Strength Coach Shows How to Develop Hip Mobility for Golfers | Fitness Friday

Strength coach Mike Boyle shows Golf Digest how to improve your golf swing and move better with less lower-back and hip pain with this hip mobility tutorial.

Transcript
How you doing?
Michael Boyle coming to for Golf Digest.
I wanted to talk a little bit
about developing hip mobility for golfers.
The number one thing when we develop hip mobility
is we’ve gotta realize, it’s at least a two-part sequence
if not a three-part sequence.
Part one, foam rolling.
You’ve got to get the kinks out, the knots out,
in order to be able to stretch,
in order to have an opportunity
to develop some hip mobility.
So you gotta think, start rolling the hips
when you’re sitting to get at those hip-external rotators.
To really get at your glutes you wanna be able to cross.
Your sitting on the glute of the cross leg.
We won’t spend a whole lot of time talking
about foam rolling, but foam rolling is gonna be first.
Secondarily, when we start talking about hip mobility
we’ve gotta realize that we wanna work on hip flexors,
hip abductors, hip rotators, hamstrings.
So if we start talking about hip flexors,
I love the stationary Spiderman stretch.
So we get ourselves in a push-up position,
step up outside this hand, drop that back knee down.
I like to squeeze hard on that backside glute.
I want to think about getting
some contraction on my backside glute.
I’m trying to get straight from my knee through my hip
up to my chest and, if anything, I’d like
to actually get a little bit of extension through there.
So this is gonna be really important.
Obviously, when we are switching,
we’re just getting back to push up.
We’re going back to the other side.
That’s gonna get hip flexors
and, actually, it’s gonna get some abductors,
some groin on the other side.
For hip rotators, I love, my friend Nao Sakata from Japan,
came out with this Flexcushion idea
which he actually developed for Sumo wrestlers.
It is incredibly cool in terms of making stretching better.
We modify our pigeon stretch in yoga with the Flexcushion.
What I usually tell people is,
if you think about being on all fours
and then getting that leg crossed underneath,
again, if you’re not real mobile,
the Flexcushion really allows you
to have that opportunity to get in.
And then here, again, I like to sit up really tall.
We’re trying to feel for stretch in the glute
that’s up on the Flexcushion here.
Some people like to lay down.
I don’t feel that one as much.
You’ve got to make sure this back leg is extended
and, actually, a little bit to the inside,
coming across behind you.
Flexcushion lets you get abductors, too.
So, abductors, we’re thinking about groin, inner thigh.
We want to be able to sit here.
You’d ideally like to be able to get
to at least degrees in this position.
Sit tall, chest up, so if I’m leaning,
I’m thinking that I’m leaning from my hips.
The nice thing about the Flexcushion
is it makes you go downhill.
So, naturally, if I just sit on this Flexcushion
like this, I’m getting stretch up into my groin
in my abductor musculature, my inner thigh musculature.
Last one, the standing hamstring.
Lots of people think that hamstrings,
they think about this kind of stuff.
Don’t worry about that.
Your hamstrings don’t connect to your spine.
They connect to your pelvis.
We want to be tall.
This toe has to be straight up.
If you could see this bottom foot here underneath,
it’s going to be straight ahead.
So this foot’s straight ahead.
This foot’s straight up and then all I wanna work on,
I like the idea of opening and closing a gate.
So I’ve gotta be able to move my pelvis
against my fixed femur.
As soon as you start to get that, you’re gonna be,
oh my god, I really feel that
in my lateral hamstring up into my glute.
So if we’re thinking hip mobility for golfers,
roll and stretch.
Roll first, stretch second.
When we’re stretching we gotta think hip flexors.
We’ve gotta think hip rotators.
We’ve gotta think abductors.
We’ve gotta think hamstrings.
We’ve gotta think about that whole spectrum,
not just any one individual position.
If you get those hips, if you get to the point now
where you’re hips can move, obviously,
you’re gonna be able to swing the club much better
because you’re gonna be able to, again,
rotate that pelvis against the fixed femur.
So, Michael Boyle.
Mike Boyle’s Strength and Conditioning for Golf Digest.