Picture this. It's a cool day in early March. You decide it would be a perfect day to go to the local driving range and hit your first bucket of balls since October. You envision that this will be the start of a terrific golf season to come. Chills run down your spine as you stand on the mat and unload the bucket into the adjacent tray. You take a few practice swings and start to hit a few. Consider the horror when on your 5th swing you tweak the muscles in your back, get a shooting pain in your elbow, or feel a tightness in your achilles tendon.
This all could be avoided with a regular, off-season stretching routine. So start now and remember these simple rules:
1- Stretch the muscles, do not bounce.
2- Work on building flexibility, not strength.
3- When working with weights or machines, concentrate on more repetitions with less weight.
4- Work on alternating sets of upper and lower extremity muscle stretching exercises.
5- For golf, it is important to gain flexibility in your biceps, triceps, deltoids, upper back muscles, lower back muscles, gluteal muscles, quads, hamstrings, achilles, intrinsic foot muscles, and the pesky plantar fascia.
6- Warm up and cool down after hitting.
7- Ice, elevate, and rest any injured part.
8-Seek medical attention if pain persists.
By performing these stretches at least 3 times per week, you can probably avoid many of the common spring injuries and have a fun productive season.
See you on the 1st tee!
Brad Jacobs,DPM
http://www.podiatrycarespecialists.com/
