Why Stretch for Golf

Add power to your swing and distance to your drives!

The key to good golf is consistency.

Every golfer has tried to reproduce that perfect swing and wondered why they just can’t do it. We’ve had pro’s tell us where everything should go but struggled to reproduce it with any kind of success. This is due partly to co-ordination, and our ability to move through that particular motion easily.

As with any structure, our body is designed in a specific way in order to provide optimal function. All of the joints in your body articulate due to the forces placed on them by surrounding muscles. If these muscles are short/tight, then the range of movement (ROM) of that joint will be inhibited, thus ‘pulling’ the joint out of its ideal position. This will change how that joint moves reducing the smoothness of the movement. In golf terms this means a less natural swing and an increased difficulty in reproducing the same swing any number of times.

By stretching these muscles, you will be helping to lengthen the shortened muscle and therefore restore the desired ROM required for optimal golfing performance. The joint will sit and move as it is supposed to and reproduction of a specific movement will be far easier.

In playing golf with a lack of flexibility in one area, you will need to compensate for this in another area – this leads to inconsistent swings and can be the cause of many common golf problems including poor swing timing, hooks, slices, driving straight etc… The more you compensate, the more inconsistent your swing will be.

As you know, the golf swing should be relaxed and not forced, so the more muscles you recruit forcefully, the less graceful the movement will be. With muscles out of balance there will always be some muscles working harder than they should be, and others working less than they should be, this causes the body to tighten up causing the aforementioned problems. This is also the cause of many common golfing injuries.

How many times have you been told to change your grip, change the way you address the ball, or tried using different clubs? All with no success!

Often players go to a golf professional in order to correct a swing fault, however, if this is due to an underlying biomechanical fault, the instructor will only be able to provide yet another way to compensate for this – meaning that the fault is unlikely to be fixed in the long term. As you can see, this is unlikely to solve any problems and will put yet more muscles under extra, unnecessary stress.

Golfers are much more likely to benefit from golf lessons if their body is functioning correctly.

By identifying these short or tight muscles, you can apply simple stretching techniques to “loosen” them off. This will help to restore the balance of a joint and return it to its natural movement patterns creating smoother, less jerky movements. With this proper functionality in all of the joints throughout the body, many, if not all of the extra stresses through the body will be greatly reduced producing a more relaxed and reproducible swing.

This will also help reduce the risk of injury as muscles aren’t being forced to create unnatural movements, so strains and tears are less likely. Joints will be going through their intended movements without being “pulled” out of the sockets, meaning ligaments are put under les stress, and joint aches and pains may be a thing of the past.

Though there are some general stretches that may be applied to the majority of golfers, particularly the ‘weekend warriors’, this is a very personal process as everybody is different. To get the most from your golf, find a good fitness professional and ask them to spend some time assessing your flexibility through all joints and give you a stretching routine to carry out as often as possible (the more you do it, the quicker the problems may be fixed).

This may seem like an unconventional way to improve your golf, but it is the way the game is headed with all the tour golfers going through exactly the same processes. It is well worth the small outlay and will come back to you ten-fold in health and golfing benefits.

Thankyou for reading and I hope this article has been of some help to you.

To your golfing success,

Mark Broadbent
Dip. PT, Dip. IIST, KCA