Can you really use golf exercises to improve your game? YES! Many people think that if their game isn’t up to par it is because of poor golf swing mechanics on the course. Most times it is due to muscle weakness and inflexibility in general. Improving these issues can help your golf swing. The best part is they can be worked on off the links.
Golf is a ballistic, one-sided, sport. This means that it requires you to use quick and sudden exertion, only on one side of your body. With use over time, this can cause strain, imbalances and injuries of the muscles of the back.
At the core of your golf game is, well, your core. Simple exercises, performed frequently, will strengthen your back and your core muscles simultaneously. This will help you become stronger and give you more flexibility so you can achieve the perfect swing. Always remember is you feel too much strain or injure yourself, call your doctor immediately.
Seated Rotation Golf Exercise to Improve Your Game:
How to do it: Straddle a bench in a seated position. Hold a club behind your back so it sits in the crook of your elbows. With your shoulders extended backwards, place your hands on your stomach. Turn your torso to the left and hold for two seconds. Return to the starting position, then proceed to the right and hold. Repeat ten times.
Why to do it: Improves rotational mobility in the torso. This is a key component of the golf swing.
Standing Y’s Golf Exercise to Improve Your Game:
How to do it: Stand bent over fully with a golf club held out in front of you with hands out at each end of the club. Raise your arms and pull your shoulder blades back and down with your arms over your head, as you raise your torso from the bent position to form an upright Y. Slowly bend at the hip joint to return to the starting position.
Why to do it: Helps combat the negative impact of sitting on your back and builds shoulder strength.
One-legged Romanian Deadlifts:
How to do it: Sounds intimidating but it’s not really. Stand upright with your hands at your side. Stand as tall as you can with your shoulders back and down. Now raise your arms over your head and lift one foot off the floor. Slowly tip your body forward, keeping your torso straight and lift your raised leg backwards behind you.
Why to do it: Helps to protect your lower back and improve flexibility in your swing.
Torso Rotations with a Club:
How to do it: Stand upright with your arms folded criss-cross in front of your chest and your club interlaced and pinned between arms. With a fluid movement, twist your body from side to side maintaining tension of the core muscles in the front and sides of your body. Repeat ten times.
Why to do it: Improve strength and flexibility in your torso, especially the side muscles called obliques.
Cat and Cow Stretch:
How to do it: Kneel on the floor with your hands out in front of you like a cat. Begin by stretching your mid-back to the sky like a cat and hold for 5 seconds. Then extend your head and rear to the sky, while lowering your mid-back toward the ground to pose like a cow for 5 seconds.
Why to do it: Stretches the muscles of the lower back, core, and hips.
These 5 golf exercises to improve your game in Chapel Hill, NC work to increase strength and flexibility. This inherently can make your swing a better one. Maybe someday we will play the righty on the front nine and the back with our left, but until then let’s keep doing our exercises.
If you need more help to get rid of pain or improve movement to improve your game then you are in the right place. Dr. Cosmas Leigh offers state-of-the art Chiropractic care specifically for the needs of a golf player. If you suffer from chronic neck and back pain, Spinal Decompression might be the treatment that makes the difference for you. It is an advanced therapeutic approach to healing spinal disc injuries and degeneration.
Dr. Cosmas Leigh, D.C. is a Chiropractic Physician at Leigh Brain & Spine is Chapel Hill He is over 20 years of expertise in exercise physiology as it applies to golf. He is an avid golfer and a member of your Golf Club. For more information on how Dr. Leigh can help with golf call 919-401-9933.
Want to learn more exercises. Check out these exercises recommended by the experts at Golf Digest.