Improving Your Golf Swing with Physical Therapy
Summer is peak season for both the amateur and professional golfer involving hours spent on the golf course. The golf swing is one of the most dynamic motions in sports, placing an immense amount of stress on the body. If the body is not properly prepared for the golf season, a golfer may engage in faulty swing mechanics, resulting in injury and lowered performance. A physical therapist can help you improve both the consistency and power of your golf swing and address any strength, balance, or biomechanical issues that are negatively impacting your golf swing.
Anatomy of the Golf Swing
The golf swing is a complex, multidimensional dynamic movement that requires focus, strength, flexibility, and many body parts to work in tandem. The golf swing involves a kinetic chain that is initiated with the movement of the legs and hips followed by the trunk and shoulders and finally, the hands and wrists. During the golf swing, the muscles of the lower, mid-section, and upper body are rapidly stretched in the backswing prior to shortening during the downswing. Power is generated during the transition stage when weight is transferred from the back foot in the backswing to the front foot during the downswing. The downswing is initiated by the lower body and pelvis, while the upper body and club continue rotating away from the ball. Follow-through allows the body and clubhead to decelerate after impact.
Efficient, powerful swing mechanics result from a combination of factors that include hip-shoulder separation, rotational and linear power, core stability, posture, flexibility, and power from the lower body transferred through the core to the club into the ball. If there is a limitation in any of these areas, this can alter the swing mechanics and place excessive stress on joints and soft tissues, particularly the neck, shoulder, back, hand, wrist, and elbow.
Physical Therapy to Improve Your Golf Swing
Physical therapy can help golfers improve both the consistency and power of their golf swing and address any strength, balance, or biomechanical issues that are negatively impacting the golf swing. Initially, the physical therapist conducts a thorough evaluation to assess areas of pain, limited mobility, joint restriction, and body mechanic deficiencies. The therapist develops a customized treatment program to relieve pain and address these issues to help you improve your golf swing and maximize your ability to transfer energy through your body to the club with greater speed and efficiency.
A physical therapist will first work to eliminate pain that is impeding your performance using stretching exercises, therapeutic exercise, and manual therapy soft tissue mobilizations. Then, the therapist will move on to address and improve your overall mobility, flexibility, strength, balance, and conditioning to improve your golf game. The goal of the physical therapist is to help the golfer achieve proper biomechanics and body movement to prevent future injury, eliminate pain, and improve the consistency and efficacy of the golfer’s swing by addressing joint, muscle, and balance deficits.
Physical therapy to improve your golf swing includes:
Increasing joint mobility, particularly in the neck, shoulders, back, and hips as limitations in these joints can negatively impact all aspects of the golf swing.
Improving flexibility is imperative to be able to extend into a full backswing. The therapist specifically targets increasing flexibility in the neck, shoulders, trunk, spine, and hips. If there is limited flexibility in any of these areas, this can not only decrease potential energy and power in your swing but also can place stress on another part of the body and cause injury.
Enhance dynamic balance as changes in your balance, such as leaning forward or back or left to right during your swing, can negatively affect your swing and alter the trajectory of the golf ball.
Increase the strength of the muscles that play a role in each stage of the golf swing so that the golfer does not compensate during the swing due to a weaker muscle area, which could lead to injury.
Improve core strength and stability, strengthening the abdominal, trunk, and low back muscles to help you stabilize the trunk during rotation, which creates power during the golf swing.
Whether you’re just getting into the swing of the golf season for the first time or you’re a seasoned golfer, physical therapy can help you improve your golf swing, prevent future injury, and maintain a consistent golf performance.
