By Ken Van Vechten
– Jon Levy, GolfForever
As we obsess endlessly over each implement that goes in the bag and burn through bandwidth downloading swing tip after swing tip, it would be good to remember, per the admonition above, that golf is a sport, an active, athletic activity, and thought – and actual application – should be given to at least nominally readying our bodies for the act of moving a club along at 100 or more mph.
Yep, here’s looking right at you, trunk-to-first-tee guy.
If warming up is a foreign concept, and a number of exercise physiologists state it is to many – most, actually – it need not also be a complex concept, however, and it need not take up huge hunks of time. With some basic stretches and movements, perhaps abetted by an implement or two, and five or 10 minutes, you can be ready to smack that first drive.
The process is more dynamic than static. You want to do some twists to activate the spine and hip hinges for the hamstrings and glutes. For the shoulders, raise your arms in a goal-post position, rotate them, and then move them forward and back. Work on wrist and ankle flexibility. Do some lunges and rotate your upper body against the forward leg. From a standing position with your left hand supporting you if need be, grab your right knee with your right hand and rotate your hip and leg around and back; switch legs and hands.
Milton would add that tipping a bucket on the range and whacking balls is NOT warming up; the stretching and exercise is the warm-up to the activities that follow before heading to the first tee. If you don’t have too long a drive, you can get started at home.
Golf being implement-and-system mad, players have dozens of options for products to help, and warming up really is – or should be – just an extension of what we all do as part of our exercise and training regimens.
Levy’s GolfForever training system comes to mind. In a nutshell, it consists of a rigid bar, elastic straps and an app guiding users through golf-enhancing, strength-building and stretching exercises. The 2-pound bar, itself, with a counterbalance attached, can also be used as a weighted swing trainer with a driver-like D-3 swing weight. The implements are portable and can be used at the course or range. Straps can be anchored to anything solid – golf cart, post, tree – and used with or without the bar for resistance stretching, like those resistance bands at the gym.
“The foundation of GolfForever is movement, how your body moves, your body’s capability to move, your mobility, your range of motion,” Levey, the company’s vice president of communications and strategic partnerships, explains. “That then bleeds into your swing, your swing-movement patterns. Golf taxes your body over and over again, and that leads right into the importance of the warm-up. Golf is an athletic movement, and if you have not prepared your body for that, you’re not only not going to perform optimally, you’re making yourself susceptible to injury.”
A more familiar implement might be the Orange Whip Trainer, the long, whippy stick with the bright orange ball on the end. “Swing trainer” in intent, meant to aid with rhythm, tempo, and balance, and grooving the swing plane, the whip easily doubles as a fitness and flexibility tool, and notably for rotational activities, be that standing twists to one- and two-handed swings. (I also use mine one-handed for wrist rolls and as a weighted prop for hip hinges.)
A final caveat comes from NYU’s Milton, and that is that golf is an athletic endeavor often experienced via mechanized transport. Whether riding by choice or course-demanded necessity, keep that loosened state from your warm-up – you did warm up, right? – through the round. Walk when you can and use the cart as a platform to assist with stretching – pop a leg up on the bench and lean in. It’s like an NFL player riding a stationary on the sideline bike: “It’s not about stretching endlessly or doing your warm-up over and over again,” Milton notes. “It’s just making sure your body is still active.”
Sixteen-ounce “curls” at the turn don’t count.