Golf Warm Ups- Why Do We Need Them?
Many of us last week will have seen pictures and video of Miguel Angel Jiminez performing what appears to be a rather eccentric pre-round warm up routine. However there are many of us who would benefit greatly from taking a leaf out of Miguel’s book. For a 53 year old, he still manages to get himself in some great positions, this is going to allow him to maximise his swing and stay relatively injury free.
If you are going to give yourself the best chance to make good swings with a good shoulder turn, good weight transfer in your lower body then just turning up jumping out of the car and walking straight to the first tee isn’t going to cut it. A solid warm up should mobilise the joints that we need mobile, get the blood circulating around the body and stimulate the muscles that we need to generate power.
“I couldn’t get my glutes firing“
I can hear some of you now thinking that ‘wow, golf already takes 4 hours (if we’re lucky), and then there’s having a sociable couple of pints with the lads after you’ve played, the Mrs won’t be pleased if I have to get to the club an hour before my tee time to carry out this warm up’. The truth is a warm up doesn’t need to be long and arduous. I’m going to outline a few simple drills that will definitely help you hit the ground running (instead of finding your swing on the back 9) in your next comp. The beer will taste sweeter when you’ve taken the money off the lads and shot below par.
Strech the Lats, Pecs and Hips.
I’m sure that the educated have heard many conflicting arguments for the use or not of static stretching prior to exercise. The arguments against are that by stretching the muscle you are essentially sending signals to the nerve telling it to shut down thus reducing the muscles ability to contract and produce force. With this in mind I ask my athletes to stretch each muscle group for a maximum of 10 seconds before training or performing. This is just enough time to loosen up that particular muscle or joint, try to restore a somewhat neutral posture and as you’ll see later in the warm up we are actively going to try and activate the muscles.
The ankle and foot are often overlooked in both training and practice, but as the body’s closest contact to the ground it is important that they are able to move, as they will affect the whole swing. Poor mobility in the Ankles can affect your posture throughout the swing, it will also affect your ability to transfer weight and maximise power during the swing.
Kossack squats are used to help mobilise the hips in multiple planes. The golf swing requires more than just 1 plane of movement and these will aid the hips and allow you to make a full lower body turn that will help generate the power for the downswing.
Pull downs will help encourage extension in the t-spine (upper back), this is crucial to help achieve a neutral posture which will allow us to rotate the upper back and shoulders maximally. The pull down will also help to activate the musculature that surrounds the shoulder and upper back. This will help to stabilise the shoulder that will allow us to set the club in the correct position and reduce the risk of injury.
Half Kneeling T-Spine Rotations
Having improved our thoracic extension with the pull downs the half kneeling rotation will fix the hips and encourage rotation from the upper back only. This will allow you to separate between the upper and lower body, make a full shoulder turn increasing your X-Factor and X-Factor stretch and maximise club head speed.
Mini Band Glute Activation
The glutes are the powerhouse of the swing. The ability to load and apply force with the hips and glutes during the swing will maximise the distance that we can hit the ball. Sitting in the car, travelling to events and the golf club will cause the hip flexors to become short and tight, this in turn will cause the posture of the pelvis to be altered which will limit the function of the glutes (see Lower Crossed Syndrome). The glutes will create a stable base that you can make a balanced, powerful swing from and generate power and club head speed by rotating the hips during the down swing. Glute activation can also help you avoid injury. In early Feb Tiger withdrew from the Farmers Insurance open citing his ‘glutes not firing’ as the cause of his lower back pain. As minor a problem as this may have sounded there is some logic to his claim. The glutes help to move and stabilise the pelvis. If they are not working properly the body may look to the lower back and erectors for rotation or support that can lead to back pain and spasms.
