- Hi, everyone, thank you for joining me,
the Digital Golf Doc as I cover the top five exercises
for preventing lower back pain in golfers.
I'm a licensed physical therapist,
a certified strength and conditioning coach,
as well as a researcher educator.
And I spend literally all my time
focused on helping golfers,
keeping them healthy and maximizing their performance.
Over the last several years,
I've gotten certified
through Titleist Performance Institute,
as well as rack up hours upon hours of experience
working with golfers everywhere from the amateur level
to the professional level and everything in between.
So these exercises are honed, and they do work.
Now, before we cover them, I need you to know something.
The details do matter.
So pay close attention.
And if you have any questions, any questions at all,
please leave a comment below this video
or reach out to me at digitalgolfdoc@gmail.com.
Let's not delay any further
and start counting down the exercises
with number five. (upbeat music)
Number five on the list is gonna be the ELDOA hip stretch.
ELDOA is a specific method of mobility training.
This happens to be my favorite exercise from that method.
Now you have to be a little particular with it.
As you're gonna start in a V sit,
you're gonna use your hands,
basically hold yourself as upright as possible.
This is key because in ELDOA,
we wanna focus on elongating the joints.
So we want to feel as if there's a string attached
to our head, pulling us straight up.
And again, we can use our hands to assist with that.
Then we are gonna press our knees down,
so that they are flat against the ground.
And your feet should feel almost
as if someone is grabbing your foot
and pulling it away from your hip joint.
So we're aligning the joints first.
Next, we're gonna tilt the toes back,
and I'm gonna do this one side at a time.
So take a look at my foot on the right.
We pull the toes back.
We are going to lengthen the posterior sided leg.
That's actually gonna mobilize the sciatic nerve
and its offshoots.
Once we've done that, we're gonna feel like we reach
with our leg to create that distraction at the hip joint.
And while maintaining all of that,
we're gonna roll our foot out as far as possible,
and then we're gonna roll it in as far as possible.
We're gonna repeat this 10 times with the hip.
And again, we wanna maintain all those positions,
upright through the trunk, flat through the leg,
a force like it's pulling your hip apart,
and then while maintaining all of those,
we're gonna roll out to the right and out to the left.
Now, when you do this for the first time,
you might see that foot barely budge.
That's okay.
You need to force it to move a little bit.
This is a really safe position,
because we don't have any load through the hip joint.
So we should feel pretty comfortable trying
to drive that foot out and drive it in.
Now you're gonna feel some kind of squeezing
and pinching and tension and the hip, and that's okay
as long as it's on the lower intensity side of things.
But if you repeat this day after day,
you're gonna see the hip loosen up.
We wanna make sure we do this
on both sides to address both of the hips.
We're gonna do 10 repetitions each way.
And again, our focus is on high quality movement,
forcing it to the end range on either side.
The last thing we wanna do is get lazy,
have our posture fall apart
and roll back and forth like this,
'cause we're just not going to get the benefit.
We're completely crushing what the ELDOA method is about
and ruining the exercise itself.
So dial in the specifics, hit ELDOA method, hip roll,
and it will improve your hip mobility for golf.
Exercise four is gonna be a motion called thread the needle.
We're gonna use the foam roller to assist this motion,
because it really takes this stretch
from a good mobility exercise to a great one.
So, grab your foam roller first.
You're gonna make your way down to both knees.
You'll set the foam roller out in front of you,
and you're gonna bring your hands down.
So it's important here that we have the foam roller
on the outside of what's gonna end up being our support arm.
So this is that initial setup position.
I wanna rock the hips back.
The reason we rock the hips back is
it's gonna lock the lumbar spine,
which is gonna allow us to focus the movement
to the thoracic spine, that upper back area
that's so critical for getting a good shoulder turn
to the golf swing.
Once we've done that, we are gonna take one arm,
and we're gonna set it on the foam rolling.
Then we're gonna use that foam roller to support our arm
as we roll out to the side like I'm trying to take my chest
and face it over toward that wall.
And then we roll back up.
Roll through like we're trying to face our chest
at the other wall and come back up.
The support arm does not need to stay perfectly straight,
but you do want it to support your weight
as you rotate through
We will, of course, then set that up on the other side
and complete the same movement.
And you should really feel this stretch
either in your thoracic spine,
that mid area of your upper back,
or this backside of your shoulder here is another great spot
to really get a good bit of intensity
through this mobility exercise.
Again, we're gonna do 10 repetitions on this on each side.
For every single repetition, we're gonna key in, focus,
making sure we're maintaining all of our form cues,
so that we get the stretch where we want it
and how we want it, because that's your best chance
to make big improvements quickly.
Exercise number three might be familiar
to a whole lot of you.
It's called the cat cow movement,
but we're gonna spice it up a little bit
by adding some banded resistance,
which is not only gonna serve
as a resistance to the movement,
but it's gonna be a great proprioceptive input
to allow us to really fire up those hip stabilizers
as we drive the movement
between anterior and posterior pelvic tilt.
So for this, you're gonna want a band,
a little bit of a longer one.
Circular works best,
but you can make a flat band work as well.
We're gonna be on our hands and knees again,
and we're gonna take that band.
We're gonna run it across our low back.
Now whether it's a little bit closer to the pelvis
or a little bit higher up, either one of those is okay
as long as it stays below that low angle of your rib cage.
We're going to hook our thumbs into the band
and put some tension in it.
And we're gonna go into that hands and knee position.
We're gonna allow the band to pull us down,
allowing us to arch our lower back in our lumbar spine.
And then we're gonna push the band away,
letting us round in that lower spine,
as well as through the rest of the upper back too.
We're gonna drop down.
We hollow everything out.
You can intensify this
by taking a look up toward the ceiling.
And then you'll press the other way, round down,
and take a look between your legs.
We're gonna arch, and then we're gonna round.
We're gonna move slow and smooth
through that position for a higher repetition,
just because pelvic control tends to respond better
if it's high repetitions.
I would say at least 15 repetitions.
20 would be ideal.
They're only gonna take you a few seconds at a time,
so you'll still get through them pretty quick,
but it's gonna add add an immense amount of pelvic control,
which is awesome for your posture, your lower back health,
and, of course, the reason you're all here,
for your golf swing.
Number two on our countdown through these five
is gonna be a prone press-up
combined with the cobra pose.
Som, cat cow, the last movement, drove us
through a full range of lumbar spine movement.
And this time we're really gonna focus
on that extension piece.
We spend so much time throughout the day
in this rounded back posture,
that truly extending through the spine
and opening up is very valuable in maintaining our mobility
and maintaining the health of our spine in general.
So, we're gonna make our way all the way down
onto our stomach.
And you're gonna have the tops of your feet on the ground,
legs zipped together.
And you'll put your hands about even with your chest.
The first thing we're gonna do is press through the hands
until the chest peels away from the ground.
And you're gonna drive yourself up
just as far as comfortable.
Especially that first repetition,
we don't need to force ourselves into any movement
our body's not ready for.
We can just push on that beginning end range of stiffness.
It'll loosen up, and then we can go further.
And you're gonna repeat this movement eight to 10 times.
Again, I prefer 10, but if you're short on time,
eight will do just fine.
And after we've done eight,
we're now gonna hover our hands off the ground.
You can lift them where they're at,
or you can bring them out here
if your shoulder mobility's not great.
And we're gonna have the cobra piece of the movement
where we peel our chest away from the ground.
We use the muscles in our lower back to get there,
and then we'll lower back down.
And we'll lift up and we'll lower back down.
We're simply gonna repeat five repetitions of that.
If you wanna add a second or two hold to each repetition,
that's fantastic.
You may notice some tightness here.
If people have not directly worked their lower back
in a long time, (indistinct) is a massive mistake
unless you want end up with back pain.
You're gonna get some tightness
those first few days you do it.
It'll get looser, it'll get stronger,
and eventually you're gonna feel better than ever.
So that prone press-up,
again, it's gonna force us into one of those positions
that we aren't in throughout the day.
Just like the old adage goes,
if you don't use it, you'll lose it.
So we need to use that lumbar and thorac extension.
Number one on our list,
and may I add, by a long shot,
when it comes to preventing lower back pain in golfers,
and really a ton of other sports too, is pretzel breathing.
It combines several different movements.
We use our breath to help control our body.
And it touches on just about anything
that's gonna limit the movement of your spine,
which is why it is far in a way the number one exercise.
I first knew this exercise was really important,
because I taught it to someone with back pain one day.
And over the next few weeks,
I saw a bunch of people at this gym doing the same exercise,
people I'd never met before.
So I asked around a little bit, and lo and behold,
the person got so much benefit out of this exercise,
they told a few of their friends
who told a few of their friends.
And before you know it, I had this exercise getting done
by people that I had never come in contact with.
So it really does live up to the hype
as the number one best exercise for lower back pain.
And you're gonna set up
in what we call a 90, 90 position for your hips.
So this front hip is gonna be facing directly forward,
and you have a 90 degree angle in your knee.
This back hip is gonna be facing directly
out to the side with a 90 degree angle at the knee.
A lot of you are gonna get in this position.
You're gonna feel stuck here.
This is exactly where I started
when I did not have good mobility.
And now I can maintain this without any extra assistance.
So if you can get here no hand support, awesome, do it.
If you can't, set a hand here,
wiggle it as far up as you can.
What you'll notice is a lot of tension in this hip
in this position.
You might even feel a crampy pinchy position
in this hip or in the obliques here.
That'll go away the more you get used to it.
So just find something
that you feel a little bit of tension,
but can maintain the position,
and it'll get better with each passing day.
You're gonna get that chest nice and upright, posture tall.
And we are gonna take five deep breaths. (breathes deeply)
And with each passing breath,
you should feel everything relax just a little bit further.
After five breaths there,
we're gonna turn over that front leg,
drop our forearms to the ground.
Some of you might be stuck here.
You can even put a yoga block
under your forearm if you want,
and we're gonna five deep breaths again.
The optional third part of this movement,
if you're flexible enough and I encourage you to get there,
even if it takes you two, three weeks, maybe a month,
is to then be able to drop into a reach position
Drive the chest toward the ground.
Let that other shoulder come around.
And again, we will finish with,
you guessed it, five breaths.
And you may notice as you take that breath,
that shoulder peels up, and then you exhale,
and you compress that shoulder back down.
It's okay if you have
just a little bit of movement occurring there.
That's all part of gaining your mobility.
We're gonna run that to the next side as well.
And we're just gonna get into each one of those positions
for five slow controlled breaths.
Again, control is the key here.
That's how you really own the mobility
is controlling your breathing.
And we're gonna throw that in.
Hopefully what the other exercises, you complete it daily.
That's what I do every single day, no exceptions.
I get into the pretzel breathing position.
Takes me about a minute and a half, two minutes,
not a big deal at all.
And I am so much more flexible
than when I started, because of this exercise.
I appreciate every single one of you joining me today.
And just I cannot emphasize enough the value
in these exercises.
I am that person who was stiff as a board,
couldn't get anywhere near my toes.
I broke my back.
I was in a back brace from multiple months
about 10 years ago.
And when I came out of it, I just could not move.
And I tried static stretching and it didn't get me anywhere.
I added dynamic movements
just like the ones I showed you today,
and now I can drop down, put my hands on the floor
stand back up, don't break a sweat.
Didn't even interrupt my voice talking to you,
because I've learned the importance
of controlled dynamic mobility work.
If you have any questions,
please don't hesitate to leave a comment in this video.
Send me an email, digitalgolfdoc@gmail.com,
or if you would love to,
come back and just post about your success
with these exercises.
I always love hearing it.
Thanks, have a great day.
(upbeat music)