Welcome to the Grip it Girl Wellness Series. Important question: Do you stretch before you play golf? Without proper stretching before your golf round, you fight tight muscles and tendons to get into the correct swing positions. This will affect your range of motion, timing and impact, having a dramatic effect on your golf swing. To avoid this, we strongly recommend stretching before you play or practice golf.
This video provides easy, effective and mobile golf stretches to do before each golf round. Repeat these stretches daily to help stay loose and flexible on and off the golf course.
The biggest movements we make during our golf swing are with our shoulders, hips and back. We will focus on stretching these areas to keep limber and moving properly.
Tights muscles will affect your your mobility and your golf swing. If your hips are tight, getting a full rotation during the swing will be difficult and it can even slow down your movement. This can cause your timing to be off and result in missed hits. The same goes for your shoulders and lower back. Tight muscles will restrict your movement.
These stretches are meant to be performed anywhere, so take them with to the golf course and use them before you play or practice. You will notice a great difference in your mobility and the freeness of your golf swing.
The Stretches Include:
1. FORWARD FOLD – This stretches the lower back. Lean forward from your hips and try to touch your fingers to your toes. This will loosen up your lower back and your neck and shoulders. Start to bend one knee and then the other, focusing on breathing and releasing the lower back.
2.CLASPED HAND SHOULDER STRETCH – This streche focuses on stretching your shoulders. Grab your hands behind your back and lean forward again, continuing to stretch your lower back and now your shoulders. Reach your arms up and over the back side of your body. Hold, just breathe, letting your neck hang effortlessly. Slowly come up, rolling your spine and let your hands stay connected and start to reach towards the floor as your look up and lean slightly back, giving your back a counter stretch while also stretching your abdominal area. Let your head hang freely
3. ANKLE ON OPPOSITE KNEE SQUAT – This stretches the hips, lower back and helps with balance (A key component to the golf swing). Place your right ankle on the left knee and bend the left knee into a squat position. Press down on the left knee for a deeper hip stretch. Hold this position for a few breathes. Really try to release the tension in your hips. We keep a lot of tension and emotional unease in our hips so releasing the hips is often physically and emotionally painful, but once your let go and breathe into that pain, the improvement in your mind and body is amazing. (Switch sides)
4. FLOOR SQUAT – This stretches your hips and lower back. Take this position slowly and try not to lean too far forward as it can put strain on your shoulders, neck and back. Push your knees apart with your elbows and breathe while you stretch out those hips.
5. WRIST EXTENSOR AND FLEXOR- Stretches the wrists, helps prevents tendonitis and improves the wrist range of motion. The wrist are very important to the golf swing so keeping them limber is essential. With the opposite hand, gently fold your hand downward and put light pressure on the back of your hand. Open your hand up and grab the fingers with the opposite hand and lightly pull downwards The pressure is meant to be a very gentle so not to strain your wrists.
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