Golf and Massage
I, like many, am a very keen golfer albeit not quite as good as I was in my younger days. I remember those days in my youth where, standing there, simply turning away from the ball and swinging through seemed natural without any restrictions.
Today it is very different, the years have caught up and my muscles restrict the swing. This however does not need to be the case.
Golfers will experience tightness and tenderness in a variety of muscles, lack of warm up or maybe a poor posture will further enhance these feelings.
We all try to improve our game and many of us will have lessons to help us along the way. The lessons with the professional will certainly help with any posture problems and our technique but unless we are super keen we will probably not work on our muscular system.
In a very simplistic form the golf swing is as follows:
1. A standing position with a slight knee bend, bent at the waist and hands holding the golf club with relaxed arms just behind the ball.
2. Next a slow trunk rotation away from the ball, this produces muscle tension and a weight shift away from the ball.
3. Finally follows an explosive trunk rotation towards and past the ball ending up with the weight on the front leg. This rotation transfers power into the arms and through the club into the contact with the ball.
Problems
The golf swing will put pressure on a range of muscles and with this, potentially cause issues with these muscles.
Here is not the place to go too much into depth regarding the individual muscles involved. It is safe to say that rotation away from the ball will involve the rotator muscles of the hip, lower back and shoulders, other muscles in the shoulder help pick the club up into the swing plane. Likewise the rotation back into the strike area will involve the same muscles.
Can Sports Massage help your game?
In my mind undoubtedly yes.
It can create flexibility by releasing the tight muscles together with strengthening where the muscles are weak.
We all know there is no exchange for practicing and taking lessons to improve our game, however sports massage can help further by allowing you to understand the muscle movements involved in the swing and how you can optimize the movements of these muscles. Muscle strengthening may be needed to allow all the relevant muscles to work in harmony and advice on this will be part of any treatment.
Finally it may be that just getting through a 3+ hour round of golf may be painful for various reasons, sports massage can help in the general state of your body to allow a pain free round.