[Vickie Lake]

If Tiger was not such a successful athlete and still so young he might choose to retire and leave the world guessing. But the Golf stars are shining brightly and I predict that we have a lot of good Tiger play ahead of us. Many ACL injuries are not surgically corrected if a sedentary lifestyle exhists. Likewise many people walk around with undiagnosed stress fractures with much pain and complaints that eventually dwindle when the fracture heals itself and the symptoms subside. I have sent no less than four people to their doctor before I started working with them because the pain they described and the history indicated that their whole body alignment had caused enough inappropriate tension that the associated bone suffered the consequences.

So here I will pick up my usual banter and suggest that Tiger's knee problems have not been isolated to that particular joint or his golf swing. I love TGM because it teaches the most geometrically accurate application of the golf form to the human anatomy. And still I know that if the golf stance is the only request you ever require of your body it will lose it's way back to proper (neutral) balance that allows the body to be at ease.

I know it might sound arrogant in light of the number of professional trainers available to the professional players but maintaining a balance of tension is about more than how heavy or how long you train. Over and Under training are all relavent to lifestyle, activity, individual anatomy, nutrition and recovery. So often we get so focused on training the muscles associated with our sport we forget that all of the other muscles must maintain a very specific and appropriate relationship or we are creating a well intended but risky imbalance.

I hope everyone will remember that your flexibility is a part of your strength training program. But unlike all of the other methods of exercise, flexibility is associated most specifically with the soft tissue that connects muscles to bones,called the tendons or ligaments that connect bone to bone. Improvements happen in millimeters and not in the large measurements that we can see and feel. With cardiovascular work we look at speed, distance, and terrain. In strength we are looking at pounds, and numers of repetitions and sets. In diet we are looking at calories, often too many. If you stop and think a little differently about the spine you will catch my drift. The spine is really a series of 27 joints that have about a 3 degree range of motion between each one. Even though the spine has an "S" curve the vertebrae are spaced perfectly parallel to one another. However, if the curve is held in a manner that alters the natural pathway, the vertebrae lose their perfect relationship. At some point this misalignment begins to send signals that we call pain to alert some attention to the problem. Too often we treat the symptom instead of finding out where the problem started.

Muscles function in an agonist and antagonist agreement. They have two primary functions, to contract for power and to elongate to offer an appropriate equal and opposite reaction for the movement being performed. Balance your workout so that the muscles all have the same strength so they will give you all the power you want with none of the impingements that cause grief.

Oops, was I talking Tiger? Somebody get us back on line.