Golf Tips from your Chiropractor

Spring is right around the corner and that means millions of Americans are about to be back on the courses in droves.  If you are a regular golfer, you know about a lot of the common ailments that can keep you from enjoying the game.  Here at Omnis Rehab Joint and Performance Center, we want to make sure you stay your healthiest so you can thrive in your golf game!  Here are some tips that may help you stay healthy as you get back into the swing of things.

Warm Up Properly

Golf may be a low impact sport, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t properly warm up.  Doing some simple mobility can help reduce your risk of injury, and increase blood flow promoting better play.  Here are some of our recommendations for warmup movements.

• Get your heart rate up for a few minutes with a brisk walk or some jumping jacks
• Do some arm circles rotating five big circles forward, then five backwards
• Mobilize wrists and hands.  Circle hands in similar way you did your arm circles, five clockwise, then five counter clockwise to active grip and wrist mobility
• Activate hamstrings.  Stand in your regular stance with soft knees.  Perform slight hinge (bend) at hips until you feel a stretch, or tension in your hamstrings.  Once you feel stretch, stand up returning hips to neutral position, repeat 6-8 times.
• Perform trunk rotations.  Hold golf club behind the neck or overhead and rotate torso slowly. As you warm up, range of motion should become less limited.  Hold positions for 20-30 seconds to maximize.

Strengthen Positions

As with any sport, strength training is important.  Strong muscles are less susceptible to injury and help protect your joints and musculature.  A tight core is a key component in keeping your back and spine healthy, as well as making your golf swing powerful and most productive.  These core strength exercises are recommended no matter what type or sports or activities you enjoy.  Your Little Rock chiropractor can help guide you on the areas that may need strengthening depending on your current physical limitations or ailments.

Learn Proper Form

No matter your golf skill, we can all benefit from learning better technique from a golf professional.  If you commonly have pain after playing or swinging your clubs, you may need to have your swing accessed by a professional to see if you have a form breakdown.  A productive golf swing incorporates significant torque and torsion throughout the movement.  With a proper swing, both your hips and back are rotating in a cohesive and smooth movement producing the proper force, while maintaining a neutral and healthy spine.  When there is a breakdown in form, injuries and pain can happen.

It is worth mentioning that you need to make sure you are properly lifting and carrying your golf bag.  Our golf bags can be quite heavy loaded down with all the equipment needed to play our best games.  If you prefer to carry your bag from hole to hole, make sure you are using a bag equipped with backpack style straps to limit shoulder and back stress.

Regular Maintenance

At Omnis Rehab Joint and Performance Center, we want our patients to feel their best.  We develop individualized treatment plans that offer patients the techniques and corrective movements and exercises to manage their health over time.  Our goals as Little Rock chiropractors are to give our patients the confidence and tools to manage their own success while using our services for support as needed.

If you want more information on chiropractic care for the athlete, check out this blog post talking about our approach with Chiropractic care and your athletic endeavors.