Improve Your Flexibility

Golf takes a tremendous amount of range of motion. If you lack shoulder turn and hip mobility, you will create bad movement, low back pain and an inconsistent golf swing. If you take the time to foam roll, stretch and work on mobility, you will see a difference in the way you move and swing the club.

Better Posture

When you golf, a good set-up starts the swing. And if you have poor posture, you will have a bad starting position, causing bad mechanics during the swing, and it could create lower back issues. To regain and work on posture, focus on strengthening the small stabilizers of the shoulders, core and hips. This will create a stable and balanced body and will give you the appropriate functional strength to maintain good posture throughout the golf swing.

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Get Your Body Ready for Golf to Lower Your Scores

The good news is skin cancer is the most curable form of cancer and is also the most preventable form of cancer. The most important thing to know is early detection saves lives and most skin cancer can be prevented by protecting your skin from the sun!

Introducing the The Sun SafeTee Program, which provides sun protection education and skin cancer awareness programs specifically for the golf community. The Sun SafeTee Program was started by Mark Wishner, an avid golfer, who himself had skin cancer. He noticed that there was a lack of resources available to golfers about the dangerous effects of the sun. Mark now devotes his time to educating the golf community on the importance of protecting themselves from the sun’s UV rays.

Since golf is a sport that is not only played outdoors, but often played during the peak of sun intensity, a disproportionate number of golfers are susceptible to sun damage and potentially to skin cancer. Clearly there is a need to provide sun protection education, skin cancer screening services and sunsfe products to the golf community.

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How to Protect Yourself from Skin Cancer on the Golf Course

“The most common golf-related injuries we see involve the knees, back and shoulders,” says Dr. Michael MacKay, sports medicine physician at Legacy Sport Medicine. MacKay says golf-related knee injuries occur as a result of the constant pivoting, twisting and even walking during a round of golf, movements that can irritate or possibly tear worn cartilage.

MacKay says injuries often occur when the casual golfer turns more serious about the game and decides to go full out. “Those are the ones more prone to developing injuries because they are not prepared for that level of activity,” he says. “If you’re going into a golf season and haven’t done anything all winter, prepare yourself through cardio-vascular, strength and flexibility exercises. “If people do good things in preparation, or catch the problem early, then the chance of long-term problems or big problems is low.”

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Who Says Golf Isn’t a Contact Sport?

For most golfers, the three most common injury sites on their body are the lower back, the elbow and the wrist. Together these three sites account for approximately 80% of all injuries sustained by golfers. With more than 50% of recreational golfers experiencing a golf-related injury, it is important that proper treatment occur early on, so that permanent damage does not happen. However, a little prevention can reduce the likelihood of injury in the first place.

There are two major categories of injury. The first is termed acute and is the result of a specific event, such as striking a tree root or a deep divot during your swing, resulting in a jolt to the wrist or another joint.

The more common form of injury is chronic. Chronic injuries occur over time and often result from muscle, tendon and ligament fatigue. This kind of fatigue occurs when overall conditioning wanes or simply from tiring during a round. Due to the dynamic and repetitive nature of the swing, a part of the body can be pulled, strained or inflamed. Of course, these often painful conditions are aggravated by swing flaws that help overstress or force the body into awkward positions.

The older a golfer becomes, the more important preventative steps are. For once a condition becomes chronic, the more difficult to bring an individual back to feeling comfortable. We want them back on the course enjoying themselves – not nursing nagging pains or doing more damage. According to Dr. Wendy Weisflog, D.C., C.C.S.P., owner of Arizona Sports & Rehabilitation Center in Scottsdale, Arizona, “the most common ailment our golfing clients experience is pain in the lower back. Close behind the lower back are elbow problems.”

Prevention is always recommended. Sean M. Cochran, one of the most recognized golf fitness instructors in the world says, “Golf strength is developing the body in a manner that creates a foundation to support your swing. And when we talk about foundation, we’re talking about the areas of: flexibility, balance, strength, endurance, and power in a manner that it assists you in maintaining the correct swing mechanics swing to swing.”

A carefully designed fitness program can go far in reducing the chance or recurrence of golf-related injury. For example, Dr. Weisflog at Arizona Sports & Rehabilitation Center creates an individualized plan using a combination of exercise, stretching, ultrasounds, electric stimulation, and active release techniques. According to Dr. Weisflog, “The older a golfer becomes, the more important preventative steps are. For once a condition becomes chronic, the more difficult to bring an individual back to feeling comfortable. We want them back on the course enjoying themselves – not nursing nagging pains or doing more damage.”

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How to Prevent Most Chronic Golf Injuries

One of the major components of many successful golf exercise programs is Yoga. During winter months, golfers can still work on their game so they can bring a smooth swing to the course once the snow melts.

Even during the golf season, if you’re looking to build power and flexibility in your golf swing, sign up for a yoga class. Yoga will help you maintain flexibility in your core and shoulders, so you can make a full backswing and follow the proper movement on your downswing. Yoga will also help you build strength in the proper areas of your body to gain the extra yardage we all seek.

“A few simple exercises and activities over the winter can really prepare you for the next golf season and shorten the time needed to find your game,” says Barry Wallis, Callaway Golf Canada on-staff professional.

According to Wallis, most of the force and momentum in a swing is generated from the lower body and to develop a strong lower body it is important to use squats and lunges. Tricep dips will also build strength in the triceps and shoulders. “Squeezing a tennis ball will build strength in your forearms and wrists, you can also go to the garage and take your club back to the top of your backswing and hold it for 30 seconds – make sure you feel a slight stretch across your back.” Wallis adds.

Wallis also recommends practicing your golf swing in front of a mirror, watching for proper form, and putting on the carpet to keep the tempo of your stroke and the feel of bringing the putter face back on line (not worrying about the speed of the ball).

According to Trish Stratus of Stratusphere Yoga, who also happens to be a golf student of Wallis, “the physical benefits of yoga will definitely aid your golf game, but perhaps an even greater advantage will be the mental benefits.” Meditation techniques used during a yoga practice provide golfers with the tools to help develop the mental discipline that golf demands.

Being aware of your breath helps to quiet the mind and cultivates focus. As your mind calms down, your breathing settles down, and your body relaxes which puts the body’s natural state into one of relaxed alertness – an ideal state in which to approach a game of golf. Next time you step up to the tee, try to take a few moments to be still and just breathe.

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Improve Your Flexibility, Strength and Golf Handicap with Yoga

The golf swing itself is a complex, coordinated movement that at the moment of impact applies compressive forces approximately eight times one’s body weight. The most common sites for injury among amateur men are the low back (36%), elbows (32.5%), hands and wrists (21.2%) and shoulders (11%). Amateur women golfers have the greatest occurrence of injuries in the elbows (35.5%), followed by the low back (27.4%), shoulders (16.1%) and hands and wrists (14.5%).

To improve in golf, players need a golf training program that will produce the greatest results in the most efficient amount of time. With its focus on core strength, flexibility, stability and balance, Pilates is a great tool for conditioning your clients who play golf. This mind-body modality can improve a player’s golf swing and help prevent the types of injuries that plague both amateurs and professional golfers alike.

Golfers can use Pilates to not only avoid injury, but to improve their strength and distance. A Pilates conditioning program that assesses performance, lengthens tight muscles, decreases multijoint tightness and strengthens weaker muscles for power on impact will advance the game, prevent injury and improve general fitness.

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Turn to Pilates for an Edge on the Golf Course

One option is to check out a Titleist Performance Institute-certified golf fitness instructor, who may have you perform a TPI golf fitness test. Through a series of about a dozen or so simple exercises, the TPI test measures flexibility, posture, strength and balance in an attempt to identify physical limitations that can hamper a golfer.

The test does not exist to dash dreams of golfers itching to improve. Rather, it serves as a guide to design a workout program to help strengthen problem areas. The TPI test is similar to what many professional golfers might take to help spot their own problem areas.

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It’s Time to Take Your Golf Fitness Test

As most of us who are experiencing winter are forced to realize, watching golf on TV is a poor substitute for playing the game. Despite how much we dream about hitting the same shot over the ocean at Pebble Beach that Phil is faced with, golf is not only played in the mind. Sooner or later, spring will arrive and we’ll need to sync our golf minds and actual golf body.

The problem is, without a consistent fitness routine, it’s easy for our bodies to lose the physical components such as flexibility, strength, and stability that play a huge role in the execution of a biomechanically efficient golf swing.

Research of the golf swing supports the body-swing connection, which states the following: in order to execute a biomechanically efficient golf swing, certain levels of flexibility, mobility, stability, strength, and power are required of the body. If the body is lacking in any one or a number of the physical components required of the golf swing, the ability to execute an efficient golf swing will be impeded.

Unfortunately, golf swing fundamentals are easily lost over the course of a 5-6 month winter. In addition, much of what our body learned in terms of flexibility, mobility and stability will evaporate as well if not maintained.

The reality for many amateur golfers is that a “disconnect” exists relative to the body-swing connection, where physical parameters such as flexibility or stability are lacking thus creating a situation where the ability to execute a biomechanically efficient swing will not occur. Regardless of how much time and effort is spent practicing and on instruction, if the physical parameters required to execute the golf swing are absent, the ability to execute the golf swing will be impeded.

Unfortunately, in such situations where physical dysfunctions are impeding one’s ability to execute the golf swing, the development of swing faults occur. A primary example of a swing fault associated with physical limitations is an “over the top” move during the down swing. Research points to a lack of mobility in the hips and core stability as key physical components causing this type of compensation within the execution of the golf swing.

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Easy Golf Fitness Steps to Build a Better Golf Swing

How do PGA Tour professionals prepare for the new season? Many take advantage of the exclusive facilities available to them at The Titleist Performance Institute. Players under contract to Titleist get their equipment fitted here at no cost. The company also does much of its club and ball testing at the facility. But the most intriguing work carried out at TPI involves the golf swing, in particular research into the negative cascading effect that physical limitations and dysfunctions, even seemingly trivial ones like a stiff ankle, can have on a player’s ability to hit the ball efficiently. For average golfers with major issues, the staff can propose workarounds or pinpoint physical therapy regimens that, with time and discipline, can correct the flaws.

“A lot of the old guard still blame equipment for the increased distance on Tour, but so much more of it is the quality of the athletes,” Mr. Faxon said. “You don’t have to work out to play on Tour, but if you don’t, you get passed, because you’re not strong enough. And the stuff we do these days is all full-body, functional movement. Nobody’s doing bench presses any more, that’s for sure.”

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How Some PGA Professionals Prepare for the New Season

Golf Fitness expert Katherine Roberts shows how to add distance to your golf swing by creating mobility and strength in your hips and lower back.

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The Secret Exercise to Add Distance to Your Drives