Strength Training for Golfers by John Little

Author:John Little
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse

PART THREE:

ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

9

WHAT ABOUT STRETCHING?

Stretching, contrary to popular belief, does not warm up the muscles prior to golfing.

Most golfers believe that stretching is a healthy thing to do. For instance, if you go to any golf course before a game or go to a driving range, you will usually see a cadre of golfers twisting their torsos with their clubs across their shoulders, or reaching down to touch their toes or performing some sort of trunk rotation to “limber up.”

Most golfers believe that stretching does one or all of the following things:

1 It warms up the muscles

2 It helps to prevent injuries

3 It makes you more flexible

4 It helps you to recover more quickly from an injury

5 It makes you stronger.

All of the above five points are wrong—stretching does none of these things. I don’t say that this is simply my opinion on the subject of stretching, but rather the conclusion of scientists and exercise physiologists who have studied stretching and its effects on the body.

Scientific research shows that stretching—the kind of stretching that the average golfer does during his workouts at the gym, or even the kind of stretching that he does on the course prior to a game—could very well be costing him several strokes and increasing his risk of injury. Articles published in recent years, reviewing hundreds of studies, have concluded that there isn’t any compelling evidence that stretching prevents injury or reduces muscle soreness. Also, a study conducted in the year 2000 which looked at many hundreds of soldiers who stretched revealed no sign of benefit and even some risks to stretching.

Let’s look more closely at what science has to say about each of these five common misconceptions about the alleged value of stretching:

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