Have you considering incorporating yoga into your life to help with your golf game? If not, you may want to consider this ancient practice, which originated over five thousand years ago in India.
Most golfers are more than willing to spend whatever it takes for the latest Callaway or TaylorMade driver. However, they often neglect the body that is responsible for swinging that driver in a repetitive motion hundreds of times per round.
Recent research has found that Yoga can counteract golf’s one-sided repetitive motion, which can have a negative impact on the back and joints. Could this ancient art form be right for you? It seems as though the popularity of yoga among PGA professionals is reaching new heights.
Over the past decade, golf professionals such as David Duval, Annika Sorenstam, Brad Faxon, Gary McCord and Gary Player have been avid yoga practioners. Ken Green, a former bad boy of the GPA says yoga has helped him “kill the demons” so he could regain his tour card.
Golfers’ back pain can result in some golfers giving up the game all together. Vijay Vad, MD, Hospital for Special Surgery, New York developed a program randomly adding Yoga practice to his patients on medication for back pain. After six months about 80% of the patients practicing yoga experienced a decrease in back pain compared to 44% reduction for patients on medication only. Fifty-six percent (56%) of the patients on medication experienced another acute episode of their injury while only twelve percent (12%) of patients using yoga experienced a reoccurrence.
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