To maximize performance and prevent injuries, prepare the muscles, tendons, and joints of your body with a proper warm up.
Move slowly into each stretch and hold for at least 5-10 seconds and repeat 3 times. Never bounce while stretching to protect the muscle and tendon attachments.
A golf swing requires significant trunk rotation. Mobility (flexibility) and stability are both required to perform a proper swing. Warm up with slow, rhythmic swings to avoid an overuse injury.
- Back of the body stretch
- Keeping knees straight to stretch hamstrings
- Push the top of the club forward as your hips draw back to stretch low back and hips
- Rotate the top of the club right and left to stretch your shoulders
- Side body stretch
- Hold the club above your head in both hands
- Elongate spine and then lean to one side to feel latissimus dorsi and oblique muscle stretch
- Repeat to the other side
- Shoulder stretch
- Start with arms straight out to the side
- Swing arms across the body to feel a stretch in posterior deltoid and rhomboids
- Open arms out to the sides and squeeze shoulder blades together feeling a stretch in the pectoralis muscles
- Rotation stretch
- Hold club in front of you above shoulder height
- Rotate fully to one side and repeat to the other
- This simulates full swing
To increase your flexibility and ability to play healthier happier golf, perform this routine at least 4-5 times a week.
Photos from: http://www.baysidehealth.ca/pages/golf-stretch.php