Using the body to improve your swing

There finally is equipment that can fix your slice and help you drive the ball farther than you ever have, according to some golf experts. And it is not the latest massive, big-name, high-tech driver.

It is you.

In the words of Jeff Poplarski, a chiropractor in Amityville and the director of the U.S. Open's Wellness Team, "The best piece of equipment is your own body."

The better your body works, the better you can swing. So Poplarski and other people in the golf fitness business are helping clients find the flaws in their swings, and showing them what exercises to do to fix them -- specific, personalized exercises.

"We don't believe there is just one efficient swing. We believe there are many efficient swings. It's based on what you can do physically," Poplarski said, discussing the program he uses that is designed by the Titleist Performance Institute.

It involves having a golfer complete a six-minute evaluation consisting of stretching, turning, reaching, bending and squatting. Poplarski and golf fitness instructor Brendan Glynn feed the results into their computer and come up with a workout plan. In an interesting touch, the program gives the golfer his or her fitness handicap (this reporter, an 11 golf handicap, rated a 13.8 on the fitness index).

Maybe you slice because you don't have enough hip movement, or your lat muscles aren't strong enough. Either way, the golfer receives regular e-mails detailing the exercises along with video clips demonstrating how to perform them. "Until you address the mechanical part of the body and the faults, whether it's muscular, motor or whatever, you're really not going to improve," Poplarski said.

In technical terms, the crux is improving every golfer's "kinematic sequence" -- the connected toes-to-shoulders movements that comprise the swing.

"When you hear that someone is not getting distance -- 'I can't get the ball off the tee' -- they have a problem with the kinematic sequence. There's a mechanical problem somewhere in the body," Poplarski said.

The goal is to refine the swing, not turn a golfer into an Ironman triathlete. "John Daly, for whatever reason, has a perfect kinematic sequence," said the chiropractor, who will head to Congressional Country Club outside Washington this week to lead 108 acupuncturists, massage therapists and chiropractors at the Open.

It was at the Open years ago that he heard about the Titleist Performance Institute. "We came across people in our team who were certified and they were talking a different language," Poplarski said. "I said, 'We might want to look into this.' "

Long Islander John Ondrush is one of the pioneers in matching a golfer's swing with personalized exercises. "I've been doing it for 15 years," said the man who runs golf fitness academies at Tam O'Shanter Club and North Shore Country Club and whose clients include most top Long Island club pros.

Ondrush studies a client's swing with sensors that produce a three-dimensional image. It is the same technology that helps video game companies reproduce athlete's motions, and it is thorough. "We call it an MRI of a golf swing," he said.

Sometimes, he will see someone who is physically capable of making a 90-degree hip turn, but goes only 45 degrees during a swing. "I'll send him to a pro," Ondrush said. More often, the image shows that the golfer needs to do some stretching or flexing to hit the ball well.

Massapequa native Kyle Higgins is an assistant pro at Greenwich Country Club who said his own game has been helped by Poplarski's exercises. He also is certified in the Titleist program and insists it is not a stretch to say it works for his members. "They love the workout. They say they feel better," he said. "And their game is better."