Now that golf season is here, many of our clients are making their way back to the links for some much-needed and long-awaited tee time. These early months of the golf season are extremely crucial. If you haven’t prepared your body for the technically challenging movements of golf, then your season may be over before it begins.
In the past, we’ve covered how technically challenging and impactful a golf swing is on the whole body. When we think about stretching for golf, the focus is on relieving tension in the hips, adductors, and low back muscles to increase drive and create tension relief on the low back. These are the obvious areas to treat to allow for increased rotation and overall stability over the ball, but they are not the only muscles to investigate.
There are small nuances that go into the sport that can have a similar impact on your body’s range of motion and ability to function. One of those nuances is influenced by something we do every day; walking. With the implementation of golf carts people are walking less and less on the course, and although this is convenient, it’s really not doing your body any favors. Similar to hip and back overuse injuries of the golf swing, you can produce similar overuse injuries in your feet from walking, sitting, walking, and sitting again. This aspect of the game warms up the muscles, lengthens them, and then once you stop moving, contracts and thus shortens the muscles. Shortened muscles in the feet can lead to inflamed plantar fascia (plantar fasciitis), achilles/soleus injuries and calf tightness; all which eventually lead to limited motion and subsequently knee or hip problems.
When your feet are not functioning properly, the impact is felt on your golf swing. Your feet are first contact and therefore first to initiate the movement of the swing. If the range of motion of your feet and ankles are limited, then so will be your rotation. A limited ability of the feet will lead to limited follow through in the golf swing.
At LYMBR we have specific protocol for feet, ankles, and toes to make sure you are getting optimal performance from those areas. Remember that feet are the first point of contact to the ground, if they are weak, then the rest of the body is functioning on an unstable foundation. By stretching your feet and ankles we can restore range of motion and overall flexibility of those specific muscles. This will make them more able to absorb impact, withstand hours of stop and start walking, and allow for proper rotation of the ankles through the duration of your swing.
Written by Conner Fritchley, Stretch Therapist in our Darien studio.
