The Best Golf Warm-up
Improve Your Golf Score With These 7 Quick Exercises
As the weather warms up, you might start thinking about playing a round of golf. Before you book a bucket of balls at the driving range or set your first tee time, warm up your golf muscles to avoid injury.
Yes, the driving range is a great place to practise your swing, but taking a few moments to warm up all the muscles that are going to be swinging into action can help you prevent an injury and even improve your golf score!
There’s a mind-body connection required for golf that isn’t talked about a lot. Your nervous system needs time to form a “connection” between your brain (muscle memory) and your body movements. Performing this quick golf warm-up will help your nervous system form a stronger mind-body connection and become your secret weapon for improving your golf score.
With the quick warm-up video I’ve created, you’ll warm up your body so that you’re ready to give your best first swing, rather than taking the first 3 holes to warm up.
Don’t follow the crowd, be a leader to create better health for yourself and your golf buds.
People tend to feel funny or stupid warming up before golf because very few people do it. Avoiding a warm-up because you’re worried about what the man next to you will think is a decision that can lead to injury.
Funny enough, we all know that we should be warming up before golf. So, when you do your warm-up the people around you may very well be thinking, “Wow, that guy really knows what he’s doing. I wish I didn’t feel so self-conscious about warming up before golf.”
Regardless of your age, a golf warm-up can improve your score and keep you healthy enough to play for years to come.
The ageing golfer needs to be more conscientious about warming up as the body tissues become less supple and elastic with age or less use.
We spend so much time sitting these days, and taking your first swing right after getting out of the car without doing a proper warm-up puts you at risk of shortening your golf season or reducing your overall health with an injury that creates chronic pain.
High-performing athletes don't start a game before doing warm-up drills.
Other sports don’t just start games, they have a dedicated warm-up time. Athletes go through drills for the skills - something that helps create that muscle-brain-body connection.
This should not be any different for golf, and as a matter of fact, golfers can be seen warming up and hitting balls at the professional level before their tee-off time.
A quick warm-up routine to improve your golf score and reduce the potential for injury.
Golf is a sport that is not very dynamic; you are standing in a specific, static posture before you swing, and this posture, along with the rotational forces in the spine with the swing, can do damage to your spine ligaments, muscles and discs if you’re not warmed up properly.
A warm-up doesn’t need to take too long. It can be done casually, even while talking to the others in your foursome. The warm-up routine that I’ve designed has you moving your upper body in various ways to warm up the shoulder, upper back and chest muscles. As you will notice, I have you warming up with a golf club in both hands and moving all areas of your body in various ranges of motion.
The human body is at rest when sitting, standing or sedentary, and needs some time to get adequate blood flow to the working golf muscles of the upper and lower body and core to swing a golf club properly and reduce the potential for injury.
Injury tends to happen early in a sport when not prepared properly, and near the end of the sport when the individual is more tired and less responsive. If you injure yourself early in a game, then you have to leave the course, and may not be able to play for a few days or weeks. Your enjoyment is gone for a period of time, but hopefully, whatever you injured can be returned to pre-injury status.
I developed this golf warm-up to be effective and easy to do anywhere. You can do these exercises at home before you head to the course and you can also do these exercises at the course so that you’re ready to swing at the first tee.
If you’re a golfer who wants to golf well and lots, a few exercises to warm up the muscle tissues involved in the golf swing and connect the mind and body will help prepare you for the actual golf game.
Download the PDF version of this golf warm-up routine to print a copy for your golf bag, or the JPEG version to save this to your phone.
The Best Golf Warm-Up: 7 Quick Exercises
High knees with clubs doing a figure 8.
Side to side with clubs going the opposite direction.
Up on toes and into a quarter squat with clubs out and back.
½ of address position, knees loose, hands on both ends of clubs, do ½ backswing and ½ follow-through.
Stepping forward and back with clubs behind back and pushing backwards.
Full address position, hands on both ends of clubs do ¾ backswing and ¾ follow-through.
Ready address position holding hands as you would to golf, take a full backswing and full follow-through.