So you spend one or two days a week out on the links, maybe even more, maybe another couple of days just hitting balls around. You are a golfer, a hard core golfer, how can flexibility help you in your golf game? It can help big time and we are here to show you some specific stretches just for golfing. You can do these before you go out on to the course, you can do these at home, you can do it many times. We have a friendly neighborhood Hacker (ph) here and she is going to have her golf club positioned down in front of her. She is going to hold one hand on top of another and lean back, push your hips back and this will help stretch out the lats, the shoulders and the lower back, all key vital elements of a golfer's stroke.
We are going to hold this for about five seconds and come up. We're going to grab the golf club with both hands, put it right in front of you. This is our torso stretch. So we are going to turn to each side stretching out the torso, where there is a lot of rotation during the stroke, this is great for warming up those active muscles and we are going to finish it up right there. We are going to bring the club over head, bringing the club over head and just carefully moving it back, stretching out the shoulders and the chest and the abdominals. Hold it back and now we are going to come down to the left side and hold for five seconds, stretching out the right side here, three, two, one. We have to switch, keep everything nice and even. Stretching out the left side now, the obliques, all the way up to the shoulders, holding that for another five, four, three, two, one. Bring it up, good!
Now we are going to drop the club down the spine. This is a great shoulder and triceps stretch and you just move your hands up and down the club until you can come close to, close enough to each other where you feel a stretch in the shoulders. Our golfer here has it to be pretty flexible so there is good range of motion and switching sides. Once again you can do these right before you start your game or even right after when you are nice and warm. Hold, three, two, one and rest and you are done and you are ready to hit the links.
So you are ready to head on onto the courts for some singles or doubles and you've got to stretch out a little bit before you play tennis or even after your game, you want to do some tennis-specific stretches. Well, once again, Erin is here, we have got a tennis racquet; we are all ready to stretch. So we are going to start some torso turns. Now she is going to grab one end of the racquet in each hand. Just start turning, we will do three of these, that's one and two. This will help warm up the upper body muscles and three, good!
Now for the shoulders, because you really want to stretch out the shoulders in tennis, you are going to push the racquet forward. Reach forward and that is going to help stretch out here in the shoulders, the back, the lower back. It's going to feel really good and you are going to inhale back and then exhale reach forward again stretching in and out, breathing through. You can even drop your head and work your neck a little bit as well. So lot of stabilizers that go on when you are playing tennis and you really want to make sure that they are ready and warm, good!
Inhale back, we are going to bring the tennis racquet all the way up and pull it back just a little bit, we are attracting the rhomboids, the upper back muscles. You are going to feel that stretch down through the lats once again. We are going to bend over to the left side, hold right there, stretching it even deeper, deeper stretch for the lats, hold; let's hold that there another three seconds, two, one and switch. Now we are going over to the right side. You're going to feel these all the way down to the obliques, up into the shoulder muscles, the rotator cuff muscles, reaching out. I know Erin makes it look so easy, but it really does work well.
Now we are going to turn and work the triceps a little bit and the triceps you want to pull the racquet downward, so you stretch out the triceps muscles. We are going to hold there for three more seconds, two, one, switch sides. Once again you are pulling downward, not across, but downward and hold for five, four, three, two, one.
Now that you are warmed up or ready to cool down and you are ready to play.
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