#181 Web TV: Yoga For Golf - The Essential Warm Up Exercises

Yoga For Golf - The Essential Warm Up Exercises

Do you know what is really important in your golf game?

Warming up!

What I have in store for you today is some simple warm up routines. This is actually about warming your body up prior to going out and swinging a golf club. What you need to be doing, simple mobility exercises just to help in getting the body moving and prepared for play.

I have asked one of my yoga instructors to come and do a video for us and show us some very simple mobility exercises.

We have something really exciting for you today, working through a routine that can help you with more stability and balance and mobility into your golf. It’s really important that you look after your body. I know from personal experience, when I first started yoga about eighteen months ago, prior to that, as out bodies get older they stiffen up.

Kim hasn’t experienced that yet because she is a young chick. As you know, as you get older the body starts to stiffen up. When I started yoga, I noticed a big difference with my body response and becoming less stiff. I feel quite agile now after eighteen months down the track.

I have asked the lovely Kim to come and show you something that can help to improve your mobility when you are out playing golf. Kim as an absolutely awesome yoga instructor, I love coming to her classes because they are unique. Kim gives a lot of technical advice as well to help you improve your body.

Kim is going to take as through a routine, talking us through it, so get your yoga mat out and we’ll start.

Kim: I’ll go through most of the basics where you get tight most often and the thing that doctors like to tell you to have surgery on later. A bit of wrist, a bit of shoulder, upper back mobility and a little bit of the hips and legs because that’s where you get your swing from, but most of all where we get really tight if you have a couple of weeks with no mobility.

The first thing I am going to focus on is a little bit of wrist warm up. I do this in classes sometimes if we are doing a lot of arm balances. Essentially, it’s perfect for group strength because if there is too much tension there you are going to lose that group strength right away.

We’ll start with creating little flicks just to warm up the wrists before we start to create mobility. It starts to warm up quite quickly and you keep flicking it and try to race with anyone around you and you keep going faster, faster, faster for three, two, one and then give it a little shake.

Now we’ll start to do a little wrist mobility, my favourite one of all time is to place the fingers facing backwards, I’ll go to the side, so you can see it a little better. The biggest thing with this stretch is hyper extensive elbows, so a little bend in the elbow is perfect. Now, just swaying side to side so you can feel the two different muscles that are attached. A big part of this is each individual finger has a different attachment to the muscles. As you sway side to side you will be going to a different part of the fingers and getting a little bit deeper and maybe getting a little bit more stuck on the outer, the thumb or the pinkie, and you keep your breath going. The breath is super important in yoga, it’s part of calming the mind. The mind, and the body. Once you have done those a few times we’ll go to another one.

There are so many ways of doing this stretch but the safest and best way is just to extend your arm out and run you’re your fingers along the arm and grab your fingers and curl them under. Now, you should feel that at the top of the wrist, this is where get carpel tunnel build up and if this is tight, then your group strength is gone pretty much. Just breathing into that I like to rotate the elbows, I like to call it an alien elbow twist, like when you do it as a kid, but you can keep it stable if it doesn’t feel right for you, so just breathing into it and holding each stretch for a minimum of twenty seconds. If you hold it to quick it ends up doing the reverse of what you want it to do. So, keep holding it, I like to hold it for a minute, usually, but twenty seconds is okay. Give that a little shake and then go to the other side.

(Tiff: it’s called patience, like we need in golf.)

We try to do it with some music going, lock the door, keep the kids out, that sort of thing.

From there we come into a tactile position. Plant the hands shoulder width apart and spread the fingers wide. That is one of the most important parts of putting any weight on your hands, spreading the fingers so it doesn’t jam up into the wrists, it takes it into the whole, entire arm strength. From there we have our knees under the hips and it’s just a simple cow, arching the back and then pressing the floor away. When you press the floor away you really want the upper back to round, with the shoulders caving in and the chest pulling in. Then you find the chest pulling down as you look up. I’m not going to do too many of those but you kind of get the drift as this helps with mobility into the spine.

Now we’ll come into thread the needle. You plant one hand down and the other rises up and this opens up the whole entire chest and as you feed the arm through it goes into the shoulder blade and a little bit of rotating which is what you use a lot when you are swinging a golf club. You can either do it in mobility as in keep going in movement or you can stay static, depending on how you are feeling and how intense it is for you. I won’t repeat the other side but it is basic as is. Just threading the needle and feeling the weight in the back of the shoulder.

The rest we will do basic glute strength because with strength you have the ability to stay stationary and we want to find the stability in the sacrum. We’ll just do a simple bridge pose. Feet, shoulder width apart and then lie down. From here, having the fingers tickle the ankles, just so you know they are in the right position. From there, start to tuck the tail bone underneath and you will feel your glutes start to work and you rise your hips up. From there you walk your shoulders in and attempt to cross the hands. If it is not going to happen then that’s okay, use the elbows like robot arms. This is to open up the hips while engaging the glutes, staying for as long as you can or five breaths. Five long breathes, not, little hyper-ventilations. You want to find the space between the chest. A little bit of a chest opener and I like to press into my heels like you are trying to drag yourself down the room. As you feel like you’re ready, then lower you body down. A quick squeeze of the knees into the chest and from there we’ll go into a few twists.

If you come into table top, opening the arms out. Now, depending on your rotation, doing it gently, bring the knees over to your right or left and usually there are a little bit of cracks in there for most. Then we bring them back up into neutral and then bring them over to the other side. You might feel like it’s a bit of a massage on the hips as you move over. Continue like clock work trying not to let the hips drop down of the shoulders lift off the floor. Only go as far as the shoulders stay glued down. Do about ten reps of those, five on each side.

That should be enough for you guys. If you feel you need some more shoulder work or anything else, there are so many tutorials on YouTube as well.

That is basic enough to get you a little bit more mobile and a little bit more solid.

Tiff: Thank you Kim. Do you think they should be doing this every day.

Kim: Every day. You can do it in your bed, most of those exercises. I actually do do it in bed, my boyfriend hates me for it, but it saves you from a lot of pain and stiffness.

How did you find that?

We had just done a yoga class that morning and I organised with her to do it after, so we were both a bit hot and sweaty from the yoga class.

That was great, wasn’t it. She actually had some mobility exercises that you could run with. That’s fantastic, but you need to make sure you are doing them everyday. Don’t just do them before you go and play golf, it will probably only take you ten minutes if that. But you have to get the body moving. It all about getting the body moving, if we can do that then we can get the golf swing happening.

I have left a list of destinations or locations where you can find Kim doing her yoga teaching throughout the week. Where she is running her classes. If you are in that area make sure you go and do a class with her, she’s absolutely great, I love what she does, she is quite technical, she makes sure your positions are right so that your body if really benefiting.

Kim teaches at Embody - Monday mornings at 6.20am & Thursday 6pm.

Embody at Neutral Bay ===>>> View Timetable Here

Kim teaches at Fitness First Mona Vale - Monday afternoons at 5.15pm & Tuesday at 6am.

Fitness First at Mona Vale ===>>> View Timetable Here

Kim teaches at Fitness First Balgowlah - Monday evenings at 7.30pm & Thursday at 10.30am.

Fitness First at Balgowlah ===>>> View Timetable Here

Kim teaches at Soul Fitness Lane Cove- Tuesday evenings at 6.30pm & 7.30pm

Soul Fitness at Lane Cove ===>>> View Timetable Here

As I said, doing yoga over the last eighteen months has made a big difference to my body, I don’t feel as stiff, so I actually recommend that you do that.

If you found that you got a lot of value out of today’s video I would love you to leave a comment and share with me what you liked best about what you heard today and if you have friends that you know will benefit from these videos, it would be absolutely awesome if you could share them, because we want to build the Lady Golf Teacher community as big as we possibly can.

Let’s share the love.

Have an absolutely awesome day, take care, and remember; Tee it high and Let it fly.

To your golfing success,
 
If you enjoyed today’s tip “#181 Web TV: Yoga For Golf - The Essential Warm Up Exercises.” please do me a favour, share with your friends on Facebook and please leave your comments below.

Tiffany Mika

P.S. If you want consistency in your golf game. Get the 3 Steps to Consistency that will give you the consistency that you need in your golf game. Click here to find out how!  


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