Lower Body Mobility for the Utah Golf Off-Season
This month I’m going to show you some off-season routines you can do as a golfer. Since it is snowing here, there is not a lot of golf going on so while you are at home awaiting the arrival of the new golf season, try some mobilization and stabilization to help out your golf game.
This week is focused on hip mobility or just general lower body mobility. The following topics of the upcoming weeks will be:
- Jan 10: Upper Body Mobility
- Jan 17: Lower Body Stability
- Jan 24: Upper Body Stability
This week we are going to focus on lower body mobility, specifically the hips.
Keeping the hips mobile will help keep the knees healthy and the ankles mobile as well.
The Exercises We Will Use
- The hip windshield wiper
- Utilizing 4 different positions
- Hip drops
- Hip 90/90s
- Weighted ankle mobilization
- Hip flexor stretch
- Hip rocks
- Assisted deep squats
- Assisted reverse lunges
- Assisted curtsey lunge
- Weighted goblet squats
- Weighted rotational lunges
These are all good exercises to start with for mobility in the hip as well as general lower body mobility.
Check out our video to see how to perform these exercises and the different modifications for these exercises.
Lower Body Stability for the Utah Golf Off-Season
We are on our third week of golf off season in Utah. So far, we’ve done mobility for the lower body and upper body. This week, I wanna work on the strength and stability for the lower body, primarily the glutes. Glutes are a large muscle that we need to activate more in the golf swing. Activating your glutes can also protect the lower back, knees, ankles, and any other lower body injuries.
Deer in the Headlights Exercise: We are going to start with a deer in the headlights exercise, which teaches you how to activate your muscles at home, especially the glutes. You are going to start by laying on the ground and popping up your hips by activating your glutes. Alternate between your right and left glute one side at a time and both together. If you need a little assistance, you can use your fingers to push into your glutes, around your back pockets, to try to activate those muscles right underneath your fingers. That sends a signal to your brain to say these are the muscles I want to activate now. This is going to help this system of trying to activate these muscles more efficiently. Do this for about 30 seconds to a minute. To make things a little more challenging, bring your feet up and have the knees in a flexed position. Takes several weeks to really get the feeling of actually doing this.
Glute Bridge Exercise: Start laying on your back on the ground with your knees flexed nad feet flat on the ground. Lift your hips up towards the ceiling, making sure to engage your core and keep your hips level. Lift your hips up and down, while making sure to activate your glutes throughout this motion. Glute bridges can be performed unilaterally, or with one leg, as well. You need to grab a tennis ball or lacrosse ball and you’re gonna pinch it in your hip flexor and hold it there. Now you’re going to lift up the opposite hip and push your back into the floor. Press up and try to activate the glutes. Make sure to switch over to the other side.
Bird Dog with Leg Extensions: For these, get on your hands and knees while keeping a nice flat back. Imagine you have a ball there and you don’t want to let it fall. Activate your glute and extend your foot out. Switch sides when ready.
Kettlebell Deadlift: Place a kettlebell on a lift and stand over and straddle it. Use your hips to move up and down to pick up the weight. Make sure you stand nice and tall as you go down to pick it up. This can help activate the glutes.
Single Leg RDL: Grab a large pole such as a large foam roller or even a golf club. You’re going to pinch the club between your foot and your hand, which will activate your core. This will help stabilize everything as you do it. If you need help with balance, stabilize yourself with the wall, with the other hand, just to help get some balance. We’re gonna pinch that club just slightly and then you’re going to move your foot back, bend back and hold the club between your body and leg. As you come up, activate the opposite glute to bring yourself up more and stabilize yourself. Switch over to the other side when you finish on one side. Try to help your leg and upper back move all in one in one movement. Also, try to keep that balance and only go as far as you feel comfortable.
Landmine Squat: This next one is a landmine squat to lift or hip hinge to lift. The first move is like a kettlebell deadlift or a squat. We’ll deadlift first, and then you can transition to a squat later. Do a deadlift and grab the bar with your left hand. You’re going to lift up, and as you lift up, you’re gonna to switch hands on the bar. As you switch hands rotate your torso and feet to face the bar and press all the way up. This causes firing of the glute with forwards rotation, getting the left hip into internal rotation and increases thoracic mobility which we worked previously.
there’s a lot of activities or exercises to do to help strengthen the glutes and activate it more to help stabilize lower bodies to help prevent other injuries. Hopefully these listed here get you started!
Upper Body Mobility for the Utah Golf Off-Season
This week we want to share some upper body mobility routines you can do to help keep your mobility up and not lose what you gained golfing last summer.
Upper Body Mobility Routine
- Foam rolling the upper back
- Open books
- Kneeling thoracic rotations
- Shoulder reach, roll, & lift
- Alternating Spiderman
- Kneeling kettlebell rotations
- Resisted spiderman variations
**Check out our video to see how to perform these exercises
Upper Body Stability for the Utah Golf Off-Season
Welcome to our fourth and final golf off season work. Today we are gonna to work on upper body stability and some strength through various exercises.
Dead Bug: Start on your back with your knees and arms up. Make sure to press your back into the ground. Start by moving one arm and tap the floor. Repeat with your other arm. Then do one leg at a time, just tapping the floor with your heel. Progress to moving your opposite arm and opposite leg at the same time. So left, right arm, left leg. Key thing is keeping your back, pressing the floor, and engaging your core. So my assistant that I like to help activate or make it a little bit easier, so you can throw a foam roller with the opposite signs.
Side Plank: Lie on your side with your knees bent, and prop your upper body up on your elbow. Raise your hips off the floor and hold for 10 seconds. For a progression, you can extend out your legs and repeat the same motion. Do both sides, holding 10 seconds with eight to 10 reps at a time. You can also work on hip abduction by lifting up your top leg while in the side lying position. Rotation stability can be incorporated with 10 to 12 reps of rowing with one arm while in plank position.
Bear Crawl: Start by getting on your hands and knees. Stabilize your core and get up on your hands and toes. Crawl in a circle or square while maintaining a flat back.
Chopping Lift: We are going to do a half kneeling chop, starting in a lunge position. Using a band or cables with a bar connected, pull the bar to your chest, rotate up and then press away. A progression of this exercise would be to do the same movement, but with your knee off the ground, in split squat form.
Watch this week’s video for exercise demonstrations. If you have any questions, let me know and I’ll be happy to help.