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Winter Series: Mobility

Firstly Happy New Year to all of you. I hope that you all enjoyed the festive season and with the New Year in full swing have found renewed vigour to prepare for the 2017 season.

This article is going to give some ideas on how best prepare your body for training or playing. The previous articles (Flexibility Part II) & (Part I) outlined the initial soft tissue preparation, today we are going to discuss how to mobilise the specific joints, in order for us to move and swing most efficiently.

Simply put, the body is made up of mobile and stable joints. The diagram below highlights the major joints that are used in our training and practice. 

“The body will seek the easiest method of movement, and this is often not the best.”

If joints intended to be mobile are stiff and have reduced mobility the body will seek the easiest possible alternative which is not necessarily intended to move that way. For example if the hips become stiff then the body may look to the lumbar spine or knee for rotation. Neither of which are intended to perform that degree of rotation. This may ultimately result in lower back or knee pain, which is very common for golfers of all ages and abilities.

The video below gives a comprehensive full body mobility warm up. Targeting ankle, hips and thoracic spine to improve mobility and function of these joints.

Thanks for reading, please Share, RT and like. Stay tuned for the next article in this series.

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WINTER SERIES: CABLE FACE PULL w/EXTERNAL ROTATION

This is the second post as part of the winter series. With Xmas and the New Year behind us it is time to turn our focus to the season which is fast approaching. This exercise will have numerous benefits to your golf swing and assist all your other lifts.

This will primarily train the upper and mid traps along with the lats and rhomboids. All will help with posture at address and are active during both the backswing keeping the club on plane and the downswing releasing the club into the impact area.

Cable Face Pull w/External Rotation from Tom Bullough on Vimeo.

Coaching Points:

Keep your feet shoulder width apart and your glutes squeezed tight, don't allow your lower back to arc.

Stick your chest out as far as you can, pull the rope towards your face, keeping your elbows level with your shoulders.

As you return the rope back to the stack don’t allow your shoulders to roll in- keep your chest pushed out.

Include this as a supplemental exercise into you sessions and you will notice the difference in your posture, and consistency of strike.

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WARM UPS PART III

MUSCLE ACTIVATION

This is the final article in the series of Warm Ups. Today we’re going to discuss the third stage of the warm up and its importance in preparing the body before the main session starts.

Having improved the quality and length of the muscles and connective tissue, we then mobilised the appropriate joints and to finish we are going to activate the surrounding musculature that will encourage the appropriate movement in the joints, and firing of the required muscles.

The two videos below show example activation exercises for muscles surrounding the shoulder blades (scapula), and the gluteals that will stabilise the hip and knee.

The exercises below will "wake up' the muscles that we intend to use during the training session.

Hope that you find them beneficial the next time your in the gym.

MINI BAND ACTIVATION from Tom Bullough on Vimeo.

Plate Shoulder Series from Tom Bullough on Vimeo.

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WARM UPS PART II

MOBILITY

In Warm Ups Part I I discussed how to improve the quality and length of the muscle tissue. This article will discuss what to do next.

During this part of the warm up we will carry out joint and tissue mobilisations. This generally focuses on the major movers in the body: ankles, hips, t-spine and shoulder joints.

As discussed previously a lack of mobility in the joints can lead to dysfunctional movement, which in turn can lead to muscle imbalances and eventually postural defects, pain and injury. 

It is important to carry out all mobs without compromising neutral posture. This will only lead to a false range of motion (ROM) and possibly increased movement in the wrong joints/muscles. I often see athletes and trainers compromising a neutral pelvis during a straight leg raise allowing them to achieve a greater ROM. However this does not mean that the hamstring and hip is actually being mobilized rather the pelvis is posteriorly tilted and an extra 200 of movement artificially created.

Leg raise from Tom Bullough on Vimeo.

It is also important to try and mobilize the joint/muscle in all of their planes of movement. A hip does not only flex and extend but also abduct and adduct and rotate through 3600. Therefore in order to fully mobilize the joint and all the surrounding musculature a straight leg raise will not be able to cater for all the required movements.

During the golf swing the hip requires flexion, extension, internal and external rotation therefore all planes of movement need to be addressed to fully mobilise the hip to maximise rotation during the swing.

Example Hip Warm Up:

Hurdle Step Overs

Hurdle Unders

Kossack Squat

HipMobilitySeries from Tom Bullough on Vimeo.

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WARM UPS PART I

In the last article I discussed why we need to maintain the flexibility in the muscles and joints, but how do we go about this? This is an area that many athletes and gym goers tend to overlook or continue to persevere with outdated techniques such as a quick jog on the treadmill or 1000m on the rowing machine.

I split the warm up into 3 parts:

Improving tissue quality

Mobilisation of the muscles and joints.

Activation of the muscles.

This article is going to look at how we can improve tissue quality. Unless you are fortunate enough to have a personal masseur then we need to find an alternative to improve the quality of our muscle tissue.

Firstly, a quick look at the aims of what we are trying to achieve. 

The image above shows how the muscle tissue is composed from many layers of individual fibers running parallel to each other. Due to training, daily activities, inactivity etc these fibers can become tangled, short, tight, and have restricted blood flow. With the use of self myofascial release (SMR) we can realign the fibers, increase blood flow, and increase the length of the tissue.

SELF MYOFASCIAL RELEASE (poor mans massage)

Using a foam roller, rounders ball or massage stick roll along the length of the muscle fibre from bottom to top for 10-15 passes. The video below shows how to roll the major muscle groups as part of a comprehensive full body warm up.

STRETCHING

Once the muscle fibres and surrounding fascia have been realigned it is time to increases the length of the muscle by static stretching. It is important to note that we always stretch AFTER we have foam rolled. If you stretch a knotted muscle that knot will become tighter, shorter and much harder to remove. You will also have a negative affect on the function of that muscle. The video below shows a full body stretching routine to carry out as part of your warm up.

Self Myofascial Release from Tom Bullough on Vimeo.

Full Body Stretch from Tom Bullough on Vimeo.

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MOBILITY V STABILITY

The joints in the body can be roughly categorized into stable and mobile, based on their role and function in the body. For efficient, pain free movement it is therefore crucial that we know which joints fit into which roles. The diagram below gives a brief overview of the major joints in the body.

A lack of mobility in the ankle can have a direct impact on the knee, hip and back. This would mean an issue in the ankle can reverberate up the chain and cause issues elsewhere.

If we take the hips as an example they are a very mobile due to the ball and socket. If the musculature surrounding the hips becomes too tight and the hips loose their range of motion (ROM) the body will look further up the chain for movement. In this case that would be the lumbar spine. The problem being that the lumbar spine has a very small ROM (2-40 rotation). Repeated movement in the lumbar spine will result in micro trauma, and eventually pain and inflammation. 

The muscles and ligaments surrounding the joints have a direct impact on the mobility of the joint and therefore should be addressed prior to your training sessions as part of your warm up. This can be achieved by improving the tissue quality with the use of myofascial release techniques.

Your training sessions should also be designed to train the musculature surrounding the stable joints in order to help stiffen them and reduce the risk of any unwanted movement.

The next article will discuss some self myofascial techniques and how to structure you warm ups so best to prepare your body for training and competition.

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WELCOME!

Firstly I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome you to tombullough.co.uk. I hope that you will find this resource useful and give you an insight into my views and methods for developing athleticism through Strength & Conditioning.There will be numerous articles and videos on training methods from warming up, mobility, flexibility, strength training and many more to compliment your current training programme. There will also be guest articles on specific areas within the vast field of Strength & Conditioning. These will give you the insight into other trainer’s views on training and some alternative training methodologies. There is also a designated golf section for professionals and amateurs alike that will give you specific training advice in order to aid and improve your golf game, from training in the gym to warming up on the range and essential nutrition advice. There is a contact section where you can send me any questions, queries, ideas for future articles or areas of interest. Feel free to drop me an email and I will get back to you.