Accompanying Golf, Safeguarding Your Health

By Michael Meng

How is Health Defined Internationally?

In 1992, the World Health Organization (WHO) introduced four essential pillars of health in the "Victoria Declaration": balanced diet, appropriate exercise, smoking cessation and alcohol moderation, and mental balance. These pillars summarize human experiences in health and longevity and mark the beginning of a conscious health era, focusing on disease prevention in daily life. For those involved in sports, it provides reasonable exercise guidance, physical training, competition interest, etiquette cooperation, and sports venues. Golf (Golf: Green, Oxygen, Light, and Friendship) is not only the best choice for moderate exercise but also the most consistent with modern health standards.

The main action in golf is the swing: the body rotates around the spine. Therefore, golf helps maintain the health of the spine, its shape, and the surrounding systems. A healthy spine and its related systems can significantly reduce diseases related to the cervical spine, lumbar spine, hip bones, and respiratory system.

The Damage of Modern Lifestyle to Natural Posture

Humans are born with natural reflexes: whenever we think of doing something, different body parts (head, spine, and limbs) coordinate to form corresponding postures and movements, naturally completing the brain's commands. These natural reflex postures and movements are essential for good exercise, natural breathing, and overall health. This posture and function are inherent in humans, as seen in infants and preschool children.

Unfortunately, heavy study and work tasks lead to prolonged sitting and reduced exercise. Combined with the widespread use of computers, televisions, and mobile phones in modern life, we develop bad habits and postures, causing muscle imbalances and interfering with our natural reflexes, leading to pain, injury, and overall functional decline.

Changes in body shape leading to functional decline might not affect daily life and work immediately, but over time, various discomforts and diseases will follow. This situation is known as sub-health, or the state of being on the verge of illness.

The term "pre-illness" has long been used in traditional Chinese medicine, originating from the "Huangdi Neijing" (The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine). It states: "The wise do not treat the sick but prevent illness; they do not solve chaos but prevent it." Sun Simiao's "Essential Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Gold Pieces" says: "The best doctors treat pre-illness, average doctors treat impending illness, and the worst doctors treat existing illness." This highlights that an important concept in traditional Chinese medicine is to prevent illness, thereby improving life quality and economic benefits.

Golf as the Best Way to Prevent Illness

Modern medicine's health curve formula is health—sub-health—illness, while traditional Chinese medicine views it as pre-illness—impending illness—existing illness. Despite different expressions, the core idea is the same.

At the end of the last century, an international discussion on the purpose of medicine concluded: "Medicine is not just the science of disease but also the science of health." "A good doctor should keep people healthy, not just treat diseases." Health and disease prevention have become hot topics in 21st-century medical research. Previously, the focus was on understanding, diagnosing, and treating diseases, often neglecting the study of health, disease prevention, and development trends.

Dr. Gokhale's spinal morphology theory, widely recognized and applied in the U.S., reveals the close relationship between back, neck, shoulder pain, and poor spinal posture. It states that a healthy spine is J-shaped, which is natural, while the modern S-shaped spine is unnatural. This S-shape is attributed to the sedentary lifestyle of driving, watching TV, and using computers and mobile phones. Changing and damaging spinal morphology (including body shape) is a fundamental cause of many diseases. The best prevention is suitable exercise, strengthening the muscles around the bones, maintaining, and restoring the natural spinal shape and posture.

To achieve this goal, golf is the best choice. Golf techniques require a straight back and reduced spinal curvature, making body rotation around the spine smoother. It helps golfers transition from the modern S-shaped spine to a healthy L-shaped spine, improving posture and reducing diseases around the spine. Thus, making golf a lifelong sport not only fosters friendships and maintains a pleasant mood but also keeps numerous diseases at bay—this is the charm of golf. In the U.S., golf is not only popular in business and politics but also in sports and entertainment.

Golf Physical and Technical Training Benefits Health

Specifically, through golf and training, one can consciously recognize bad habits and postures caused by them, adjust basic movement postures, find solutions to problems, improve technical performance, and enhance life quality:

• Solve pain issues: back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, etc.;

• Release habitual tension and learn to face pressure, maintaining physical and mental coordination and balance;

• Correct posture to improve natural breathing, achieving physical and mental pleasure;

• Re-educate movements to restore original coordination and health;

• Improve the coordination of daily and golf movements.

With the rapid development of spinal and posture correction technology in the U.S., more people prefer preventive healthcare, adjusting spinal posture, improving respiratory and nervous system functions, and strengthening physical exercise to maintain a fit body and enhance disease resistance, avoiding medication. This aligns with the principle of preventing illness in traditional Chinese medicine.

Whether in the U.S. or China, being your own health guardian is crucial for overall health. In addition to reasonable diet and body maintenance, ensuring rest and sleep, and quitting smoking and limiting alcohol, one should maintain good posture and appropriate physical exercise, ensuring body flexibility and agility, and smooth nervous system operation, promoting clear thinking and mental balance. Golf not only maintains the natural state of the spine, strengthens the muscles around it, and shapes a beautiful posture, but also allows one to walk in green fields, enjoy sunshine and oxygen, make friends, and maintain long-term happiness and mental balance.