Improving Mobility For a Smoother, Longer Swing

Now that I’ve reviewed head-to-toe strengthening for your golf game, I’d like to address another important aspect of golf fitness: Mobility. Improving your mobility is going to help you lengthen your swing and increase your clubhead speed. In short, this translates to more power and distance. It makes sense, right? If you’re able to move your joints through a greater range of motion you’ll able to have a more complete backswing. This in turn gives you more time to generate force and rotational speed with your club through your ball.

Mobility, or flexibility, is basically the degree of range of motion around any joint in your body. In golf, movement of many joints in sequence are what allows you to piece together a smooth, powerful swing. Starting with rotating your hips back, then rotating through your torso and finally, rotation of your arms at the shoulder joint, your backswing is an intricate chain of shortening and lengthening muscles. If any link in this chain is tight or restricted, your entire swing will be hindered and your distance will suffer. Working on stretching and mobility exercises is essential to getting in your best golf shape. With time, regular stretching will increase range of motion and allow you to routinely take a fuller swing. Stretching immediately before your round has also been shown to allow your muscles to preload (or prestretch), creating a more powerful contraction and more force generation through the downswing.

Below I’ve listed the commonly tight muscle groups that will restrict your swing range of motion with links to stretches and mobility exercises for each:

Hip Flexors 

Obliques and Spinal Rotators

Pectorals and Rotator Cuff

Lats

While being flexible is likely the most essential component of golf fitness, having too much mobility without strong muscles is detrimental to your swing. It’s like driving a car with no steering wheel. You need your muscles to be able to control your body segments through their full range of motion in order to perform a controlled swing and to hit the ball straight and consistently. Make sure your training program contains equal parts strengthening and mobility to find that right balance.

Also, when you gain more flexibility you may find you’re having a hard time making consistent contact with the ball. With a longer backswing, you’ve essentially increased the time for many small things to go wrong in your swing. If this is the case, don’t take that full swing right away. Shorten up your swing and slowly progress to your maximum range of motion. This may take time and a LOT of practice swings but the distance you’ll gain in the long run will be worth it.

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