We have a question from an Inner Circle member, Richard. He says, “Hi, Surge, thoroughly enjoyed your teaching, and have slashed at 10 in 2 months….
Could you advise the correct breathing during the swing? I usually inhale from addressing all the way thru to the top, and exhale during the downswing to the finish. Thank you very much.”
O.K. Richard, this is an unusual question. In all the years I've been teaching, I haven't asked this more than a dozen times. Yet it's something that we all do when we play golf. We have to be doing it because if you're not breathing, you're not living … We have to breathe.
But, I don't think we actually breathe while we're swinging. I know for myself personally, and whenever this has come up and I've talked to my students, other teachers and players about it, I seem to get the same answer from everybody. They do the same thing I do.
You take a nice deep breath, then you exhale, then you swing because your whole body is much more relaxed. If you see a baseball pitcher on the mound, at some point, from where he's getting his signal to where he starts to stand up, he takes a deep breath, then exhales it all. Then he goes into his pitch and pitches.
I think we see the same thing with tennis players when they serve. They take their big inhale and then exhale, then throw the ball up and they serve. They do that without any breath. I think that while you're breathing while you're swinging, as you say you inhale on the way up, I think as your lungs expand and all that air comes in, I think it can be changing your muscle tone. I sense that maybe if I was standing and took a big deep breath as I was swinging up that I might have a possibility, as I'm lifting my arms, my body will also life a little with it.
Conversely, when I'm exhaling coming down the relaxing of my body would cause my spine angle to change and probably lower me more than I should. I shouldn't do anything. I should stay as level as I can.
I really have a sense that inhaling going up and exhaling going down could change your muscle tone and might change your levelness in your spine angle and maybe in your legs.
Everybody I've ever talked to, and I do it myself, I know DJ does it this way … Take your inhale before you swing, exhale, then start your swing and make the whole while you've exhaled. All your muscles will stay the same. I think you'll find a lot more control in the movement of your body.
Take that deep breath, let it out, and then swing. You shouldn't have any problem because the golf swing, from start to finish, is not going to be any more than about a second to a second and a half, from take away to the top of the finish when you recoil and relax.
The Surge!
P.S. Please listen to my message about Lynn Griffin's wife at the end of the audio. Thank you, everybody.