Andrea Doddato, a Golf Digest Best Trainer in America, is the Founder of Shape and Sport, located at Brentwood Country Club in Los Angeles, California.
Andrea Doddato on the importance of evolving in golf fitness:
I have been involved with professional golf for over three decades. I had played many sports growing up in upstate New York, however, golf was not one of them. Once I started swinging a golf club, I took to the game quickly and had the chance to caddie at an LPGA event in Corning, New York. Soon after that opportunity, I quit my summer job and started caddying as often as possible. Over the next six years, even through college at Georgia State University, the lessons I learned on both sides of the ropes could not have been attained in any textbook. Having graduated with a journalism degree, I stopped caddying a year or two after college to go to work for the Golf Channel. That lasted one year. Since I had also been a fitness trainer throughout college, I married my love of golf and fitness to start my golf fitness business – Shape & Sport – in Orlando in 2000. With extensive knowledge of general fitness, I attended a biomechanics program to increase my knowledge of how the body affects the golf swing. I learned the reason why many golfers don’t get enough turn in their backswing and how one’s physical capabilities hinder the golf swing that every golfer desires. With some hesitation, the golf instructors of the time started seeing the benefits that I brought to their clients and how we could collaborate for the betterment of their students. It’s become more of a team mentality as golf fitness is now prominent in most player development programs.
Andrea Doddato on the business impact of evolving in golf fitness:
I believe in the biomechanics of the golf swing/body connection and focus on correcting swing flaws through various restorative methods, and I have built my business around my continued education and the success of my students and clients. Today Shape & Sport is based out of Brentwood Country Club in Los Angeles, with my own home studio available for non-Brentwood members to better their health and wellness. I work with our golf instructors to provide the highest level of service to our BCC members, attending their golf lessons and watching swing videos to help golfers improve their mobility, flexibility, power and more. With a diverse client roster, I start each new client with a personal assessment to gauge their mobility system and see where they have strength and stability issues. I also look at their swing and focus on their sequence of movements. This is our starting point. Mobility issues are often interrelated with their movement patterns. We seek to get them more mobile and stronger to improve those vital movement patterns. At the end of the day, what we work on comes down to what the golfer brings to the table at the outset. I use Sportsbox AI for 3D motion analysis and know enough about movement patterns and the sequencing of the golf swing to understand what my golfers are doing wrong and can tie those deficiencies to issues within their body and its capabilities, or lack thereof. In fact, golfers send me videos of their golf swing, asking for feedback on what they’re doing wrong and how it relates to their body. As a result, I tell them what mobility issues I want them to work on and prescribe specific exercises that improve their strength and mobility.
If you would like to email the author of this Best Practice directly, please email andrea@shapeandsport.com.
