Getting people to do a warm up before exercise is usually a difficult task and for people playing golf it is even more so. Most people completely ignore the warm up and go straight into hitting big drives, and doing crazy stuff that not only leads to injury but will definitely reduce your driving distance and ability.
A good Golf Warm Up will prepare your joints, muscles and more importantly groove the nervous system into producing a consistent movement that can be replicated over and over. Because if there is one thing that a golfer would like to have it is, CONSISTENCY!
Having recently completed our CHEK Golf Performance Coaching Certification one of the most exciting and interesting parts of the course was learning 2 exercises that I had used before mainly for shoulder pain or neck pain clients. But in this course we were learning how to do them for the purpose of a Golf Warm up and more specifically improving the backswing on the drive.
The two exercises are:
Golf Neck Trunk Trainer
Shoulder Spine Integrator
The Golf Neck Trunk Trainer exercise always blows people away when they first try it as they cannot believe how far they can twist around on the second attempt. This happens because of the relationship between your eyes and the muscles in your neck and shoulder. Fantastic for the Golf Player who wants to get further with the backswing without losing sight of the ball!
The shoulder spine integrator which is a Feldenkrais Exercise is fantastic for anyone with restriction with rotating. The exercise becomes a test when doing it as you can evaluate where your restriction might be coming from, such as the hips or the chest. This particular exercise is also very useful for rehabilitation of the shoulder and neck. And most people will experience a very calming and relaxing sensation whilst completing the exercise as it serves a dual role of stimulating the hormones that oppose the stress hormones. So we also use this exercise as a form of meditation or stress relief. Now this is all great news for the golfer, as it now warms up the nerves, joints and muscles for the particular movement that you require for the game, but at the same time relaxing areas ( shoulders ) that are known for tension and tight muscles. By creating this feeling of relaxation you are more likely to achieve your goal of consistency in your game, meaning you will play equally as good on the first hole as you will on the 18th hole!
I highly recommend spending time doing both these exercises every day and especially as part of your Golf Warm Up before hitting off.
These exercises are covered in great detail in our 12 week course and you can see more about these and more by downloading our Free Report from http://www.golfperformance.viprespond.com/