The weekend is finally here, the weather conditions are perfect, and the tee time you want is available. The opportunity to get to the course for a round of golf is just too good to pass up. You come to the tee box of the first hole and bend down to touch your toes, lean back, twist side to side, take a couple practice swings, and you’re now ready to golf for the next 4 hours. What you don’t realize, is you likely will spend the next few holes trying to actually warm up, because your body isn’t fooled by the movements you just considered a “warm up”. A warm up before playing, if done right, can actually have a positive effect on your immediate performance and decrease the possibility of an injury. Let’s take a look at what an actual warm up looks like.

First things first, to know what good is, you have to know what bad is. Research has shown that performing a static stretch before you play can actually be detrimental to your performance. Static stretching consists of getting to one position and holding it for a period of time such as a ten second count. In addition to static stretching, a warm up that is short in duration has also been shown to be ineffective in the goal of trying to prepare your body for the activity. So if the set of movements in the scenario above sounds very familiar, then you should read on to see how you can change for the better.

Now that you know what a bad warm up is, it’s time to discuss a good one. In a study of 15 elite golfers, it was found that an active dynamic and functional resistance combination for a warm up was proven to have a significant increase in immediate performance. The active dynamic portion is a series of movements designed to increase blood flow and improve function prior to activity and the functional resistance is the addition of a resistance band to these movements. Performance improvement was seen in areas such as distance of the drive and consistency hitting the ball.

You have the good and you have the bad, now here are a few movements to prevent your warm up from being ugly!

● Half-Kneeling Lunge Rotation with Resistance Band - 10 reps each side
With one knee down, put your arms out straight in front of your chest with the resistance band in your hands. Focus on keeping a tall back with shoulders back and down.

Rotate away from the object the resistance band is attached to. When you rotate as far as you can, inhale while trying to expand your core, then exhale and attempt to rotate farther. Come back to neutral then repeat. You can repeat this with the other knee up as well.

● Resisted Standing Rotation - 6-8 reps each side
With the resistance band in your hands as if you were holding your club,start from a

neutral position then go to your follow through position. When you rotate as far as you can go, inhale while trying to expand your core then exhale while trying to rotate farther. You can also do this with your backswing.

● Controlled Wrist Movements - 6-8 reps each side
As a neutral position have the club in your hand perpendicular to your forearm, tall

back, and elbow at 90 degrees and tucked into your side. While keeping the wrist locked, supinate your hand and try to get the club parallel to the floor and the palm side of your hand is facing the ceiling. Bring the club back to neutral then repeat with pronation movement until the club is parallel to the floor and the palm side of your hand is facing the floor. Placing your hand closer or farther from the grip will make this harder or easier respectively.

Additional information related to your swing can be found by clicking on this link below! Don’t forget that Focus On Health has a FREE Virtual Golf Summit this weekend, the link for this can also be found below!