Hip strength and flexibility is important to allow a fluent and powerful golf swing. It is also well under appreciated how important lower body strength is as we age. While we know golf and walking around a golf course massively helps to keep you fit and mobile, follow the link for some more great hip flexibility and strength exercises to improve your game and help you stay active.
It is really important that if any of the below exercises cause you pain, you stop and seek expert help and guidance. Always start with minimal weight / resistance and slowly progress the level of resistance and repetitions as strength builds. It is also important to remember to give your body rest days, to allow the muscle fibres time to repair and build.
How do you stand up?
A simple & easy exercise to help strengthen your hips to fit into your every day life is simply by thinking about how you stand up from your chair!
Do you use your hands to help push you up and out of your seat? If you do, try to start getting up out of your seat just using one hand for support. If this becomes easy, try with no hands. If this is too easy – try no hands and 1 leg!
Hip Alphabet
A really nice entry level hip strengthening exercise for those recovering from injury is the “Hip Alphabet”
Lying flat you your back (you can use a pillow under your head and knees for support if need be), raise one leg up 20 degrees and begin writing out the alphabet with your foot.
Repeat on the opposite leg.
If you find this difficult, don’t complete the whole alphabet – just start with 10-15 seconds on each leg and repeat 2-3 times. Slowly build to 6 reps.
This can be made more challenging by adding a weight band to your ankle or by using a resistance band.
Kettle Bell Swings
Kettle Bell swings are a nice way to introduce weight into a hip strength exercise.
It is always important to keep you back (lower and upper) straight, and to allow your knees to soften (not over extend them).
Build weight slowly as you get stronger. The ideal number of repetitions for strength building is 6 at your maximum ability – but first and foremost make sure your technique is good to avoid injury. Start with 2-3 reps and make sure you are comfortable.
Bend forwards from your HIPS, keeping your back straight
Be careful not to over extend through your lower back by keeping it straight and not arched backwards.