Mobility In The Golfer
While one size fits all programs rarely work, when looking at the golf swing and talking mobility there are a few common sticking points we see.
The first is the back hips ability to turn in. This is paramount in the back swing because it allows us more rotation which gives us more time in the downswing. Increased time allows us to generate more speed and more force. To test if you have a restriction in that hip, sit in a chair that allows your feet to be flat on the floor. Set your feet hip width apart. Then place a golf club in the middle between your feet pointing away from you. Now, while keeping your heels planted, turn your trail foot in towards the club. If you cannot touch the club with your toe, you most likely have a mobility issue in your hip. Now the question becomes what to do about it. When most people think of stretching or mobilizing their hip, they think of positions like the butterfly stretch. While this is a fantastic stretch, it does not mobilize the hip in the direction we need. For this type of restriction, we need to spend time in positions like a 90/90 shin box. This allows us to stretch into what is called internal rotation. An ideal stretching protocol has the athlete holding the position at a 4/10 stretch for at least 30 seconds for a total of 5 minutes per week. These times are minimums, you can spend more time in the position.
The next most common restriction we see in the golfer is a mid back rotation restriction. If we cannot rotate through the mid back in our golf swing, we start creating all kinds of weird torques trying to get around our restriction. To test if you have a mid back rotation restriction, sit with your feet flat on the floor, thighs parallel to the floor and your knees together. From there, put a golf club across the front of your shoulders. From there, keeping your knees together, rotate as far as you can to your right. You should be able to go at least 45 degrees. Then return to the center and repeat on your left side. If you cannot go at least 45 degrees each direction, you have a restriction in that direction. You then should look to start including some mobility drills that work on that rotation.
Yes, some of you physio purists know there is a degree of variation in if a motion restriction is truly a mobility issue or a motor control issue. The best way to figure that out is go see a professional, for sake of keeping this concise and easy to understand, I am not going to go over that here.
If you fail either of these two tests, and start doing something to improve it, you will be in a better spot regardless of exactly what type of restriction you have.
