The athletic, correct golf swing is as physically demanding as many movements found throughout sports. It is a total body movement that requires flexibility, mobility, and stability in a wide range of joints. Utilizing the ground for a powerful hip extension through the shot along with pulling left and delaying release of the clubhead puts a great amount of strain on the body. That is the swing most of us are searching for on here.
Along with the strain, the vast amounts of repetition needed to forge a great swing and maintain your abilities can lead to our joints and soft tissue dealing with chronic stressful contractions and extensions. Also, if golf is our only real form of exercise, and you do not swing as many times left handed as right handed, you will be consistently training one side of the body differently than the other. This leads to tightness and weakness in muscles, soft tissue and at joints because of the fact that muscles are constantly working together, and against each other, to produce movement.
I feel this thread can be where we share our injuries, experiences, and link exercises so that we can make our swings more effective and lives more enjoyable.
I think forearm and shoulder stretching and prehab should be par for the course, especially moving from a swinging to a hitting type of golf.
Stretching and strengthening of our muscles is also imperative for protecting our bodies in the long run and maximizing our quality of play throughout our lives.
Should be a good thread. I have nothing to add though.
I am lucky and young for now. I can jump out of the car and play with no problems.
As far as golf exercises I play other sports to keep active and hit Lots of shots to maintain golf form. Is working so far for me. With that being said I am interested to see input as well from those with more insight on rehab and injury prevention. One good common sense rule is to swing within yourself to avoid unnecessary strain
I have recently collaborated with personal trainer Stephanie Epstein to produce a Fitness Strength & Flexibility program designed around The Advanced ball Striking Module Series.
This is a great addition for the person who wants to farther enhance the muscles used in the golf swing.
Many of us workout however we do it without much direction. This program contains strength and flexibility exercises designed to enhance the work of each module and will be a great addition to your regular drill work.
Even students on the early modules can utilize the workout exercises to enhance the muscles they are not only using in the early module work but also for what is to come later down the journey.
Here is an attached video with a brief outline of what the program consists of:
To sign up for the Strength & Flexibility program payments can be made via the following link… paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/websc … 9be0164db1
(dont think link works but you can find it under online lessons tab on my website www.bradleyhughesgolf.com)
The cost is US$125
The program consists of FIVE individual videos which relate to Module 1 Module 2 Module 3 Module 5 & Module 6. Each module also has a PDF worksheet explaining the exercises and these also act as a cheat sheet you can use when first incorporating the exercises into your workout or until you become accustomed to them and can do them from memory.
I trust those who undertake the program will really find the exercises beneficial to strengthening and building range into the muscles that we are working hard on activating via the Advanced Ball Striking Program.
I’ve added farmer’s walks into my regimen. Really good for shoulders and forearms which I feel are really important to be strong if you’re moving towards a hitting to left field vs swinging to right field type of golf swing.
I’ve been doing them one-armed, using a 5 gallon water jug for resistance. Really good for strengthening your “core” this way, trying to stabilize instead of flex like crunches.
The water jug adds extra difficulty in stabilizing because the water will slosh back and forth.
I’m gonna pledge to do most of the stretches and exercises on the links I listed and report in on how it affects my body and golf game. Over the past months I’ve been very eager on making big changes in my golf swing and doing many repetitions, golf shots, static holds, weighted swings, etc. to train in the new feel.
Because I’m a lazy bum and the only exercise I get is golf, it’s led to some imbalances and tightness in my left shoulder and left forearm and wrist. I’ve been having tightness and soreness after practicing (due to the orbit pull and left side crunch) but I started rehabbing regularly and lowering my practice load for a month or so now.
The pain is mostly gone, and the tightness I would experience isn’t as prevalent but I’m taking a proactive approach and continuing rehab, looking to strengthen my forearms, shoulders, and back so I can prevent injuries in the future. I will update.
Update: My shoulders and forearms no longer give me pain, I’m continuing to strengthen them. They’re starting to take on some shape due to the exercise. I think it’s already shown up in my game, yesterday I went out and played nine holes. I hadn’t played the particular holes since before I started working out several weeks ago.
On many approach shots I had gained a club of distance and several drives I was farther than I could ever remember being.
I’m turning my focus to include my legs, and ankles.
Interesting thread golfingplease, I too have had my injury challenges since starting the program 15 months ago. Golf for me too is my only form of exercise, when I started the program I had some issue with my tendons in my knees and groin area, thankfully this went away without any treatment. I just don’t think my body was ready at the beginning for the repetitive forces I placed on it.
Recently I’ve had some re-occuring pain down the left side of my left wrist. When researching this injury I found out that lot’s of wrist injury’s are actually the result of an imbalance elsewhere. Sure enough I found my forearm muscles in my left arm were very tense and knotted and also I’d lost some flexibility in my left wrist. Since then I been self massaging the forearm muscles and doing isometric exercises followed by stretches on the wrists. This has provided me a lot of relief and I feel I’ve got the issue under control although it’s still not 100%. If anybody’s interested here’s a youtube video of what I found to be beneficial - youtube.com/watch?v=O53cpZV0MqA
Good job man this is exactly the type of experience that this thread is about. Truth is, without some supplementary strengthening and stretching activities it is very easy to have muscle tightness/weakness imbalances. The problems brought about by these are chronic so you don’t even know it’s been bad until weeks or months down the line when you get inflammation and then it’s a slow road back. The earlier we all address these issues the better for our golf game and the information is freely available online. Often you can just put “knee rehab .pdf” in google and get good stuff. Obviously if it’s bad and affecting you all the time you should head to the doctor, but usually we can address these things ourselves if we’re proactive.