God, please give me the strength to swing easy..!!!

Team Maven closed shop today and instead of treating patients, we treated ourselves to a day at the Paramus golf club for a Chamber of Commerce fund-raising event. We had a fun-filled time and laughed at each other throughout the day…let's just say none of our foursome will be touring on the PGA any time soon, but we all enjoy the game. I played my most consistent best and some of our newbies completely surprised us- one of our guys even birdied on a par 3 hole…and it was his first time EVER on a golf course!

While we were playing, I couldn’t help but notice and feel the repetitive biomechanical stress we placed on our bodies, hole after hole. By the 9th hole, my wrists were sore, my legs ached, and we were only halfway done!

While golf may appear to be a leisurely game to bystanders and tv watchers, golf requires quite a bit of skill, strategy, patience, and musculoskeletal endurance. Musculo who? Some of you may be wondering. When most people think of endurance, they think of cardiovascular endurance, which is the kind that helps you persevere through long runs. By musculoskeletal endurance, I’m referring to the type that requires select muscles or joints to be activated or engaged over an extended period of time in a repetitive fashion. Let’s consider the golf swing itself. The novice golfer will take more strokes per game than an experienced golfer, right? Assuming the novice golfer has poor swing mechanics, think about all the little tweaks and strains and torques that befall his body over the course of 18 holes. We’re talking well over 100 repetitions! And, of course, with poor swing mechanics comes injury. On the other hand, many golfers, like other athletes, have imbalances in their joints and muscles that may be predisposing them to injuries down the road.

As golf rehab and performance experts, doctors of physical therapy at Maven Sports Medicine are able to quickly determine whether your swing mechanics are causing your pains OR if restrictions in your body (hips, shoulders, back, forearms, etc) is causing your pain. It may be a matter of adding some strengthening exercises for weak muscles, stretching regiments for tight muscles, or increasing joint mobility to help your body and your game improve.

Jerry

Dr. Jerry Yoo
Clinical Director/Co-Owner of Maven Sports Medicine