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Do You Play or do You Survive Golf?
By
Marlon Familton, CSCS
CHEK Certified Golf Biomechanic
How long does
it take you to recover from a round of golf? Are you stiff and
sore the next morning after playing? Do you suffer from any
back pain or perhaps sore wrists and elbows? If any of this
sounds familiar then let me explain why you're probably sore or
injured and how you can solve these problems and play rather
than just survive golf.
Golf is
rotation and rotation requires flexibility; defined as a normal
range of motion through all the joints in the body. If one
joint is not fully able to move through its normal range, then
somewhere in your body another joint must over compensate, or
work beyond its normal range.
A quick
example of this is a golfer with tight hip rotators. A
restriction in internal or external hip rotation will force
excess demands to be placed on the low back or through the
shoulders. If these areas are unable to compensate because
they're tight, the wrists and elbows end up swinging the club
and suffering from over use injuries. Did you know the most
common injury to women golfers is in the wrists and elbows?
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| Curved
back=limited rotation |
Straight back=full
coil |
Let me
demonstrate how poor posture will place joints in an end range
of motion prior to any movement and how that restricted range of
motion will hamper your game and cause soreness or injury. Sit
down, put your arms across your shoulders and slouch forward
including your head. Now try to rotate and notice how far you
are able to go and how your body feels, (figure 1). Now sit up
straight, pull your head into alignment and repeat the rotation
(figure 2). See how much further you were able to rotate? Do
you also notice how much more comfortable the movement is
through your back?
Even
recreational players generate up to ninety percent of their
maximum muscle power! Do this thirty of forty times during a
round and you can imagine the all the soft tissue trauma that
occurs to the connective tissue surrounding joints as they're
slammed together during the explosive golf swing. What does
your body do to protect a traumatized joint? It tightens the
surrounding muscles to prevent further use; hence you become
sore. Too much trauma leads to injury.
There is
something you can do to protect your body and improve your game
and it is not strength training. The first priority in
conditioning your body to play better golf is restoring
flexibility. Your joints must be capable of moving through their
full range of motion. Check with a certified personal trainer
and see if they're familiar with how to asses all the areas of
your body required for playing golf. Chek Certified Golf
Biomechanics are specifically trained in this assessment. You
can also read how to perform this yourself in Paul Chek's "Golf
Biomechanic's Manual" available on my golf web site in the
products section.
Once you
determine where you are unable to move through a normal range,
you'll want to apply corrective stretching only to the areas
that are tight. Avoid generalized or full body stretching since
it will merely maintain any muscle imbalances. Follow this tip
and you'll be on your way playing rather than just surviving
golf.
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