The Conscious Golf Player

Golf, like other competitive or amateur sports, requires adequate physical preparation. Otherwise, when playing golf, you are at risk of sustaining a variety of sports injuries that could reduce your quality of life and may even exclude you out of the sport altogether for many months.

Golfers need to pay particular attention to adopting the correct body position when playing, as poor hitting technique often leads many negative consequences. Lack of physical preparation and too much training expose players to high levels of strain that can risk serious injuries to the spine, shoulders, elbows and wrists. It is connected with an overly forward leaning or overly upright posture of the golfer and movement with high rotational force during ball striking.

The Conscious Golfer package, which aims to facilitate safe practice of the sport, involves a series of tests by a qualified physiotherapist to spot weakened structures prone to injury.

 

The programme includes:

1. A thorough physiotherapy interview combined with the patient completing a questionnaire on their health and past injuries or surgeries.
2. Balance test – as part of the golfer's examination, we start with this test to determine the current level of postural control and balance. A better ability to maintain balance, can have a significant effect on better efficiency at impact and greater focus during the swing itself.
3. Power test – we then move on to power tests of both, lower and upper limbs. Golfers who have more power in their lower limbs have greater potential to execute movements at higher speeds – both club head speed (CHS) and driver ball speed (DBS). Upper limb power and strength, on the other hand, is significantly related to the speed of the ball after impact and the distance covered by the ball.
4. Strength and endurance test – the following test is an isokinetic test of the strength and muscular endurance of the lower limb (knee + hip) and the upper limb (external and internal rotations, and abduction and adduction). Upper and lower limb strength – both at the knee, hip and shoulder joint – is significantly related to the speed of movement of the club head speed (CHS).
5. Mobility assessment – the next test point assesses the level of mobility and flexibility of the muscles of the lower limbs and thoracic spine. Adequate flexibility and muscle strength, both of the lower limb and the trunk, can improve the ability to achieve the correct position (X-factor) and, above all, improve the ability to separate the trunk and shoulders from the pelvis.
6. Squeeze test – the final test is an assessment of hand squeeze strength, the level of which can be related to the repetition of successive swings.