lengthy tee shots. They want to know more about what he does. His focus is on the biomechanics (the physical aspects) of golf.

“It was fun to work with players who have such grooved swings,” Berv notes. “They are so used to modifying their grip or some technical issue, or trying a new club, that it was interesting to see the puzzled looks on their faces when they didn’t understand how to fire certain golf-specific muscles at will.

“I would have them bend and squat and twist and move and separate their shoulders from their torso, torso from hips, and so on, and it was amazing to see how, at least with their swing, they were obviously able to overcome their restrictions with their skill. It’s hard to fake a balance problem when you can’t stand on one foot for more than four seconds.”

Golf fitness gained a foothold on the PGA Tour in the mid-1980s when trailers specifically related to fitness first appeared at events. Before then, only a few players, most notably Gary Player, were known as fitness buffs who regularly lifted weights and did stretching exercises to improve their flexibility.

Not until Tiger Woods and David Duval gave credit to fitness regimens for improvements in their strength and flexibility did golf join the national trend toward physical training.

The idea is that a fitter body can lead to better golf. The options for becoming more fit are numerous: aerobics, weightlifting, stretching and flexibility exercises, yoga, pilates, martial arts. Franchised operations such as Body Balance for Performance and Velocity Sports Performance combine conditioning, posture, balance, flexibility and strength.

There’s a price to pay, and not just in dollars (some programs are expensive). Commitment and discipline from the participant are requisites for success. Better golf can be a strong motivator.

“You need to do this exercise, and by the way, it’s going to help your golf,” Berv explains. “You can take a stubborn middle-aged male who doesn’t take care of himself, and all of a sudden you have a whole different angle to work with this individual.”

InnerSwing is a patented, two-part program. There is a multi-point assessment with computerized diagnostic reports, video swing analysis, functional training and individualized, golf-specific exercises.

“Awareness is really the key,” Berv notes. “Golfers want to know what’s right for them, not everybody, but they don’t know where to find it. If you read any of the golf journals the past three, four, five years, every single thing is to try this exercise or that exercise, but how do you know that it’s right for you? There’s a lot of misinformation out there. You may be fueling a problem.”

Berv – whose base office is on Monument Avenue in Richmond (he has a satellite facility in Myrtle Beach, S.C.) doesn’t use specialized equipment. No balls, no tubing, no balance items.

“It takes 15 minutes three times a week to see results,” Berv says. “It’s a defined eight-week program, re-evaluate, see the progress and move on from there.”

Berv drives home the point that most of the exercises are done in a standing position.

“You don’t golf on the floor. All the exercises I teach involve the concept of the core. It involves the ability to do the pelvic tilt,” he points out. “People want to play golf. They don’t want to exercise. I term these movements re-education drills. You are re-educating muscle groups and muscle memory that enable golf-specific postures and motions.”

Local PGA professionals such as Carl Filipowicz at The Tradition Golf Club at The Crossings, Adam Smith at Salisbury Country Club and Matthew Schulze at Richmond Country Club have benefited from working with Berv. Amateurs also have sent thank-you letters applauding the InnerSwing program.

“It was validating to see how hungry the players (on the Champions Tour) were for advice on the physical aspect,” Berv says. “Bruce Summerhays (62 years old) said to me, ‘I just want two or three more years of competitive play against the guys in the field 10 years younger than me. I know the value of the physical side, and I want to do everything I can to maintain a physical edge.’”